Share

Clinton wins Round One

But Clinton appears to have picked up the support of a number of undecided voters, increasing her support from 44% to 52%. A recent Bernie Sanders convert, Jeffrey Cherisol of Saint Petersburg, said Sanders did well addressing a hard issue.

Advertisement

Sanders, a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist”, spoke with grace and conviction about the income inequality facing the nation, taking a strong stance against large financial institutions where other candidates tried to divert the blame for the nation’s monetary woes. Jim Webb, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, and O’Malley – in their first face-to-face encounter. But I think the Secretary is right.

56% of Democrats watched at least highlights of the debate, which is comparable to the 59% of Republicans who did the same for their party’s first debate in August. “I wish I had brought in one other candidate before I went to Sanders on the email thing because I knew Sanders would try to shut it down”, said the debate host.

The Biden question: Vice President Joe Biden has been publicly weighing whether to jump into the race for weeks.

“I’m a progressive”, said Clinton.

“Maybe the Democrats, headed by whoever might be heading it, maybe they said, ‘This is the way we want it, and we insist on doing it this way”, he said. Mrs Clinton won a huge round of applause when she said: “This has gone on too long and it’s time the entire country stood up against the NRA [National Rifle Association]”. As Sen. Sanders put it, drawing raucous applause from the frequently loud crowd: “Enough of the emails”. It’s time to talk about the real issues. Unlike Clinton, however, Sanders’ political contributions have come from 1.3 million small donations from grassroots supporters. According to him, he’s for the people. Several such clashes have already taken place, and there are more to come, including Jake Tapper’s CNN interview with Clinton this afternoon.

Sen. Sanders: “Do I consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by which so few have so much and so many have so little, by which Wall Street’s greed and recklessness wrecked this economy?”

Clinton wasn’t going to fall apart, noting during the email back-and-forth, “I’m still standing”.

Advertisement

Primary debates at similar points in past election cycles averaged 2 to 5 million viewers. The letter did not indicate whether Biden had made a decision, but did sketch out what a potential candidacy could look like, and promised that a decision would be made soon.

Mr Sanders speaking at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena earlier this month