What We Learned from Last Night's Tense Democratic Debate

It was no surprise that the first question of Wednesday night's Democratic debate, held at Florida's Miami-Dade College, was about Michigan.

Without saying it, Univision's Maria Elena Salinas, one of the debate moderators, essentially asked Hillary Clinton how she lost the Rust Belt state's primary to her rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Tuesday. Clinton, in true Clinton fashion, skirted the question, instead noting her campaign's success elsewhere—namely, in Mississippi, a state she won handily this week, and which comes with a bigger delegate haul than Michigan. Sanders, in true Sanders fashion, ignored this, and declared that Tuesday's results were a sign that his message is resonating, and that his campaign will rack up additional wins as the race moves forward into Ohio and Illinois next week.

To hear Sanders tell it, his upset win in Michigan amounted to his own personal Gettysburg, marking a turning point in his White House bid that just last week had been written off as over. Clinton, meanwhile, seemed to be fighting tooth-and-nail Wednesday to stall Sanders's new momentum, arguing that while her opponent may pick up some additional wins, she will continue to rack up an "insurmountable" delegate lead, and have the party's nomination by the start of the summer. If Wednesday's debate is any indication, however, the former secretary of state may be in for a tougher, and longer, fight than she anticipates.

At this point, it's understandable if these weekly cable news rodeos have started to blur. Clinton and Sanders are clearly more civilized than their Republican counterparts, and yet they too have spent months reciting the same stump talking points and lobbing the same attacks at each other—at this point, even the casual observer can likely recite Sanders's Main Street vs. Wall Street lines in his or her sleep. Questions about college tuition and Wall Street donations and health care have become almost a call-and-response in these debates, with Sanders taking the ideological high road, and Clinton casting herself as the pragmatic—read: electable—choice.

Wednesday's debate—the last one scheduled for the Democrats this cycle—followed the same formula, with a few notable changeups. Clinton, who needed a commanding performance to recover from her disappointment in Michigan, faced a grilling. Moderators (and occasionally Sanders) threw her questions on Benghazi; on the Iraq War vote; on her less-than firm positions on fracking and deportation; and on those Goldman Sachs speeches. At one point, Univision star Jorge Ramos even asked her about the possibility she could be indicted.

For the most part, Clinton took it in stride. "Oh for goodness—that's not going to happen. I'm not even answering that question," she told Ramos in response to the indictment question. In a surprisingly candid moment, she even addressed the fact that an overwhelming number of Americans don't think she's trustworthy. "Obviously it's painful for me to hear that," she responded. "And I do take responsibility.

"Look, I have said before, and it won't surprise anybody to hear me say it, this is not easy for me," she added. "I am not a natural politician, in case you haven't noticed, like my husband or President Obama."

Meanwhile, Sanders was also faced with some of his political demons, and she had to own up to some shit he said back when he was a real socialist and not the democratic kind. Specifically, he was asked to watch—and then explain to the Florida debate audience—a 1985 video of himself praising the achievements of one Fidel Castro.

But Sanders took his real hits from Clinton, whose debate strategy seemed to be to mention her opponent's name in the same sentence as some liberal bogeyman—the NRA, the Koch brothers, the Minutemen—and see what sticks, regardless of whether any connection actually exists. The approach didn't work in Michigan, where Clinton was widely criticized for her basically untrue claim that Sanders opposed the auto industry bailout. It's too early to tell whether her new attacks will do any damage—but they did succeed in making Clinton look just a tad desperate.

In the second part of the debate, the moderators focused mostly on immigration and other issues important to Univision's Spanish-language voters. Ramos baited the two candidates into a squabble over their respective votes on Senate immigration bills, which naturally devolved into Clinton accusing Sanders of abandoning Ted Kennedy.

Ramos, apparently unwilling to let his debate devolve into a Kennedy-off, then deftly moved on to the issue of deportation, introducing a woman whose husband had been deported and demanding that the candidates say whether they would break with the Obama administration's policy. By the end of the night, Ramos essentially got both candidates to promise that they would not deport undocumented children if elected president.

Of course, Democrats also seized the opportunity to attack Donald Trump. Asked if the Republican frontrunner is a racist, both Sanders and Clinton declined to walk through that door—while still leaving it slightly ajar. "I think that the American people are never going to elect a president who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims, who insults women, who insults African-Americans," Sanders said.

Clinton, perhaps predictably, was a little more subtle, noting Trump's recent KKK issue, and saying that "people can make their own conclusions about him." Later, though, when the subject turned to the Republican frontrunner's proposed border wall, she couldn't resist getting in one more jab.

"As I understand him, he's talking about a very tall wall," she said. Then, keying up to the audience's laughter, she added, "Right? The most beautiful tall wall, better than the Great Wall of China, that would run the entire border.That he would somehow magically get the Mexican government to pay for. And, you know, it's just fantasy."

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