BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CN) — In the U.S. political lexicon, perhaps no phrase inspires more cynicism than the "spin room," where throngs of reporters thrust microphones in front of campaign surrogates to massage their candidate's message.
At Thursday night's Democratic debate inside the Navy Yards, however, the mouthpieces for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders also included newsmakers prominent in the same controversies discussed that night on the stage of the repurposed Brooklyn Navy Yards warehouse.
Fielding questions in Clinton's corner about the state's new $15 minimum wage, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo confronted the boos his name elicited from teachers at a recent rally by the former first lady.
Cuomo faced a similar tension Thursday as the president of the teachers' union stumped for Clinton while also criticizing the governor's education policy.
Lack of foreign-policy experience has long been seen by many pundits - some say unfairly - as an Achilles' heel for Sanders this primary season, but a prominent Palestinian-American activist praised the U.S. senator from Vermont for speaking out about war, unemployment and suffering in Gaza.
Courthouse News asked the spinners about the intersection between their life's work and the debate.
The Cuomo Sword and Shield
CNN's debate moderator Wolf Blitzer invoked Cuomo's name first on the stage with a question pressing Clinton on why her support for a $15 minimum wage in New York did not extend nationwide.
When asked if she would sign a federal equivalent from a Democratic Congress, Clinton replied: "Well, of course I would."
In previous debates, Clinton said that she would push for a raise to $12 a hour, still well above the $7.50 hourly wages of today, and Sanders picked up on the discrepancies in her evolving stances.
"I am sure a lot of people are very surprised to learn that you supported raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour," Sanders said.
Struggling to clarify her position, Clinton reached out for a gubernatorial lifeline by telling viewers that she was "proud to stand on the stage" with Cuomo on April 4, the day he signed the recent increase.
Touting the governor's endorsement hasn't always worked out well for Clinton.
Days before the debate, Clinton delivered a closed-door speech to a friendly teachers union in Rochester, New York, where the crowd jeered after she said Cuomo deserved credit for getting the minimum-wage bill enacted.
Asked about this incident in the spin room, Cuomo candidly acknowledged that his support for a controversial standardized-testing policy was to blame.
"Teachers don't like Common Core, or the implementation of Common Core," he said in an interview.
Often attacked from the right as a federal encroachment on state boards of education, Common Core has come under increasing fire from the left for putting too much emphasis on testing to determine the fates of teachers and schools.
In an interview, Cuomo blamed its poor reception largely on its implementation with the Board of Regents, which is not affiliated with his office.
"The way Common Core was rolled out, it was done very poorly," he said. "It created a lot of resentment. The teachers weren't ready. The parents weren't ready. The students weren't ready, and they're still feeling the reverberation of that."