Hillary Clinton's campaign, which had grown increasingly confident at the end of 2015, was jolted by Bernie Sanders’ stunning gains in New Hampshire and Iowa. | AP Photo OFF MESSAGE 5 takeaways from the Democratic debate Clinton ditches the easy demeanor, Sanders goes full indignant, and the crowd loves Obama. 
 
 Hillary Clinton, facing an unexpectedly stout challenge from Bernie Sanders, threw diplomatic dignity to the wind in the fourth Democratic debate, attacking the senator even if it reinforced his characterization of her as an establishment politician so desperate she’d say anything to win. 
 
 Sanders’ stunning gains in New Hampshire and Iowa have put a jolt into a Clinton campaign that had grown increasingly confident at the end of 2015 and forced her to take risks she might have avoided with a firmer grip on her party’s loyalty. In the three previous debates, Clinton adopted an attitude of pre-presidential diffidence, but on Sunday night she was brawling like a Republican, slamming Sanders on guns, health care reform and taxes. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 The increasingly chippy tone of the intra-Democratic squabbling is to be expected with just over two weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, but Clinton, the most polarizing politician in the country this side of Donald Trump, risks alienating a progressive party base that likes her fine, but really loves Sanders. 
 
 With that in mind, here are five takeaways: 
 
 1. Hillary turns it up to 11. If there were any doubt that Clinton is facing an existential threat from Sanders, you simply had to turn up the volume on the flatscreen to hear her rattle the speakers. In previous debates, Clinton spoke in a honeyed monotone, calmly defending her positions and professing comity with her opponents, but, hoarse from a week of tough campaigning, she spent the better part of Sunday night near-shouting, attacking Sanders just as she did Barack Obama during the bad old days of early 2008. 
 
 Within the first 15 minutes, Clinton accused Sanders of voting to support the Democrat-detested NRA in its drive to shield manufacturers from lawsuits filed by victims of gun violence. “[He] voted against the Brady Bill five times,” she said in an agitated tone typically reserved for shouting a late-night order into a balky drive-thru speaker. “He voted for what we call the Charleston Loophole. He voted for immunity for gunmakers and sellers, which the NRA said was the most important piece of gun legislation in 20 years. ... He voted to let guns go onto Amtrak, go into national parks. He voted against doing research to figure out how we can save lives.” 
 
 Clinton, who has struggled to stoke the passion of her supporters, had a surfeit of oomph in the Charleston debate hall, but her jacked-up performance also reinforced the impression that she’s motivated more by personal survival than by a fervor to reverse economic injustices. In a dial-test focus group held near the venue by Democratic consultant Chris Kofinis, 29 of 30 undecided voters declared the less-strident Sanders the winner of the debate’s first hour. The Clinton campaign dismissed that as an aberration, claiming recent polls showed a hefty majority of undecideds breaking for Clinton. 
 
 2. Clinton made Sanders shvitz. Maybe it’s the unruly white mane, the laundry-sack off-the-rack suits or the Brighton Beach butcher’s accent — but the greatest misimpression about Bernie Sanders is that he’s an all-natural, unaffected anti-politician who simply says what comes from his heart. He is, to the contrary, one of the most icily disciplined politicians around (far more on-message than Clinton, in fact) and it’s hard to knock him out of his crusty-but-loveable grandfatherly high-road mode. But Clinton — through sheer force of will — put Sanders on the defensive, and (for a while, anyway) he seemed like just another lifelong politician covering his inconsistent record. 
 
 Taken as a whole, his debate performance was more polished — but that, in itself, implies artifice that undercuts his brand as a principled outsider. And in the days leading up to the debate, he engaged in some political clean-up-on-aisle-five — reversing his opposition to lawsuits against gunmakers and releasing, in the hours before the debate, a single-payer health care plan in response to the Clinton campaign’s relentless goading. His toughest moments came when NBC’s moderators grilled him on the plan’s new taxes — which seemed to violate a no-middle-class-tax-hike pledge he made earlier in the campaign. “No, it is not breaking my word,” he said, a sheen of perspiration on his forehead, adding: “Yes, some middle-class families would be paying slightly more in taxes,” which could easily become a line in Clinton’s anti-Sanders playbook in a week or so. 
 
 3. Bernie’s Goldman Sachs attack is money. Clinton’s two biggest weaknesses, in the eyes of the Sanders camp are her connections to Wall Street and the fact that she has personally profited from the financial industry plutocrats who she claims would be in her cross hairs as president. Sanders razor-stropped that attack in the debate, focusing — angrily, directly and personally — on Clinton’s lucrative six-figure speechmaking career after she left the State Department. 
 
 “Secretary Clinton — and you’re not the only one, so I don’t mean to just point the finger at you — you’ve received over $600,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs in one year,” he said, turning to face the grim-looking front-runner. “I find it very strange that a major financial institution that pays $5 billion in fines for breaking the law, not one of their executives is prosecuted, while kids who smoke marijuana get a jail sentence.” 
 
 The audience erupted — and Clinton’s debate hall momentum was arrested for a while. 
 
 4. Clinton hugged Obama so hard he needs new ribs. Iowa was a world of hurt for Clinton in 2008, but South Carolina was the killing ground for her presidential aspirations. The Democratic primary there is dominated by African-American voters (who now support Clinton by a 2-to-1 margin) and President Barack Obama, for all of his mediocre polling nationally is still a near-unanimous favorite of black voters. He is almost equally popular among hyperprogressive Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, so Clinton has been effusive in her defense of the White House during campaign appearances in both states. 
 
 She took that support to a new level on Sunday night, accusing Sanders of undermining Obama’s legacy by challenging parts of the Affordable Care Act, which she says would “tear up” Obamacare. “I certainly respect Sen. Sanders’ intentions, but when you're talking about health care, the details really matter,” she said. 
 
 “We finally have a path to universal health care. We have accomplished so much already. I do not to want see the Republicans repeal it, and I don’t to want see us start over again.” 
 
 5. Bernie and Trump, they love polls. The socialist and the billionaire fond of touting how “very rich” he is, don’t have a ton in common, but they do both share one characteristic — a love for boasting about their polling numbers. When he was grilled about his struggles to gain traction with black and Hispanic voters, Sanders cited a raft of recent polls showing how well he polled in head-to-head matchups against “my good friend” Trump. 
 
 “In Iowa, New Hampshire, the race is very, very close,” he said. "Maybe we’re ahead in New Hampshire. ... We are on the path to victory,” he added, as Clinton peered sourly down at her lectern. ||||| The Democrats’ final debate before 2016 voting starts brought clarity to the choice ahead for Democratic primary voters, in a battle that’s pitting the party’s head against its heart. 
 
 Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders offered the louder and bolder vision tonight in South Carolina, channeling some of the anger that’s blossoming in both parties in 2016. His is a play for the hearts of voters, including segments of the Democratic Party that are disappointed in the Obama years. 
 
 Hillary Clinton, still the front-runner but facing a more intense challenge than she anticipated, offered aggressive lessons on political practicality. She urged a more intense examination of her rival’s record, and embraced President Obama’s legacy more fully than she has in the past. 
 
 Nowhere was her appeal to voters’ heads more evident than in arguing that Sanders’ single-payer health care plan is dangerous for Democrats to attempt to even pursue, given the battles it took to make Obamacare law. 
 
 “We’ve accomplished so much already. I do not want to see the Republicans repeal it, and I don’t want to start over again with a contentious debate,” Clinton said. “To tear it up and start over again, pushing our country back into that kind of a contentious debate, I think is the wrong direction.” 
 
 Sanders called it a “disingenuous” attack. He made clear, as he did throughout the night, that he’s not satisfied with the status quo. 
 
 “No one is tearing this up. We're going to go forward,” Sanders said. 
 
 In talking about big banks, Sanders offered this swipe at Clinton to make his point about corruption he views as systemic: “I don’t get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs.” 
 
 Clinton defended not just herself but Obama, making a broad point that governing is complicated, and much harder than campaigning. 
 
 “He’s criticized President Obama for taking donations from Wall Street. And President Obama led out country out of the Great Recession,” Clinton said. “I’m going to defend President Obama for taking on Wall Street, taking on the financial industry, and getting results.” 
 
 Underscoring Clinton’s vulnerability on the topic, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley jumped in to point out her “cozy relationship with Wall Street.” 
 
 It’s been said that the central tension of the Democratic race is Clinton running against herself. Given how closely she’s linked to the last two Democratic presidents, at a time of deep turmoil in the party and the country, that appears unlikely to change, despite her efforts to intensify scrutiny on Sanders. 
 
 The debate revealed Sanders’ many vulnerabilities, from his “democratic socialist” label to his single-payer plan, and his spotty past record on gun control. Sanders acknowledged that the health care proposal he released just hours before the debate can be described as a new tax. 
 
 Said Clinton: “I want to raise incomes, not taxes.” 
 
 Central to the case Clinton is making now is electability, as she portrays herself as pragmatic and experienced. But Sanders’ calls for a political revolution are clearly resonating with voters. 
 
 “In terms of polling, guess what, we are running ahead of Secretary Clinton in terms of taking on my good friend, Donald Trump,” Sanders said. 
 
 The turn toward discussions of domestic policy has helped Sanders make his case, given Clinton’s natural advantages on foreign policy and national security. 
 
 Democrats have a history of listening to appeals to the heart more than the head. Asked why Sanders’ message is resonating as it is with young people – many of the types of voters who powered Obama’s rise -- Clinton didn’t have a great response. 
 
 “I hope to have their support when I'm the Democratic nominee,” she said. ||||| Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images 
 
 Hillary Clinton’s superb debate performance on Sunday raised an unsettling question: If she can be this consistently good on a debate stage, why can’t she replicate that impressiveness on the campaign trail or in interviews? Clinton was once again in superior form Sunday night in South Carolina, besting Sen. Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley in the last Democratic debate before the Iowa caucus. 
 
 Isaac Chotiner Isaac Chotiner is a Slate contributor. 
 
 Clinton’s debating performance is formidable because it combines her intelligence with a sincerity and level of conviction that often seem absent in other forums. When she opened the debate speaking of Martin Luther King Jr.’s role fighting for increased wages, she used his career as a subtle metaphor for what she is pitching: principled leadership with a strong practical bent. That mixture, along with her strength in close-quarter combat and an ability to wrap herself in President Obama’s record—something that played well to the Charleston crowd in the auditorium—was what won her this debate. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 
 
 Clinton had several strong moments Sunday night. “Ninety people a day die from gun violence in this country,” she noted, before going on to attack Sanders’ record on the Second Amendment, methodically reciting a series of his congressional votes. For some reason Sanders still struggles when pressed on his gun rights votes; he called Clinton “disingenuous” and said that guns “should not be a political issue.” Sanders has run an impressive race and is challenging Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire, but Clinton’s ability to bring him to earth and seem like just another politician—his weird, Trump-like quoting of polls tonight didn’t help—is remarkable. (The moderators helped her tonight by making it appear as if Sanders had changed or updated a number of his positions.) 
 
 Clinton combines her intelligence with a sincerity that often seems absent in other forums. 
 
 The same dynamic occurred when the subject turned to health care. Clinton’s attack on Sanders’ support for a single-payer system is, er, “disingenuous” (as Jim Newell pointed out in Slate last week). But the way she attacked Sanders on the issue tonight was effective: She essentially claimed that Sanders’ plan would cause a huge amount of disruption in Obamacare, and thus reopen the battle that has barely ended over the president’s signature program. Sanders needs to figure out a way to answer this criticism, but he certainly didn’t do so tonight. 
 
 Get Slate in your inbox. 
 
 Clinton’s answers on race and the heroin epidemic—about the former she used the phrase “systemic racism,” and also spoke passionately about the latter—were equally impressive. Even on the issue of banking and regulatory reform, Clinton got the best of the exchange by turning it into a debate on President Obama. Her attack on Sanders for voting for Bill Clinton’s bill on derivatives, meanwhile, was pretty shameless; Sanders, predictably, didn’t mention it was a Clinton bill and didn’t really respond to her attack. This should be an issue where Sanders dominates the debate, and his trouble doing so was indicative of his larger struggles this evening. (As for Martin O’Malley, he probably had his best debate—such as it was—although he also had the most absurd moment of the night when he claimed he was running because “black lives matter.”) 
 
 Even so, there was no knockout moment for Clinton: Most of Sanders’ supporters, like Trump’s, are probably not too caught up in his debate performances, and are instead rightly focused—here they differ from Trump’s fans—on his policy platform. But despite all the headlines about Clinton’s recent struggles, she is still overwhelmingly likely to be the Democratic nominee. She doesn’t need to knock Sanders out. 
 
 On Sunday morning, the New York Times ran a story about Clinton’s campaign, and it was a familiar one: The campaign wasn’t going as she had hoped; she had underestimated her opponent (no, not Martin O’Malley); and she has now found herself in a race that is closer than she ever expected. But the biggest mistake her campaign made, arguably, was going along with the Democratic National Committee’s debate schedule. That schedule included debates that often take place on weekends (three-day weekends, even!). Not surprisingly, they have been getting much lower viewership numbers than the Republican debates. (Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the hapless DNC chair, laughably claimed that the DNC’s goal was to make sure lots of people see them.) ||||| The three Democratic presidential contenders engaged in heated exchanges on health care, gun control, former president Bill Clinton and other issues in Charleston, S.C. on Jan. 17. Here are the key moments from the two-hour debate in three minutes. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) 
 
 The fourth Democratic presidential debate — and the last one before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary next month — is in the books. The best and the worst from the night are below. And make sure to check out our annotated debate transcript! 
 
 Winners 
 
 * Bernie Sanders: Yes, Sanders has one volume: shouting. And, yes, he got tripped up a few times during the debate on his voting record — especially on guns. But throughout the debate's first hour — the hour when most people, especially on the East Coast and in the Midwest, were watching — he was the prime mover in virtually every discussion from Wall Street reform to health care to climate change. He was on offense, accusing rival Hillary Clinton of half-measures and political caution at a moment when boldness is required. 
 
 Sanders held his own in the foreign-policy-focused second hour of the debate, something he had not done in debates past. And he had one of his best moments of the exchange at an unlikely time — in response to a question about his criticism of Bill Clinton's past behavior. Sanders turned the question into one focused on how the campaign he is running is about policy, not personal differences — to much applause. 
 
 More than anything he said, though, it was the passion and disruption that Sanders oozed from every pore over the two hours that should push Democrats on the fence about the race into his camp. Sanders effectively positioned himself as the anti-status-quo candidate, a very good position to have in this electoral environment. 
 
 * Martin O'Malley: Early in the debate, I had the former Maryland governor pegged for the "loser" category because he was doing the one thing I hate: complaining about how little time he had to talk. The truth is that when one candidate is in the 50s in national polling, another is in the 40s and a third is in the, well, twos, the candidate in the twos shouldn't get as many questions. 
 
 But, to O'Malley's credit, he turned the corner on getting ignored and by the end of the debate was downright likable. Will it change anything about his minuscule support in Iowa and New Hampshire? No. But kudos to him. He did well in an impossible situation. 
 
 One other important note about O'Malley: He tipped the scales to Sanders during a pitched fight between the senator from Vermont and Clinton over Wall Street reform. O'Malley chimed in by bashing Clinton as a defender of the same old, same old when it came to bank behavior — doing Sanders a major favor in the process. 
 
 * Rand Paul: The senator from Kentucky isn't going to be the Republican presidential nominee. But he may have a future as a professional political tweeter. Paul's counter-programming of the Democratic debate via Twitter was sardonic and fun — two things politics can always use more of. 
 
 *President Obama: Clinton went out of her way, repeatedly, to praise what the current president has done in office — from Obamacare to Iran and back. Sanders sought to play down his differences with Obama by noting that "he and I are friends." Had O'Malley had time to talk, I am certain he would have praised Obama, too. 
 
 Losers 
 
 * Hillary Clinton: The former secretary of state was, as always, solid. And, at times — like in her closing statement on the water in Flint, Mich. — she was outstanding. Her knowledge — both the depth and the breadth of it — is on full display in these debate settings. 
 
 So, why is she in the loser column? Because she did nothing in the debate to slow the momentum that Sanders is building in Iowa and New Hampshire. Aside from guns, where Clinton scored a clean win against Sanders, she was unable to effectively cast him as a pie-in-the-sky idealist and herself as the only person who could truly fight for — and win on — Democratic priorities. 
 
 At a debate in Charleston, S.C., Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley sparred over their respective records on gun control on Jan. 17. (NBC/YouTube) 
 
 Time and again, she was boxed into defending a status quo that the American public — Democrats and Republicans alike — is dissatisfied with. This tweet from the New York Times's Nicholas Kristof perfectly captures that sentiment: 
 
 Hillary Clinton is eminently knowledgeable, but she's in effect calling for continuity at a time when lots of people want discontinuity. — Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) January 18, 2016 
 
 The Clinton-as-cautious-pragmatist vs. Sanders-as-idealist-fighter is not a good dynamic for the former secretary of state. 
 
 * Sunday night debates: Let's call the Democratic debate schedule what it is: ridiculous. A Saturday debate just before Christmas. A Sunday night debate just before a federal holiday. No debate from now until AFTER the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Seriously? Say what you will about the Republican National Committee's attempts to influence the debate calendar. It pales in comparison to the travesty the Democratic National Committee has made of its own debates. Period.
– The last Democratic debate before Iowa and New Hampshire vote took place Sunday night in South Carolina—and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were taking no prisoners. The pair clashed over and over again throughout the debate, while Martin O'Malley failed to make much of an impact. Here's what analysts are saying about the candidates: Bernie Sanders. It's not unanimous, but a lot of people are calling Sanders the winner. He was more aggressive than usual in dealing with Clinton and "positioned himself as the anti-status-quo candidate, a very good position to have in this electoral environment," writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, praising the "passion and disruption that Sanders oozed from every pore." The senator from Vermont was at his best during the debate's first hour, where he dominated the discussion and was judged the winner by 29 out of 30 undecided voters in a Democratic focus group, Politico reports. Hillary Clinton. Clinton—faced with Sanders' "louder and bolder" vision—offered "aggressive lessons on political practicality," trying to portray herself as the more pragmatic and electable candidate, writes Rick Klein at ABC News. She scored points by attacking Sanders' changing positions on guns and taxes, "but was not seen as dealing any decisive blow," writes Alan Rappeport at the New York Times. Isaac Chotiner at Slate, however, declares her the winner, praising her ability to bring Sanders "to earth and seem like just another politician." Politico's Glenn Thrush notes that she also scored points by hugging Obama "so hard he needs new ribs." Martin O'Malley. The former Maryland governor "was most notable for his unsuccessful efforts to get a word in," according to Rappeport, though Cillizza notes that he managed to come across as likable. "He did well in an impossible situation," he writes.