There were five 2016 presidential candidates on the stage Tuesday for the first Democratic debate, but it was a big night for front-runners Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Five Democratic 2016 presidential candidates on the stage Tuesday for the party's first debate of the race, but it was a big night for front-runners Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
"The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails," Sanders told Clinton to raucous applause.
"Thank you," she laughed. "Me too, me too."
It was the defining moment of the debate. Clinton's email controversy was expected to be her toughest hurdle - the opportunity for her four opponents to chip away at her credibility and judgment.
Instead, it ended with a handshake between the two front-runners.
"I think it showed that the Democratic Party isn't interested in eating their own," said Jesse Mermell.
It was a pivotal moment for Clinton as Sanders seemed to give concerned Democrats permission to look past the email controversy - and it was only reinforced when Lincoln Chafee chimed in.
Politics
"Credibility is an issue," he said. "That's how I feel."
Given the chance by the moderator, Clinton neglected to respond.
Sanders, a self decribed socialist, did not back down when asked if he was capitalist.
"Do I consider myself part of the casino capitalist process, by which so few have so much and so many have so little? By which Wall Street's greed and recklessness wrecked this economy? No, I don't," he said.
Martin O'Malley tried to highlight how he differed from Clinton at every turn..
"Secretary Clinton's campaign put out a lot of reversals on positions on Keystone and many other things, but one of them that we still have a great difference on, Madame Secretary, is that you are not for Glass-Steagall," he said.
But it was Clinton who walked out on top, showing passion and confidence at key moments.
"It's always the Republicans or their or their sympathizers who say, 'You can't have paid leave, you can't provide healthcare,' they don't mind having big government to interfere with a woman's right to choose and to try to take down Planned Parenthood," Clinton said to an ovation. "They're fine with big government when it comes to that, I'm sick of it."
"If you're an undecided voter and you watched the Republican primary debate and then you watched the Democratic primary debate, it probably felt like watching a T-ball games versus watching the World Series," said Alex Goldstein. "This was a substantive, policy-based debate on gun-control, climate change, income inequality, the issues that voters really care about."
