The political world is still spinning after Tuesday’s first debate featuring the candidates running for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination on CNN.
Most observers thought a polished, obviously refreshed, strong, smooth and smart Hillary Clinton rose above what had been a halting, often troubled campaign leading up to the debate—the former Secretary of State emerging as a clear winner with momentum behind her back like a winter storm.
For Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who was becoming a real bottom-up populist alternative to the inevitability of Hillary’s nomination, the debate was an opportunity to get the rest of the world that hasn’t glued itself to the campaign doings of the Democrats to get to know him. In ways, both good and not so good, his mission was accomplished—and included a highlight, keeper moment that will become part of campaign lore as things progress nearer to the first votes being cast next year.
As for the rest—former Maryland governor and Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley, ex-marine and former Virginia senator James Webb and former Rhode Island Republican-turned-Democrat senator and governor Lincoln Chaffee, the task was to survive the debate and live to campaign some more. O’Malley—often eloquent and decisive in ways that he has not displayed in a long time—is the most likely survivor of that trio.
Donald Trump somehow managed to inject himself into the debate by tweeting about and not that the debate did not get the kind of ratings that two previous GOP circus-like affairs had managed which was true but also beside the point. Before, he insisted that it would be boring because he wasn’t part of the debate. Among the crowd in Las Vegas, he appeared not to be missed.
The Democratic National Committee said that the Democratic Party was the real winner.
The Republican National Committee questioned Clinton’s victory, claiming that its focus groups had Sanders winning, which may or may not have pragmatic validity. That observation probably says a lot about how the Republicans feel about Clinton—not just that on the whole she has never been a woman particularly loved by the GOP going back to her first lady days, but that they would prefer a candidate they think they can beat.
The result also made Vice President Joe Biden’s potential bid to join the race a little more untenable and also put pressure on him to decide earlier, rather than later. If he does make a decision to run, his entry is bound to seem both quixotic—lack of money—and potentially fraught with turmoil for the party, which in the glowing aftermath of the debate, seems to be coalescing in a way that’s a stark contrast to the GOP, on the campaign trail and in the House of Representatives, which is imploding with division and confusion.
Whether you think Clinton won or not—and it’s pretty clear here that she did—you can definitely agree with the DNC appraisal.
On balance, it’s safe to say that Clinton, seasoned, polished, warm and tough all at the same time, and insistent to the point of steamrolling, was the best debater, and probably the most qualified candidate—barring Biden, should he enter.
But it’s also right to say—as the DNC did—that the Democratic Party was the real winner. Compared to the two Republican debates, the Democrats looked like a spirited but friendly argument among Mensa members. The GOP debates, featured at one point a total of 17 candidates tiered into two different debates. They had all the substance of a reality, be it “Storage Wars,” “Duck Dynasty” or “The Apprentice.” The star was always Trump, and a supporting cast that in each aftermath didn’t put a serious dent into the P.T. Barnum of America and his stay on top of the polls, which has only strengthened during the last week or so.
Mind you, the GOP set the bar pretty low. CNN’s debate moderator Anderson Cooper, looking a little like a modern bust of Robespierre, tried continually to goad the candidates into fighting with each other, but nobody was having any of that. This aversion to combat reached a high point when Cooper gave Sanders a perfect opportunity to attack Clinton on her twin e-mail and Benghazi troubles but Sanders declined forcefully by saying that “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about her damn e-mails. “Me, too, me, too,” Clinton chimed in. As the two rivals shook hands, the crowd roared, which unnerved Cooper a little, although he tried to keep the issue going with little success.
Clinton, while she was cordial with everyone, did not return Sander’s favor by saying he was wrong on gun control. She promises to take on the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobby which has stopped every promising effort at gun control except the Brady Bill, which eventually died of its own accord and a lack of support in Congress.
The candidates sparred about foreign affairs, about ISIS and China—Webb warned that China was the real danger to the United States—about the Iran treaty, about Syria, about spending, economic issues far and wide. Not a word about abortion, assaults on a candidate’s physical appearance or name-calling. No one used such affirmative words as “amazing” or “fantastic,” although they did talk about affirmative action. No one claimed that anything was “going to be huge.”
Sanders got the exposure he wanted, and in his sincerity and passion about the gap between rich and poor, the need for free college education, the need to rein in Wall Street, and other issues which are part of the canon of the progressive part of the party, he was often inspiring, always consistent, but in the end, also a little bit shrill. He was equal parts prophet sounding the alarm, and candidate promising change. Sanders explained his opposition to the Viet Nam War, saying he was a young man then. “I am not a young man now,” he said in a bittersweet tone. He said he was not a pacifist and could indeed be a commander-in-chief.
Clinton listed her experience as a senator and secretary of state, even though her record as secretary of state is being challenged in two congressional oversight hearings, where she will have to testify.
Clinton—by touting her persona and her experience in government and as a debater—clearly put some steel back into a campaign that had appeared to be floundering. It’s plain to see that Sanders is a new force in American politics, even though he has spent all of his political life as an elected official. In some ways, he is the Democrat version of GOP outsiders Trump, Fiorino and Carson—the important difference, being in matters of intelligence, experience, compassion, eloquence and class.
