Clinton, Sanders tout 'progressive' resumes

DERRY, N.H. -- In a blitz of New Hampshire campaigning, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders sparred Wednesday over whether the former secretary of state is enough of a "progressive."

On the Republican side, the Iowa caucuses' No. 1 and No. 2 finishers, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and businessman Donald Trump, were keeping a wary eye on Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who came in at a close No. 3.

With less than a week before New Hampshire's primaries, candidates from both parties were in full gear.

At a town-hall event Wednesday night in Derry, Sanders continued a critique of Clinton's positions that he's made since arriving in New Hampshire from his close second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. Clinton, he said, is closer to the middle of the political spectrum than a true progressive.

"Some of my best friends are moderates. I want moderates," Sanders said at the event hosted by CNN's Anderson Cooper at the Derry Opera House. "But you can't be a moderate and a progressive. They are different."

Clinton countered that Sanders was too narrow in his definition, saying it would exclude President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other liberal icons in the Democratic Party.

"I'm a progressive who likes to get things done," Clinton said. "I don't think it helps for the senator to be making those kinds of comparisons because clearly we all share the same hopes and aspirations for our country."

The town-hall event's format had each candidate appearing separately and giving extended answers to questions from Cooper and from the audience. Clinton followed Sanders on the stage.

Clinton said she was "proud" of the way she and Sanders have waged their campaigns. She said she and Sanders share many of the same ideals as wells as the priority of preventing Republicans from regaining the White House.

"We share a lot of the same big progressive goals, but we go about them in different ways," she said.

Asked why voters thought Clinton was stronger on terrorism, Sanders said it was because of her experience. Still, he said, he was on the right side of the defining foreign-policy decision of the era with his vote against the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Clinton, who at the time was a U.S. senator from New York, voted in favor of the authorization to go to war; Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, voted against the measure.

"I have the judgment," he said. He added later that Clinton's had a long and distinguished career.

She later countered: "I know where I stand. I know who stands with me. I know what I've done."

Along the campaign trail earlier in the day, the Clinton team sought to emphasize the advantages that Sanders has in New Hampshire because he's from a neighboring state. Sanders' camp countered that Clinton should be stronger in the state, given her win there as a presidential candidate in 2008.

During an afternoon event in Derry, Clinton highlighted her work on progressive causes such as gay rights, women's rights and the defense of Social Security, and called Sanders' comments a "low blow."

"So I hope we keep it on the issues because if it's about our records, hey, I'm going to win by a landslide," Clinton said.

Later in the afternoon, Sanders took to Twitter, offering a critique of Clinton in a series of tweets.

"Most progressives that I know don't raise millions of dollars from Wall Street," one said.

"Most progressives I know were against the war in Iraq. One of the worst foreign policy blunders in the history of the United States," read another.

Clinton's camp responded in a series of its own tweets, with one saying: "This shouldn't be a debate about who gets to define 'progressive'-it should be about who will get real results for American families."

The candidates will have multiple opportunities to engage more directly in the coming days, including at a debate to be broadcast by MSNBC tonight.

Clinton sought to frame the race as a choice between one candidate with a record of accomplishments and another offering worthy but unachievable goals.

"There's a lot of talk in this campaign between Sen. Sanders and myself about whether voters will vote with their heads or their heart," Clinton said. "Let me ask you to vote with both."

Her speech was still heavily laden with policy, but Clinton on Wednesday offered voters an argument for her candidacy that focused on "heart."

"Think about how we need to have more heart in America," Clinton said. "More heart for those who are suffering, who are left behind and left out, more heart for working folks who feel like they are not getting ahead because the game is rigged against them."

Sanders' team spent the day trying to tamp down expectations for Tuesday's vote.

At a late-afternoon news conference in Concord, Sanders reminded reporters of the Clinton family's history in New Hampshire.

"Her husband ran for president here twice; she ran and won in 2008," Sanders said, adding: "We expect a very difficult race. We take nothing for granted."

Echoing the sentiments of many of her boosters, Clinton referred to the New Hampshire contest as taking place in Sanders' "backyard."

"New Hampshire always favors neighbors, which I think is neighborly," she quipped.

She dismissed the suggestions of some that she should move on to other states.

"I have to tell you, I just could not ever skip New Hampshire," she said.

Both candidates also sought Wednesday to highlight issues that they think play to their strengths.

Sanders' news conference in Concord focused on his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed free-trade agreement being championed by Obama. Clinton announced her opposition to the deal long after Sanders and has been more pro-trade than Sanders throughout her career, including as a senator.

Clinton, meanwhile, has appeared twice this week -- including in Derry on Wednesday morning -- with former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, who have endorsed her based on her support for tougher gun laws.

Clinton said little Wednesday about Sanders' record on guns, but she has repeatedly said that he is not tough enough on the issue, citing several votes, including one in 2005 to grant legal immunity to gun dealers and manufacturers when their products are used in crimes.

The Democrats' back-and-forth came as both campaigns continued to offer different spins on the results of Monday's razor-thin margin in the Iowa caucuses.

While Clinton touted her narrow victory in Iowa, the Sanders camp continued to refer to it as "a tie" Wednesday, even as Sanders acknowledged that Clinton would probably get a few more national delegates out of the process -- an estimated 22 to his 20.

Clinton's campaign is already tallying another 363 votes from the party's "superdelegates," who may back the candidate of their choice, after they voiced public -- but unofficial -- support for the former secretary of state in an informal survey conducted by The Associated Press.

Echoing an assessment by his campaign manager a day before, Sanders said his team was reviewing the results from Iowa and could not be certain who actually fared better, given the nature of the state's caucus rules.

"To tell you the truth, the Iowa caucus is so complicated it's not 100 percent sure we didn't win it," Sanders said during an appearance on NBC's Today.

Republicans' push

For the GOP, Rubio was casting himself as the man best positioned to beat a Democrat in November and as the sole "unifier" in a party fractured by comments from Trump and Cruz.

"When I am our nominee, I can bring this party together," Rubio told more than 300 people at an athletic complex in Bow. "We cannot win if we are divided against each other."

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush hustled across the state Wednesday, trying to prevent the primaries from becoming a three-man race.

Christie argued that the battle for establishment Republicans was down to him and Rubio.

"He knows we have the best ground game here. He knows we have the most support from folks like this," Christie said.

Opening a town-hall meeting at a pub in Lebanon, Christie made a comparison between Rubio and himself.

"You don't want someone on that stage who looks good in a controlled situation in a TV studio, but when the mud starts to get thrown, all of sudden, looks like a deer in the headlights," Christie said. "You want the old, beat-up, nicked-up pickup truck."

Later, Christie asserted he's the best Republican to debate Clinton because he's a former federal prosecutor.

Referring to the investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state, he said, "She sees a federal prosecutor on the stage, I'll beat her rear end on that stage."

Bush, meanwhile, told supporters at a campaign stop in Hanover that the next president "needs to be a lot quieter, but send a signal that we're prepared to act in the national security interest of this country -- to get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world."

Trump was far away -- in Arkansas -- but still received plenty of attention.

"Many people voted for Cruz over [retired neurosurgeon Ben] Carson because of this Cruz fraud," Trump wrote in a Twitter post, referring to his campaign accusing Cruz of telling Carson's supporters their man was dropping out.

Carson, who was not campaigning in New Hampshire, called on Cruz to fire someone on his staff.

"If he does nothing about it, that means he agrees with it," he told Fox News.

Cruz declared Wednesday that his two young daughters were better behaved than Trump.

"I don't know anyone who would be comfortable with someone who behaves this way having his finger on the button. We're liable to wake up one morning and Donald, if he were president, would have nuked Denmark."

Cruz also talked about immigration, the environment and foreign policy, keeping to the rhetoric that has made some establishment Republicans recoil.

"We're going to light all their stuff on fire,'" Cruz told a group in Henniker, expanding on his promise to carpet bomb the Islamic State extremist group "into oblivion."

Information for this article was contributed by John Wagner and Abby Phillip of The Washington Post; by Kathleen Hennessey, Steve Peoples, Thomas Beaumont, Sergio Bustos, Kathleen Ronayne, Jill Colvin, Holly Ramer, Julie Pace and Bill Barrow of The Associated Press; and by Margaret Talev, Margaret Newkirk and Arit John of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 02/04/2016