Democrats enter decisive moment as debate day arrives

THE Democratic presidential race is entering a decisive period with candidates holding their much-anticipated first debate on Tuesday in Las Vegas. Key business and trade issues, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), will be at the centre of discussion, with frontrunner Hillary Clinton likely to come under heavy fire from her principal declared opponent, the socialist Senator Bernie Sanders.

With Mrs Clinton's previously sky-high poll numbers softening, there are growing signs of her concern about the left-wing challenge from Mr Sanders, and also the possibility that Vice-President Joe Biden might enter the race. On Oct 7, for instance, Mrs Clinton decided to come out against one of the central foreign policy achievements of President Barack Obama's second term of office: the TPP trade deal which was secured, subject to domestic legislative approvals, in negotiations last week by 12 nations in Asia-Pacific and the Americas which collectively account for some 40 per cent of global GDP (gross domestic product).

Mrs Clinton's position on the TPP - which is widely opposed by key Democratic Party constituencies such as organised labour and environmental lobby groups - is a significant U-turn given that she described it in 2012, as Mr Obama's secretary of state, as the "gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade". Her new-found opposition to the pact reflects, in large part, her concern that supporting it will undermine her prospects of winning the Democratic president nomination in 2016: in her 2008 campaign she, ironically, took heavy criticism from then-senator Obama over her support for the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) agreed during her husband's presidency.