Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders Take Center Stage at First Democratic
Debate of 2016 Race
Wednesday, 14 October 2015 00:00 By Amy Goodman and Juan González, Democracy
Now! | Video Report
In the first Democratic presidential debate of the 2016 campaign, five
contenders squared off last night in Las Vegas: former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Governor
Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb and former Rhode Island
Governor Lincoln Chafee. It was the first of only six debates scheduled for
the Democrats this election cycle. The debate covered contentious topics
from gun control to climate change to the 2003 vote to invade Iraq.
Throughout the night, Sen. Bernie Sanders focused much of his message on
inequality and the economy. In one of the most tweeted-about moments of the
night, Sanders also criticized the media for focusing too much on the
controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she
was serving as secretary of state. We speak to Jill Stein, the 2016
presidential candidate for the Green Party; Les Payne, Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist and former editor at Newsday; and D. Watkins,
columnist for Salon and author of the new book, The Beast Side: Living (and
Dying) While Black in America.
TRANSCRIPT:
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Let's move on to the Democratic presidential debate, the
first one of the 2016 campaign. Five contenders squared off last night in
Las Vegas: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Senator
Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee. It was the first
of only six debates scheduled for the Democrats this year. Senator Bernie
Sanders focused much of his message on inequality and the economy.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I believe that the power of corporate America, the
power of Wall Street, the power of the drug companies, the power of the
corporate media is so great that the only way we really transform America
and do the things that the middle class and working class desperately need
is through a political revolution, when millions of people begin to come
together and stand up and say, "Our government is going to work for all of
us, not just a handful of billionaires."
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Sanders also made headlines when he criticized the
media for focusing too much on the controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of
private email servers while she was serving as secretary of state.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Let me say something that may not be great politics,
but I think the secretary is right. And that is that the American people are
sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.
HILLARY CLINTON: Thank you. Me, too. Me, too.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: While Senator Sanders has surged in the polls, Secretary
Clinton described herself as the outsider in the race.
ANDERSON COOPER: Secretary Clinton, Governor O'Malley says the presidency is
not a crown to be passed back and forth between two royal families. This
year has been the year of the outsider in politics. Just ask Bernie Sanders.
Why should Democrats embrace an insider like yourself?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I can't think of anything more of an outsider than
electing the first woman president, but I'm not just running because I would
be the first woman president. I'm running because I have a lifetime of
experience and getting results and fighting for people, fighting for kids,
for women, for families, fighting to even the odds. And I know what it takes
to get things done. I know how to find common ground, and I know how to
stand my ground.
AMY GOODMAN: In one of the feistiest moments of the debate, Hillary Clinton
criticized Sanders' record on guns and his history of voting against
measures like the Brady Bill.
ANDERSON COOPER: Secretary Clinton, is Bernie Sanders tough enough on guns?
HILLARY CLINTON: No, not at all. I think that we have to look at the fact
that we lose 90 people a day from gun violence. This has gone on too long,
and it's time the entire country stood up against the NRA. The majority of
our country supports background checks, and even the majority of gun owners
do.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley repeatedly stressed
that climate change will cause political instability and called for moving
to clean energy.
MARTIN O'MALLEY: I have put forward a plan - and I'm the only candidate, I
believe, in either party to do this - to move America forward to a 100
percent clean electric grid by 2050. We did not land a man on the man with
an all-of-the-above strategy. It was an intentional engineering challenge,
and we solved it as a nation. And our nation must solve this one.
AMY GOODMAN: All five candidates were also asked to identify what they
believe is the greatest threat to national security. Former Rhode Island
Governor Lincoln Chafee spoke first.
LINCOLN CHAFEE: It's certainly the chaos in the Middle East. There's no
doubt about it.
ANDERSON COOPER: OK.
LINCOLN CHAFEE: And it all started with the Iraq invasion.
ANDERSON COOPER: Governor O'Malley?
MARTIN O'MALLEY: I believe that a nuclear Iran remains the biggest threat,
along with the spread of ISIL. Climate change, of course, makes cascading
threats even worse.
ANDERSON COOPER: Secretary Clinton, the greatest national security threat?
HILLARY CLINTON: I think it has to be continuing threat from the spread of
nuclear weapons, nuclear material, that can fall into the wrong hands. I
know the terrorists are constantly seeking it, and that's why we have to
stay vigilant but also united around the world to prevent that.
ANDERSON COOPER: Senator Sanders, greatest national security threat?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: The scientific community is telling us if we do not
address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system
away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we're going to
be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable. That is
a major crisis.
ANDERSON COOPER: Senator Webb?
JIM WEBB: Our greatest long-term strategic challenge is our relation with
China. Our greatest day-to-day threat is cyberwarfare against this country.
Our greatest military operational threat is resolving the situations in the
Middle East.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more on the debate, we're joined by a number of
guests. Here in New York, we're joined by Jill Stein, the 2016 presidential
candidate for the Green Party. Les Payne is also with us, Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist, former editor at Newsday. And D. Watkins joins us,
a columnist for Salon, author of the book, The Beast Side: Living (and
Dying) While Black in America.
I want to start with Jill Stein. Your response, overall, to the debate, what
was covered, what wasn't?
DR. JILL STEIN: It was not a new day for the Democratic Party. It was very -
you know, it was enriching. It was wonderful to see the focus on economic
justice, and that was very welcome. But there it was taking place in the
luxury Wynn hotel in Nevada, you know, and this is where we're having a
discussion about economic justice. And Hillary Clinton, as sort of the
dominant voice in the debate, is a little hard to believe. She's sort of
talking out of both sides of her mouth: She wants to go against Wall Street,
but she won't support Glass-Steagall. She -
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what Glass-Steagall is.
DR. JILL STEIN: Glass-Steagall being the law that separated speculative
banking from everyday consumer banking and basically allows banks to take
risks - or, I should say, it prevents banks from taking risks at consumers'
burden, so that it permits bailouts, and - or, I should say, it prevents
bailouts from going forward. So, you know, Glass-Steagall was repealed under
the Clinton administration and needs to be brought back. But Senator Clinton
does not support it.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's actually go to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
sparring over their plans to address abuses on Wall Street.
ANDERSON COOPER: Senator Sanders wants to break up the big Wall Street
banks. You don't. You say charge the banks more, continue to monitor them.
Why is your plan better?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, my plan is more comprehensive, and, frankly, it's
tougher, because of course we have to deal with the problem that the banks
are still too big to fail. We can never let the American taxpayer and
middle-class families ever have to bail out the kind of speculative behavior
that we saw. But we also have to worry about some of the other players -
AIG, a big insurance company; Lehman Brothers, an investment bank. There's
this whole area called shadow banking. That's where the experts tell me the
next potential problem could come from.
ANDERSON COOPER: Senator Sanders, Secretary Clinton just said that her
policy is tougher than yours.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, that's not true.
ANDERSON COOPER: Why?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Let us be clear that the greed and recklessness and
illegal behavior of Wall Street, where fraud is a business model, helped to
destroy this economy and the lives of millions of people. Check the record.
In the 1990s - and all due respect - in the 1990s, when I had the Republican
leadership and Wall Street spending billions of dollars in lobbying, when
the Clinton administration, when Alan Greenspan said, "What a great idea it
would be to allow these huge banks to merge," Bernie Sanders fought them and
helped lead the opposition to deregulation. Today, it is my view that when
you have -
ANDERSON COOPER: Senator -
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: - the three largest banks in America are much bigger
than they were when we bailed them out for being too big to fail, we have
got to break them up.
AMY GOODMAN: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Journalist Les Payne, your
response?
LES PAYNE: Well, I agree that it was - they were in swank surroundings, but
at times I think Hillary and Sanders lifted it and put it in a back alley. I
think that it was - the issues were joined. I thought that on the - I think
Hillary refused to throw her husband under the bus on Glass-Steagall and did
her thing. And I think, throughout the debate, I found her pivoting. When
she was attacked, she pivoted. She was - on Glass-Steagall, she pivoted,
said her issue was stronger. When he attacked her on Iraq and why she voted
for the war, she said, "Yeah, but I was named secretary of state." And she
even embraced O'Malley, I mean. So I thought she was on her game. But then
again, she's a good debater. She's been debating since high school. She was
on the high school debating team. If the next president is to be selected by
who is the better debater, then Clinton would certainly be in the running,
and perhaps deserves to be the front-runner.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Les, I'm wondering, in terms of the overall picture that you
got of this debate versus the first two Republican debates, is there any
particular lessons you can draw from the combined activities of these
candidates versus what happened with the Republican candidates?
LES PAYNE: Well, I think the Republicans went for the personal. I think that
the issues were joined here. I thought that Anderson Cooper and company did
a pretty good job of getting the issues joined. I thought the questions were
sharp. I thought that - it was a debate. And I think, for instance, someone
observed that, for instance, when the audience was allowed to ask, "Does
black lives matter?" - "black" was never mentioned in the first two
Republicans' debate, and "African-American" was mentioned only one time, and
that was by Rand Paul, so that they clearly stayed away. For the six major
issues that they dealt with, the Republicans did not deal with them at all.
So, I think if you want to compare the two, I mean, it was a debate versus,
you know, a kind of a personal waltz around Trump.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I was struck, though, by how little there was on questioning
on foreign policy of the candidates. With the exception of some discussion
on Iraq and Syria, there was very little to try to elicit the differences
between them when it comes to foreign policy. Jill, do you want to -
DR. JILL STEIN: Yeah. I mean, not only that there wasn't much said, but that
what was said was really pretty uniform. It was all kind of in the mode of
the tough guy, American militarist approach to foreign policy. And there was
no - you know, there was this incredible cognitive disconnect. You know, the
Middle East is going up in flames. We have about five failed states right
now, going on many more. And we have created ISIS. And the thinking is that
we can fix ISIS by doing more of what created ISIS. And there was absolutely
no meaningful dialogue about this quagmire that we are plunging into
headlong.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to play some of the clips from the debate, but
before we do, D. Watkins, your overall take on the Democrats and what they
addressed last night in Las Vegas?
D. WATKINS: It was great television. It was interesting and funny. But from
where I come from in Baltimore, I'm responsible for working directly with
the people. And the way some of these candidates talk, I feel like they
don't even know a poor person. You don't even know what's going on out
there. Everything sounds great, and it's cool to throw around rhetoric about
gun control and Black Lives Matter. Oh, cool, I'm happy, I'm happy that made
it into the debate. But I also feel like some of these politicians will say
whatever they have to say just to be elected, and that's not going to change
the conditions of anyone living in a place like Baltimore City right now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Any particular statement by any of the candidates surprise
you in terms of its refreshingness, in terms its being on point?
D. WATKINS: Yeah, Martin O'Malley's love for African Americans surprised me,
because as - when he was the mayor when I was a kid, I didn't know. I didn't
feel that. I know a lot of my friends been through the system - and they
shouldn't have gone through the system - because of those - the high,
ridiculous amount of arrests that happened while he was mayor. Dudes going
to jail for sitting outside on the steps, dudes going to jail for riding
their bike on the curb - like, that's crazy.
AMY GOODMAN: D. Watkins, hold that thought. We're going to break and then
come back to Martin O'Malley addressing just that issue. We're talking to D.
Watkins, who is author of The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in
America. We're also talking to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Les Payne
and with Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. Stay with us.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ
Juan González co-hosts Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman. González has been a
professional journalist for more than 30 years and a staff columnist at the
New York Daily News since 1987. He is a two-time recipient of the George
Polk Award.
AMY GOODMAN
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a
national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over
1,100 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named
Democracy Now! its "Pick of the Podcasts," along with NBC's Meet the Press.
RELATED STORIES
Democrats Lost More Than an Election in 2014
By Marisa Franco, #Not1More | Op-Ed
Democrats' "National" Silence Was Deafening
By Evan Baumel, Robert Weiner, Michigan Chronicle | News Analysis
The Democratic Debate: A Brief Field Guide
By Robert Borosage, Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed
________________________________________
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Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders Take Center Stage at First Democratic
Debate of 2016 Race
Wednesday, 14 October 2015 00:00 By Amy Goodman and Juan González, Democracy
Now! | Video Report
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In the first Democratic presidential debate of the 2016 campaign,
five contenders squared off last night in Las Vegas: former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, former Maryland
Governor Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb and former Rhode
Island Governor Lincoln Chafee. It was the first of only six debates
scheduled for the Democrats this election cycle. The debate covered
contentious topics from gun control to climate change to the 2003 vote to
invade Iraq. Throughout the night, Sen. Bernie Sanders focused much of his
message on inequality and the economy. In one of the most tweeted-about
moments of the night, Sanders also criticized the media for focusing too
much on the controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server
while she was serving as secretary of state. We speak to Jill Stein, the
2016 presidential candidate for the Green Party; Les Payne, Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist and former editor at Newsday; and D. Watkins,
columnist for Salon and author of the new book, The Beast Side: Living (and
Dying) While Black in America.
TRANSCRIPT:
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Let's move on to the Democratic presidential debate, the
first one of the 2016 campaign. Five contenders squared off last night in
Las Vegas: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Senator
Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee. It was the first
of only six debates scheduled for the Democrats this year. Senator Bernie
Sanders focused much of his message on inequality and the economy.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I believe that the power of corporate America, the
power of Wall Street, the power of the drug companies, the power of the
corporate media is so great that the only way we really transform America
and do the things that the middle class and working class desperately need
is through a political revolution, when millions of people begin to come
together and stand up and say, "Our government is going to work for all of
us, not just a handful of billionaires."
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Sanders also made headlines when he criticized the
media for focusing too much on the controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of
private email servers while she was serving as secretary of state.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Let me say something that may not be great politics,
but I think the secretary is right. And that is that the American people are
sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.
HILLARY CLINTON: Thank you. Me, too. Me, too.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: While Senator Sanders has surged in the polls, Secretary
Clinton described herself as the outsider in the race.
ANDERSON COOPER: Secretary Clinton, Governor O'Malley says the presidency is
not a crown to be passed back and forth between two royal families. This
year has been the year of the outsider in politics. Just ask Bernie Sanders.
Why should Democrats embrace an insider like yourself?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I can't think of anything more of an outsider than
electing the first woman president, but I'm not just running because I would
be the first woman president. I'm running because I have a lifetime of
experience and getting results and fighting for people, fighting for kids,
for women, for families, fighting to even the odds. And I know what it takes
to get things done. I know how to find common ground, and I know how to
stand my ground.
AMY GOODMAN: In one of the feistiest moments of the debate, Hillary Clinton
criticized Sanders' record on guns and his history of voting against
measures like the Brady Bill.
ANDERSON COOPER: Secretary Clinton, is Bernie Sanders tough enough on guns?
HILLARY CLINTON: No, not at all. I think that we have to look at the fact
that we lose 90 people a day from gun violence. This has gone on too long,
and it's time the entire country stood up against the NRA. The majority of
our country supports background checks, and even the majority of gun owners
do.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley repeatedly stressed
that climate change will cause political instability and called for moving
to clean energy.
MARTIN O'MALLEY: I have put forward a plan - and I'm the only candidate, I
believe, in either party to do this - to move America forward to a 100
percent clean electric grid by 2050. We did not land a man on the man with
an all-of-the-above strategy. It was an intentional engineering challenge,
and we solved it as a nation. And our nation must solve this one.
AMY GOODMAN: All five candidates were also asked to identify what they
believe is the greatest threat to national security. Former Rhode Island
Governor Lincoln Chafee spoke first.
LINCOLN CHAFEE: It's certainly the chaos in the Middle East. There's no
doubt about it.
ANDERSON COOPER: OK.
LINCOLN CHAFEE: And it all started with the Iraq invasion.
ANDERSON COOPER: Governor O'Malley?
MARTIN O'MALLEY: I believe that a nuclear Iran remains the biggest threat,
along with the spread of ISIL. Climate change, of course, makes cascading
threats even worse.
ANDERSON COOPER: Secretary Clinton, the greatest national security threat?
HILLARY CLINTON: I think it has to be continuing threat from the spread of
nuclear weapons, nuclear material, that can fall into the wrong hands. I
know the terrorists are constantly seeking it, and that's why we have to
stay vigilant but also united around the world to prevent that.
ANDERSON COOPER: Senator Sanders, greatest national security threat?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: The scientific community is telling us if we do not
address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system
away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we're going to
be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable. That is
a major crisis.
ANDERSON COOPER: Senator Webb?
JIM WEBB: Our greatest long-term strategic challenge is our relation with
China. Our greatest day-to-day threat is cyberwarfare against this country.
Our greatest military operational threat is resolving the situations in the
Middle East.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more on the debate, we're joined by a number of
guests. Here in New York, we're joined by Jill Stein, the 2016 presidential
candidate for the Green Party. Les Payne is also with us, Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist, former editor at Newsday. And D. Watkins joins us,
a columnist for Salon, author of the book, The Beast Side: Living (and
Dying) While Black in America.
I want to start with Jill Stein. Your response, overall, to the debate, what
was covered, what wasn't?
DR. JILL STEIN: It was not a new day for the Democratic Party. It was very -
you know, it was enriching. It was wonderful to see the focus on economic
justice, and that was very welcome. But there it was taking place in the
luxury Wynn hotel in Nevada, you know, and this is where we're having a
discussion about economic justice. And Hillary Clinton, as sort of the
dominant voice in the debate, is a little hard to believe. She's sort of
talking out of both sides of her mouth: She wants to go against Wall Street,
but she won't support Glass-Steagall. She -
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what Glass-Steagall is.
DR. JILL STEIN: Glass-Steagall being the law that separated speculative
banking from everyday consumer banking and basically allows banks to take
risks - or, I should say, it prevents banks from taking risks at consumers'
burden, so that it permits bailouts, and - or, I should say, it prevents
bailouts from going forward. So, you know, Glass-Steagall was repealed under
the Clinton administration and needs to be brought back. But Senator Clinton
does not support it.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's actually go to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
sparring over their plans to address abuses on Wall Street.
ANDERSON COOPER: Senator Sanders wants to break up the big Wall Street
banks. You don't. You say charge the banks more, continue to monitor them.
Why is your plan better?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, my plan is more comprehensive, and, frankly, it's
tougher, because of course we have to deal with the problem that the banks
are still too big to fail. We can never let the American taxpayer and
middle-class families ever have to bail out the kind of speculative behavior
that we saw. But we also have to worry about some of the other players -
AIG, a big insurance company; Lehman Brothers, an investment bank. There's
this whole area called shadow banking. That's where the experts tell me the
next potential problem could come from.
ANDERSON COOPER: Senator Sanders, Secretary Clinton just said that her
policy is tougher than yours.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, that's not true.
ANDERSON COOPER: Why?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Let us be clear that the greed and recklessness and
illegal behavior of Wall Street, where fraud is a business model, helped to
destroy this economy and the lives of millions of people. Check the record.
In the 1990s - and all due respect - in the 1990s, when I had the Republican
leadership and Wall Street spending billions of dollars in lobbying, when
the Clinton administration, when Alan Greenspan said, "What a great idea it
would be to allow these huge banks to merge," Bernie Sanders fought them and
helped lead the opposition to deregulation. Today, it is my view that when
you have -
ANDERSON COOPER: Senator -
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: - the three largest banks in America are much bigger
than they were when we bailed them out for being too big to fail, we have
got to break them up.
AMY GOODMAN: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Journalist Les Payne, your
response?
LES PAYNE: Well, I agree that it was - they were in swank surroundings, but
at times I think Hillary and Sanders lifted it and put it in a back alley. I
think that it was - the issues were joined. I thought that on the - I think
Hillary refused to throw her husband under the bus on Glass-Steagall and did
her thing. And I think, throughout the debate, I found her pivoting. When
she was attacked, she pivoted. She was - on Glass-Steagall, she pivoted,
said her issue was stronger. When he attacked her on Iraq and why she voted
for the war, she said, "Yeah, but I was named secretary of state." And she
even embraced O'Malley, I mean. So I thought she was on her game. But then
again, she's a good debater. She's been debating since high school. She was
on the high school debating team. If the next president is to be selected by
who is the better debater, then Clinton would certainly be in the running,
and perhaps deserves to be the front-runner.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Les, I'm wondering, in terms of the overall picture that you
got of this debate versus the first two Republican debates, is there any
particular lessons you can draw from the combined activities of these
candidates versus what happened with the Republican candidates?
LES PAYNE: Well, I think the Republicans went for the personal. I think that
the issues were joined here. I thought that Anderson Cooper and company did
a pretty good job of getting the issues joined. I thought the questions were
sharp. I thought that - it was a debate. And I think, for instance, someone
observed that, for instance, when the audience was allowed to ask, "Does
black lives matter?" - "black" was never mentioned in the first two
Republicans' debate, and "African-American" was mentioned only one time, and
that was by Rand Paul, so that they clearly stayed away. For the six major
issues that they dealt with, the Republicans did not deal with them at all.
So, I think if you want to compare the two, I mean, it was a debate versus,
you know, a kind of a personal waltz around Trump.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I was struck, though, by how little there was on questioning
on foreign policy of the candidates. With the exception of some discussion
on Iraq and Syria, there was very little to try to elicit the differences
between them when it comes to foreign policy. Jill, do you want to -
DR. JILL STEIN: Yeah. I mean, not only that there wasn't much said, but that
what was said was really pretty uniform. It was all kind of in the mode of
the tough guy, American militarist approach to foreign policy. And there was
no - you know, there was this incredible cognitive disconnect. You know, the
Middle East is going up in flames. We have about five failed states right
now, going on many more. And we have created ISIS. And the thinking is that
we can fix ISIS by doing more of what created ISIS. And there was absolutely
no meaningful dialogue about this quagmire that we are plunging into
headlong.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to play some of the clips from the debate, but
before we do, D. Watkins, your overall take on the Democrats and what they
addressed last night in Las Vegas?
D. WATKINS: It was great television. It was interesting and funny. But from
where I come from in Baltimore, I'm responsible for working directly with
the people. And the way some of these candidates talk, I feel like they
don't even know a poor person. You don't even know what's going on out
there. Everything sounds great, and it's cool to throw around rhetoric about
gun control and Black Lives Matter. Oh, cool, I'm happy, I'm happy that made
it into the debate. But I also feel like some of these politicians will say
whatever they have to say just to be elected, and that's not going to change
the conditions of anyone living in a place like Baltimore City right now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Any particular statement by any of the candidates surprise
you in terms of its refreshingness, in terms its being on point?
D. WATKINS: Yeah, Martin O'Malley's love for African Americans surprised me,
because as - when he was the mayor when I was a kid, I didn't know. I didn't
feel that. I know a lot of my friends been through the system - and they
shouldn't have gone through the system - because of those - the high,
ridiculous amount of arrests that happened while he was mayor. Dudes going
to jail for sitting outside on the steps, dudes going to jail for riding
their bike on the curb - like, that's crazy.
AMY GOODMAN: D. Watkins, hold that thought. We're going to break and then
come back to Martin O'Malley addressing just that issue. We're talking to D.
Watkins, who is author of The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in
America. We're also talking to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Les Payne
and with Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. Stay with us.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Juan González
Juan González co-hosts Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman. González has been a
professional journalist for more than 30 years and a staff columnist at the
New York Daily News since 1987. He is a two-time recipient of the George
Polk Award.
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a
national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over
1,100 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named
Democracy Now! its "Pick of the Podcasts," along with NBC's Meet the Press.
Related Stories
Democrats Lost More Than an Election in 2014
By Marisa Franco, #Not1More | Op-EdDemocrats' "National" Silence Was
Deafening
By Evan Baumel, Robert Weiner, Michigan Chronicle | News AnalysisThe
Democratic Debate: A Brief Field Guide
By Robert Borosage, Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed
Show Comments
