--- title: Hillary Clinton Looks Ahead to the General Election at Forum description: Hillary Clinton tried at a Democratic forum Friday to soften her rhetoric while avoiding alienating a general electorate. canonical: https://time.com/4103720/hillary-clinton-msnbc-forum-rachel-maddow/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-07T05:04:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:43:46.262Z article:section: Politics og:title: Clinton Looks Ahead to the General Election at Forum og:description: She avoided any answers that might haunt her later. og:url: https://time.com/4103720/hillary-clinton-msnbc-forum-rachel-maddow/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdac96403e278d3a3/698870075f570f927bb1e375/hillary-south-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 594 og:image:height: 334 og:image:alt: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to guests at a campaign event on November 3, 2015 in Coralville, Iowa. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Clinton Looks Ahead to the General Election at Forum twitter:description: She avoided any answers that might haunt her later. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdac96403e278d3a3/698870075f570f927bb1e375/hillary-south-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Hillary Clinton Looks Ahead to the General Election at Forum > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Nov 7, 2015 5:04 AM UTC  Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to guests at a campaign event on November 3, 2015 in Coralville, Iowa. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to guests at a campaign event on November 3, 2015 in Coralville, Iowa. Scott Olson—Getty Images by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Nov 7, 2015 5:04 AM UTC Hillary Clinton tried at a Democratic forum Friday to soften her rhetoric on the death penalty and foreign policy while avoiding giving any answers that would alienate a general electorate. At a South Carolina forum hosted by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Clinton worked to soften the edges on two areas where she is more hawkish than much of her party, a move that required her to walk a fine line with some answers. In response to a question on the death penalty, she said that while she supports it in some cases, she would not be disappointed if the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. Although she’s taken more hawkish positions than President Obama on issues from Libya to Syria, she said that she would not be more aggressive on foreign policy than he has been. At the same time, Clinton made a pitch for keeping a big tent. “We need to understand more about why people either are not voting at all, leaving the field to maybe those they disagree with or whose interests are not the same, or why other people don’t trust the Democratic Party or a progressive approach to solving these problems,” she said. The forum began with former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, both of whom faced similar questions and sought to appeal to the Democratic base. While her two rivals took shots at Clinton and made their case, Clinton seemed to already be looking ahead to her potential Republican opponents. In one of her most carefully worded answers, Clinton hedged her opposition to the death penalty. “I do think a number of states, predominantly but not exclusively in the South, have moved much too quickly to try people for capital offenses that carry the death penalty,” Clinton said. “If the Supreme Court said, ‘No, it violates the 8th Amendment, it’s cruel and unusual punishment,’ I would breathe a sigh of relief about that.” **Read More:** [_How Hillary Clinton Won the Benghazi Hearing_](http://time.com/4084578/benghazi-hearing-hillary-clinton-analysis/) But, she added, “I do have some, you know, questions about removing it completely for terrorism, as an example.” Clinton mentioned Timothy McVeigh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the types of terrorists who could deserve the death penalty. “So there are some really heinous crimes that are, in my view, still arguably ones that should potentially have the death penalty.” O’Malley, by contrast, boasted of outlawing the death penalty in Maryland as Governor in 2013. Clinton has pushed for greater American involvement in Syria and advocated for U.S. intervention in Libya as secretary of state, both issues that put her at odds with President Obama. She also was one of the stronger voices on Obama’s Cabinet in favor of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. Clinton was asked whether she would more aggressive around the world than Obama. “No, here’s why,” Clinton said. “I want us to use diplomacy, which is why I spent 18 months putting together the sanctions against Iran, so that we could force them to the negotiating table to try to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon and end the talk of bombing them and going to war against them, but instead using diplomacy.” **Read More:** [_Hillary Clinton Says President Obama’s Syria Policy ‘Hasn’t Worked’_](http://time.com/4052992/clinton-obama-syria-policy/) But Clinton also made clear she would be ready to use the military, which a significant majority of Americans support in Syria. “However,” Clinton continued, “I will not— I think it’s irresponsible—to rule out force. I just will not do that.” Sanders has strongly criticized Clinton’s vote in favor of the Iraq War, and on Friday gave some of his most detailed foreign policy ideas for the Middle East of the campaign, saying that Muslim countries near Syria need to “roll up their sleeves and get their troops on the ground and start taking on ISIS in a way they have not yet done.” He opposes a no-fly zone over Syria, which Clinton favors. During a round of more light-hearted questioning, Rachel Maddow asked Clinton whether she was an introvert or an extrovert. “Extrointrovert,” Clinton answered, saying that she “loves” spending time with people on the campaign trail but she also likes to spend time alone to “think and relax, and sleep, and stuff like that.” She outright refused to answer, however, which Republican candidate she would chose if forced as her running mate. “I know, I know you’re going to be disappointed, I know that, you know, people are going to say I dodge the question. The fact is, I am dodging it. I don’t want to pick any of them,” she said. ### See Hillary Clinton's Evolution in 20 Photos  Teenager: Hillary Rodham poses in her 1965 senior class portrait from Park Ridge East High School in Illinois. AP  Law School Student: Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham pose for a snapshot at Yale Law School in 1972\. They married in 1975. Clinton Presidential Library  Mother: Clinton poses with her husband, Bill, then in his first term as governor, with their week-old daughter, Chelsea, on March 5, 1980. Donald R. Broyles—AP  Campaign Companion: Clinton celebrates her husband's victory in a Democratic runoff in Little Rock, Ark. on June 8, 1982. AP  Arkansas First Lady: Clinton is seen in her inaugural ball gown in 1985. A. Lynn—AP  Political Wife: Clinton celebrates her husband's inauguration in Little Rock on Sept. 20, 1991. Danny Johnston—AP  Dignitary: Clinton receives an honorary law degree from Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., on May 30, 1992. Chris Ocken—AP  Campaigner: Clinton speaks at a meeting during the presidential campaign for her husband in Buffalo, N.Y., on April 4, 1992. Bill Sikes—AP  First Lady: Clinton appears at the MTV Inauguration Ball at the Washington Convention Center on Jan. 20, 1993. Shayna Brennan—AP  Second-Term First Lady: Clinton attends the Inaugural Ball after her husband was sworn in to a second term on Jan. 20, 1997. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  New York Senator: Clinton speaks at a press conference with female Democratic senators in Washington on June 21, 2006. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Committee Member: Clinton listens to the testimony of Lt. General David Petraeus to the Senate Armed Forces Committee at a hearing on Capital Hill in Washington on Jan. 23, 2007. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Candidate: Clinton holds a a campaign event in Portsmouth, N.H., while running for the Democratic presidential nomination on Sept. 2, 2007. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Campaigner: Clinton speaks at a campaign stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Jan. 2, 2008. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Secretary of State: Clinton kisses President Obama at a joint session of Congress in Washington on Feb. 24, 2009. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Witness: Clinton joins Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Dec. 3, 2009. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Witness: Clinton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Jan. 23, 2013. J. Scott Applewhite—AP  Author: Clinton attends a signing memoir, "Hard Choices," at a Costco in Arlington, Va., on June 14, 2014. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Grandmother: Clinton holds her granddaughter Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City on Sept. 27, 2014. Office of President Clinton/AP  Once and Future Candidate: Clinton speaks at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa, on Sept. 14, 2014. 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