Sanders talks social justice in hours before showdown with Clinton in Iowa

Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders face a critical test Monday night in Iowa as both campaigns sprint to the caucus finish line.

CNN will hold a town-hall style discussion in Des Moines, to be broadcast into the state and across the country, at 8 p.m. It’s the last chance each candidate will likely have to reach a large audience in the state.

A third candidate — former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley — will also participate.

After Clinton gathered the endorsement of a key gay rights group on Sunday, Sanders on Monday delivered a speech at Iowa State University that championed social justice and a ranger of liberal causes.

“It is too late for establishment politics. It is too late for establishment economics,” Sanders told an audience of more than 1,000 people in a campus auditorium. His supporters, he said, “want to be part of a revolution.”

Clinton and Sanders are widely believed to be within one or two points of each other in Iowa, which holds its caucuses Feb. 1, one week from now. But caucus-goers are known to change their minds in the last week, and both campaigns believe they have a realistic chance of prevailing.

Each has planned events in Iowa over the next three days. Each will campaign in Iowa Monday before the CNN broadcast.

Clinton capped her Sunday campaigning with a rally here, at a high school. More than 900 supporters cheered as she accepted the endorsement of the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

She hammered her potential Republican opponents. “They are all on the record to turn back the rights of Americans,” she said. “LGBT rights, women’s rights, voting rights, workers’ rights, civil rights, and we cannot let them succeed.”

She did not criticize Sanders — directly. But in a sign the race is close, she repeated a claim that she is more prepared to address problems than he is.

“I don’t think we can withdraw from the world,” she said.

At Sanders’ appearance in Ames, he repeated his push for free tuition to all public universities, for a phased in $15 minimum wage and for better police training to reduce violent confrontations with civilians.

“We can do better,” he said.

He did not take direct swipes at Clinton, other than to reject assumptions that she would fare better in the general election than he would as the Democrats’ nominee. But he did criticize the role of big money in the campaign — something that Clinton has benefitted from — and argued that both the nation’s politics and its economy are “rigged” to benefit the monied interests.

“If billionaires are able to buy an election, what kind of governement do you think we’ll have?” Sanders said. “You’ll have the kind that works for the people who paid to get them elected.”

Sanders earlier told the Washington Post he thinks Clinton is “desperate” in the final hours of the Iowa race.

“Our campaign is not going to simply sit back and accept all of these attacks,” Sanders told the newspaper. “We are going to win this thing.”

Sanders is the favorite in New Hampshire, which holds its primary Feb. 9. He’s from neighboring Vermont.

But Clinton may also struggle in Iowa. In 2008, she finished third in the Democratic caucuses, behind Barack Obama and John Edwards.

Her campaign believes she is better organized in the state this time. But she also repeatedly referred to Obama’s presidency in her remarks to the high school audience.

This story was originally published January 25, 2016 at 9:47 AM with the headline "Sanders talks social justice in hours before showdown with Clinton in Iowa."