Clinton, Sanders spar over super-PACs

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clashed over the role of super-PACs and wealthy donors during Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate.

During the PBS/CNN debate, Clinton was asked whether super-PAC donations from billionaires Donald Sussman and George Soros were the akin to big-money donations from the conservative brothers David and Charles Koch to Republicans.

“I can’t speak for the Koch brothers. You’re referring to a super-PAC that we don’t coordinate with that was set up to support President Obama, that has now decided they want to support me. They are the ones you should — respond to any questions,” said Clinton.

{mosads}She went on to liken herself to Sanders, who frequently touts the number of small contributions from donors to his campaign and has refused super-PAC support.

“I think that is the real key here, we both have a lot of small donors, I think that set us apart from a lot of what’s happening on the Republican side,” Clinton added.

But Sanders rejected the comparison.

“We had a decision to make early on: Do we do a super-PAC?” Sanders said of his campaign. “And we said no, we don’t represent Wall Street, we don’t represent the billionaire class, so it ends up I’m the only candidate up here … who has no super-PAC.

“Now Secretary Clinton’s super-PAC, as I understand it, received $25 million last reporting period, $15 million from Wall Street,” he added later. “Our average contribution was $27; I am very proud of that.”

Clinton, a former secretary of State, responded by saying many of her campaign donations came from small amounts, and she criticized the Vermont senator for suggesting that her independence had been compromised by accepting big-money donations.

“But the real issue that I think the senator is injecting into this is that, if you had a super-PAC like President Obama had — which now says it wants to support me, it’s not my PAC — if you take donations from Wall Street, you can’t be independent,” said Clinton.

“I would just say, I debated then-Sen. Obama numerous times on stages like this, and he was the recipient of the largest number of Wall Street donations of anybody running on the Democratic side ever.

“Now, when it mattered he stood up and took on Wall Street, he pushed through and he passed the Dodd-Frank regulation, the toughest regulation since the 1930s. So, let’s not in any way imply here that either President Obama or myself would in any way not take on any vested interest, whether it’s Wall Street, or drug companies, or insurance companies or frankly the gun lobby, to stand up and do what’s best for the American people,” Clinton added.

But Sanders fired back.

“Let’s not insult the intelligence of the American people,” Sanders said. “People aren’t dumb.

“Why in God’s name does Wall Street make huge campaign contributions? I guess just for the fun of it, they want to throw money around.”