What Went Down At The CNN Democratic Debate

Julia, here’s a question that is way too big to adequately answer in a live blog, but I’ll ask it anyway: With this debate getting pretty testy at times, and Sanders’s continued strength, are there reasons to think the Democratic Party could have structural problems down the line akin to the crack-up the GOP is currently undergoing?

Clinton was sharply hawkish during that earlier exchange on the Palestinians, hewing much closer to the positions of the Netanyahu government than that of the Obama administration in which she served. Obama has been far more critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and Clinton refused several opportunities to suggest that Israel could deal more evenhandedly with the residents of Gaza and the Arab towns on the West Bank. It’s tempting to blame that on crass demographic politics prior to the New York primary, but in fact, the Middle East is one of the areas where Clinton has long taken a clear right turn away from the administration’s policies. As Sanders pointed out, she does support a no-fly zone in Syria, unlike Obama, and has pushed for a stronger military response to ISIS. By not calling on Israel to halt settlement construction or criticizing its military responses, she has made clear how much more centrist her approach to foreign policy is likely to be if elected.

The Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as “Obamacare,” has brought health insurance to millions of Americans. But millions more remain uninsured. Some of that is expected; some young people, for example, have declined to sign up for insurance, and many immigrants were intentionally excluded by the law. But nearly 4 million Americans fall into the “Medicaid gap” — they were meant to be covered under the law, but many Republican-led states declined to expand Medicaid as originally intended.