Robinson: Clinton, Sanders choice akin to evolution vs. revolution

There was irony in all of this. Eight years ago, the primary fight here between Clinton and Obama was bitter and tinged with racial overtones. This year, with the possibility that Sanders could win both Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton is counting on South Carolina’s large African-American population to serve as a firewall.

Sanders made the case that he has been — and remains — a supporter of the president. And he turned the tables, putting Clinton very much on the defensive when the subject turned to Wall Street excesses.

“I don’t mean to just point the finger at you,” he said, pointing his finger at Clinton, “you’ve received over $600,000 in speaking fees from (investment firm) Goldman Sachs in one year.”

Clinton’s response — that “hedge-fund billionaires” are running ads against her and that “I’m the one they don’t want to be up against” — probably failed to convince many listeners that she is more antagonistic toward Wall Street than Sanders, who frequently rails about all of the executives who need to be sent to prison.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, the third Democratic presidential candidate, delivered a performance that was smooth, knowledgeable and, as things now stand, irrelevant. Focus was on the contest between the two leaders in the polls, Clinton and Sanders, who offer Democrats a clear choice: evolution or revolution.

The difference is evident in the candidates’ positions on health care. Clinton proposes building on the foundation of Obamacare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicaid and Medicare to further expand coverage. Sanders advocates a new single-payer system, akin to those in other major industrialized countries, that would be truly universal and provide health care as a right.

Clinton countered that to “start over again, pushing our country back into that kind of a contentious debate, I think is the wrong direction.” In other words, let’s have evolutionary change.

Sanders noted that there are still 29 million Americans without health insurance. He argued that a single-payer system, which he describes as “Medicare for all,” would not only provide coverage for everyone but also dramatically reduce medical costs. Translation: We need a political revolution.

On issue after issue, Clinton proposes incremental solutions; Sanders proposes dramatic solutions that will be possible when power is wrested from “big money” interests that refuse to do “what the American people want them to.”

Heads versus hearts

In that sense, Democrats are being asked to make a classic heads-versus-hearts decision. With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, Clinton would ordinarily have a huge advantage. Given what’s happening in the GOP campaign, however, this doesn’t much look like an ordinary election cycle.

Sanders got a couple of the biggest cheers Sunday night, but for most of the evening the crowd seemed to be on Clinton’s side.

But the loyal Democrats with whom I spoke also wished there was more passion in Clinton’s appeal to go along with the pragmatism. To convince people to eat their vegetables this year, you might have to add a little hot sauce.