It doesn’t matter who “won”. Please vote in the unscientific, informal poll below.
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For Democrats anxious about Hillary Clinton’s uneven performance on the campaign trail, a strong debate showing last night should do much to assuage those concerns.
Heading into Tuesday night, there was unanimous agreement that the total audience would be lower than the 25 million who tuned in for Fox’s Republican debate on August 6. It was a debate that would make Americans feel better about the future of their country.
“We were over the moon”, said former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Clinton backer who’d traveled to Las Vegas to watch the first such confrontation between the 2016 Democratic nomination contenders. Lincoln Chafee trailed for most of the debate – he didn’t speak at all between the second and third breaks. As much as a few headlines talked about the “exchanges” between Clinton and Sanders, the simple truth is that when Cooper asked the other candidates about their ever-so-mild pre-debate critiques of Clinton, they folded like a cheap suitcase.
Tuesday’s encounter was the first of six scheduled Democratic debates that will be held between now and early March.
Steve Schale, who ran Obama’s presidential campaigns in Florida and is advising Draft Biden, said the performance of Sanders and the other candidates on the stage offered evidence of why there’s still a window for Biden to run.
David Axelrod, an unaligned Democratic strategist who helped mastermind Obama’s 2008 campaign, said on Wednesday Clinton emerged stronger with a “very self-assured, powerful performance” that should give Biden pause, while Sanders had a solid performance but fell short of projecting the persona of a nominee. The public will weigh in.
Even with Sanders dismissal of the email issue, Clinton faces a slow-drip of news on that subject, a result of a court order mandating monthly releases of her correspondence.
John Podesta, chairman of the Clinton campaign, said Wednesday that Biden needed to come to a decision soon about whether he wants to jump into the race.
Hillary Clinton was more cautious, saying she was not ready to take a position on broad legalization even though she supports medical marijuana. These are not bad things; it might still be what it takes to win elections in the US and this is important. “And, you know, I think that we will have a healthy and respectful debate amongst friends about the direction of the economy, the direction of foreign policy”.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, left, and Hillary Rodham Clinton… He is now introduced to many people who have not heard of him or heard his message.
Sanders said he would shut down the National Security Agency surveillance program because “virtually every telephone call in this country ends up in a file at the NSA”, adding: “That is unacceptable to me”.
Hillary Clinton: How are we going to get health care for everybody…
“The numbers were smaller, but the issues were bigger”, Jackson said. Will he get enough millions? Despite criticism from her opponents and questions about whether she’s prepared to say anything to get elected, she never appeared rattled or surprised by what came at her. They disagreed on Clinton’s support of a no-fly zone in Syria and Sanders’ support for legalizing pot. And Webb was channeling Rand Paul.
Bernie Sanders foreshadowed a subdued debate without attacks. She acknowledged that all the candidates on stage had “changed a position or two” during their political careers.
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Neither Democrat had a problem returning the favor. Together with the bare facts of the retreat at Walden, those lines have become the ones by which we adumbrate Thoreau, so that our image of the man has also become simplified and inspirational.
