Sanders defeated Clinton in last debate and achieved victory over DNC

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the only presidential candidate ever to achieve 2.3 million individual campaign contributions, and the only Democratic candidate to defeat the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in the court of public opinion. In less than two days, the DNC blocked the Sanders campaign from their own voter database and then quickly acquiesced to public pressure. The Wall Street Journal explains how DNC Chair and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz struck at the campaign, but Sanders supporters and the momentum behind his movement struck back:

The Democratic National Committee abruptly reversed course Saturday, restoring Sen. Bernie Sanders’ access to party voter data after suspending it following a breach. …

The party’s early-morning decision to restore Mr. Sanders’ access to the master voter file puts to an end to an interparty drama that threatened to drag the two main Democratic rivals into an ugly spat with the national party.

DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the Sanders campaign had satisfied the party’s conditions and that its access to Democratic Party data would resume.

While the FBI’s investigation of rival candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails has expanded, the DNC tried and failed to undermine the Sanders campaign. Although Sanders did apologize to Clinton during the debate, the breach of data was in large part caused by a DNC vendor’s incompetence.

{mosads}The heavy-handed response, however, backfired on Wasserman Shultz and the DNC, especially since the truly progressive base of Sanders voters is needed for any Democrat to win the White House. As for the debate, Clinton failed to circumvent relevant issues pertaining to her hawkish and aggressive foreign policy record. In addition to voting to authorize the Iraq War, Clinton’s advocacy for the bombing of Libya as secretary of State caused untold chaos and helped further destabilize the region.

An article in The Week explains exactly why Clinton can’t escape responsibility for her decision-making:

Death and civil war in Libya were unacceptable outcomes for America when Moammar Gadhafi was alive. But death and civil war continue unabated, the difference being that the Islamic State is now one of the players — and somehow it’s not in the American interest to stop it or to help Libyans establish some kind of law and order. The lessons of Iraq have been internalized: Once you create a total power vacuum that will attract terror gangs and radical Islamic fundamentalists, it’s best to not have any boots on the ground to stop them.

Clinton’s chapter [in her book] on Libya ends on exactly this note, disavowing any responsibility for death and destruction from here on out.

In addition to evading responsibility for Libya during the debate, Clinton engaged in the usual bouts of doublespeak.

Clinton accused Sanders of supporting her disastrous bombing campaign as secretary of State, but in reality, he voted for an “an orderly, irreversible transition to a legitimate democratic government in Libya.” This isn’t the language of the Iraq War Resolution (opposed by Sanders), overtly giving the George W. Bush administration authority to invade Iraq, nor can it logically be correlated to Clinton’s Iraq vote.

Clinton tried to tie Sanders into her failed decision and make a morally relative link to her Iraq vote by inferring that he wanted her to bomb Libya because of a Senate vote. The truth, however, is that she was secretary of State, and her advocacy to bomb meant infinitely more than a symbolic vote meant to back the president against Libyan dictator Gaddafi. There were a number of avenues any secretary of State could have taken, but Clinton chose the most aggressive approach.

Sanders didn’t vote for regime change, and here’s the name and description of the bill he voted for:

S.Res. 85 — A resolution strongly condemning the gross and systematic violations of human rights in Libya, including violent attacks on protesters demanding democratic reforms, and for other purposes.

“Strongly condemning” doesn’t mean bombing. Clinton wrongly accused Sanders of supporting her failed bombing campaign.

In contrast, the Iraq War Resolution led directly to President Bush’s invasion, and Sanders opposed it while Clinton supported the Iraq War. While she calls her vote a “mistake,” Clinton’s foreign policy is still aggressive and considered “neocon,” even to a conservative historian quoted in The New York Times. This neoconservative approach on foreign affairs, expressed by a Democrat, just recently led to the usual Clinton flip flop.

As the International Business Times points out, Clinton supported using U.S. ground troops to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), then quickly backtracked and evolved:

Tuesday morning’s announcement that the U.S. would be deploying troops to fight the so-called Islamic State militant group in Iraq likely caught Hillary Clinton off guard, considering she said earlier in the day that she didn’t think putting boots on the ground was such a prudent idea. Clinton’s latest opinion on the topic was an abrupt departure from her previous stance, when the Democratic presidential front-runner less than two weeks ago expressed her support to “broaden” anti-ISIS efforts by bringing U.S. troops to the conflict-ridden region.

As with every major issue, from ground troops to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Clinton starts from a conservative stance and emerges with a progressive viewpoint, being all things to everyone, and standing for everything at once.

In contrast, Sanders was the only candidate during the debates to speak about ending our perpetual wars and America’s involvement in quagmires. He’s the only candidate in 2016 to earn the Congressional Award from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the only candidate to describe the consequences of war. Most importantly, he’s the only person who says “I’ll be damned” if more Americans are sent to fight in the Middle East.

In one weekend, Bernie Sanders bested Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Shultz and the DNC’s attempt to undermine his campaign. As a result, supporters rallied even stronger around his message and the momentum created can’t be measured in polls. Sanders won the debate and was also victorious in the court of public opinion. In 2016, he’ll defeat Clinton and become the Democratic nominee because, like then-candidate Barack Obama eight years ago, Sanders is the true progressive on foreign policy.

Goodman is an author and a journalist.