Rachel Maddow of MSNBC Friday hosted what was billed as a “first in the South” forum for the Democratic presidential candidates, offering them a chance to reach a more conservative audience that has been hostile to the Democratic Party in recent years.

Instead, during their appearance with the leftist anchor before a progressive audience at Winthrop University in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley tried to out-sprint each other to the far left of American politics.

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Clinton accused right-wingers of engendering “a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety and (creating) a backlash” that led to a defeat this week of an LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance in Houston. She offered a full-throated endorsement of the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of “marriage equality” over the summer.

“What we haven’t yet done is to deal with the discrimination that still exists,” she said, adding that gays can “get married on Saturday and get fired on Monday.”

Clinton said she is a champion of the “left behind, marginalized” and argued that anyone who thinks she is compromised by her close ties to Wall Street does not know her. She said Obama was too busy rescuing America from an economic crisis he inherited to really achieve progressive reforms.

“President Obama doesn’t get the credit he deserves for the great job that he’s done,” she said. “I want to build on the progress he made, but I want to go further.”

Sanders, meanwhile, offered his familiar critique against millionaires and billionaires who have created a “rigged” economic system.

“The middle class of our country is disappearing in South Carolina and in Vermont,” he said. “People are working two and three jobs.”

Meanwhile, he said, the benefits of the economy are going to a “handful of billionaires.”

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Sanders reiterated his call for a $15 minimum wage, a “speculation tax” on Wall Street and tuition-free college. He also blasted “political cowards” for trying to prevent Americans from voting, which is how he characterized ballot-security measures like photo identification laws.

Sanders said the country should consider a constitutional amendment automatically registering every American to vote after reaching the age of 18.

“They are afraid of a fair election,” he said of opponents.

O’Malley billed himself as a liberal with great progressive achievements that included gun control, repeal of the death penalty, marijuana decriminalization and same-sex marriage. He promised to raise the minimum wage, improve women’s rights in the workplace, transform to a “clean” energy grid by 2050, break down immigration restrictions and increase gay rights.

He mocked Republicans by saying the Democrats “actually believe in science.” He said he would turn aggressively away from fossil fuels.

Sanders and O’Malley both criticized Clinton, but it was mild. 

“We did not land a man on the moon with an all-of-the-above strategy,” he said.

O’Malley also endorsed a “war tax.” Indicating his faith in a large, expansive government, O’Malley said he rejected the premise of one question asking him to choose between a manned mission to Mars or coast-to-coast high-speed rail. American can do both, he said.

O’Malley not only endorsed the proposals of the Black Lives Matter movement but also said “almost all of their agenda” is politically realistic.

Sanders and O’Malley both criticized Clinton, but it was mild. When Maddow noted that all three candidates agree with President Obama’s decision Friday to reject the XL Keystone pipeline, O’Malley said, “But Secretary Clinton got there just last week. And I was against it a year ago.”

Sanders said it was insufficient to merely “talk the talk” on campaign finance reform. He said he would not have run for president if he “believed that establishment politics and establishment economics could solve the very serious problems that we have.”

All three candidates talked about the need to be, as Sanders put it, “a 50-state party.” But the policies they talked about had the Left Coast and the Northeastern U.S. written all over them.