Can a woman win US presidency? Sanders, Warren take on controversy

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders disagreed in a Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday over whether he once told her a woman could not win the US presidency in 2020, underlining an emerging rift between the progressive allies as the first voting nears.

After days of tensions between the fellow US senators, friends and liberal standard-bearers, who agreed early in the campaign not to attack each other, Sanders emphatically denied he ever made the remark, saying it was “incomprehensible” he could have said such a thing in a private 2018 meeting with her.

Warren confirmed the comment and said she disagreed with Sanders, but quickly pivoted to the broader question of whether a woman could be elected president.

“Bernie is my friend and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie. But look, this question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised and it’s time for us to attack it head-on,” Warren said.

The dispute brought questions about gender, sexism and electability back into the spotlight in the campaign, almost four years after Democrat Hillary Clinton failed in her bid to become the first woman president, in an upset loss to Republican Donald Trump.

Warren pointed out that the men on the stage had collectively lost 10 elections, while the two women on the stage – she and US Senator Amy Klobuchar – had won each election they had contested.

“I have won every race, every place, every time, I have won in the reddest of districts, I have won in the suburban areas, in the rural areas,” Klobuchar said, pointing to the 2018 election of women governors in conservative states as further evidence a woman can win the race to be president this year.

The rare clash between Warren and Sanders came as recent opinion polls show her trailing him nationally and in early nominating states just weeks before Iowa voters kick off the Democratic nominating race on February 3.

The debate also featured sharp exchanges between Sanders and former vice-president Joe Biden on foreign policy and trade, as the top Democrats made their case to voters assessing an unsettled presidential field with no clear front-runner.

The debate was the seventh in the race to find a November election challenger to Trump. Polls show an extremely tight race among Biden, Sanders, Warren and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Sanders, a long-time anti-war advocate who voted against the 2002 authorisation of war in Iraq, criticised Biden for supporting the war and said they heard the same arguments from officials in former president George W Bush's administration before coming to different conclusions.

“I thought they were lying, I did not believe them for a moment,” Sanders said. “I did everything I could to prevent that war. Joe saw things differently.”

Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who touts his security credentials, acknowledged the vote “was a big, big mistake” and said that as president Barack Obama's vice-president, he worked to bring the troops home.

“It was a mistake to trust that they weren't going to go to war,” Biden said of the Bush administration. “It was a mistaken vote, but I think my record overall on everything we have done, I’m prepared to compare it to anybody’s on this stage.”

'FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE' ON TRADE

On trade, Sanders said he and Biden had “a fundamental difference” on the worth of regional free trade agreements like Trump's new agreement with Mexico and Canada, called the USMCA, which Sanders opposes and Biden backs.

“I don’t know that there’s any trade agreement that the senator would ever think made any sense,” Biden said.

Sanders said the agreements “were written for one reason alone, and that is to increase the profits of large multinational corporations”.

With surveys showing a virtual tie in Iowa and a largely undecided electorate, all the candidates face mounting pressure to make an impression.

The debate stage was the least crowded since the debates began in June, with the Democratic National Committee's toughened polling and fundraising requirements to qualify eliminating other candidates.

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, an Asian American who participated in last month's seven-candidate debate, did not make the cut this time, leaving an all-white field of debaters in a party that prides itself on diversity.

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer had qualified for the debate late after a spending surge in Nevada and South Carolina produced strong poll showings that helped him make the cut.

The Iowa debate was the first of four to be held in slightly more than a month as the first four states kick off the voting in February. The next debate will be on February 7 in New Hampshire, followed by debates on February 19 in Nevada and February 25 in South Carolina. 

Reuters