My personal opinion: I felt that Hillary was the clear winner of last night’s debate. She was strong, quick on her feet, humorous. I feel her performance ended Joe Biden’s presidential aspirations outright, unless something shocking and unknown happens at the Partisan Get Hillary Committee hearing next week. Biden is back to being an emergency Plan B candidate. The viscous cycle of bad press and thus bad poll numbers and thus bad press and thus bad poll numbers is ended by the debate. Reports were that Hillary’s campaign team were ecstatic after the debate, and as well they should be.
Bernie Sanders had some good moments, and two or three awful ones. His gun control position, and his unprepared, unsure and halting response to the criticism, were horrible. He had to have known he would be attacked for that, and that was the answer he came up with. And his Syria answers were not ready for primetime. But the best moment of the night, the moment that probably will stand out to most people and the media, was his very charming and very New York exclamation: “enough about her damn emails!”
I grew to openly despise Jim Webb over the course of the evening. First, stop complaining about your time. No one likes whiners. Second, is he sure he is on the right stage? Seems more suited to the Republican party.
Lincoln Chafee should drop out. Now. This very second.
And Martin O’Malley had one really good and emotional answer, and his overall performance was probably good enough to be regarded officially as “the third candidate.”
The first Democratic presidential debate was much better than expected and that’s largely due to the fact that there were only five candidates on the stage. Republicans should hope that most of their candidates drop out soon.
Hillary Clinton was the clear winner. She was well prepared for every question and left the other candidates far behind. She might not be exciting and she might be grating to those tired of her, but she’s certainly the most qualified Democrat running to be president. She only helped her candidacy tonight.
Bernie Sanders is an important voice and source of energy for the Democratic party. He did a well on issues such as the “rigged economy” and campaign finance, but struggled badly on gun control and foreign policy. Nonetheless, Sanders has tapped into something very important that Democrats must harness if they want to win in 2016.
Martin O’Malley is what Donald Trump would call a “low energy” candidate. He’s mostly auditioning to be Clinton’s running mate but when he attempted to criticize her she gave him a look which suggested he might no longer be on the short list.
I’m not sure why Jim Webb, who was whiny about debate rules, and Lincoln Chafee, who was just terrible, even bother running.
The biggest losers were Republicans trying to use the Benghazi Committee to investigate Hillary Clinton’s email problems. It has energized Democrats and has backfired big time as a political issue.
Backfired big time. Indeed, if what the ex-staffer says is true, every Republican on the committee must be indicted.
Brian Beutler at the New Republic says Hillary Clinton nailed it:
In its entirety, the debate underlined key ideological and strategic differences between the candidates—particularly the leading candidates, Clinton and Bernie Sanders. But at a more ostensible level, it provided Clinton the first opportunity she’s had in months to remind nervous supporters why they assumed she’s had a lock on the nomination all along, and served as a reminder that a Democratic president in 2017 won’t first and foremost be a font of liberal reform, but a bulwark against a conservative counterrevolution against the Obama era. […]
Clinton outshone her rivals on Tuesday night in Las Vegas in several different ways. Two Democratic candidates—Jim Webb and Lincoln Chaffee—were frankly painful to watch, like single-A ball players whiffing against a big league power pitcher.
Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley played an interesting and substantive role. He delivered persuasive moral arguments for progressive policy, and provided a strong reminder that just a few weeks ago, eleven Republicans were angling to be the most reactionary and insensitive candidate on their own debate stage. But he frequently offered up the kind of canned, and over-mannered answers we were primed to expect from Clinton.
Sanders was the only candidate who came close to matching Clinton’s ease and enthusiasm, but he lacked the kind of rhetorical quickness that at one point allowed Clinton to gain cover for her own support for the Iraq war from Barack Obama’s opposition to it. […]
The candidates spent depressingly little time explaining how they’ll grapple with [Republican] obstruction, apart from striving for consensus. But Clinton more than the others seemed to grasp the importance of reminding the audience that the obstacles a Democratic president will face will be a small price to pay for not handing all three branches of government over to the right.
That is my number one issue and concern. I want to support the candidate that can best defeat the Republican, and not take a flyer on someone like we did on 2008. If this were 2008, I would be for Bernie Sanders. It is 2016, the Republican Party has learned nothing from its past mistakes, and they have committed new and more horrible crimes and they openly admit they will destroy the country once in office. So yeah, I will not be taking any flyers this time around. If Bernie Sanders can prove to me that he is most electable candidate, fine. But he didn’t last night. Clinton did.
Jonathan Chait says the Hillary Clinton Panic among Democrats just ended:
Hillary Clinton’s campaign spent most of the last year descending inexorably into depression and even panic. But the first Democratic presidential debate may have finally turned the tide, or at least stopped her fall. Clinton demonstrated that she was, by far, the best presidential candidate on stage. Indeed, she may have been the only person on stage actually running for president. Lincoln Chaffee touted his lack of scandals as an oblique contrast to the front-runner. Martin O’Malley tried to play up his more left-wing position on Glass-Steagall financial regulation. But none of them waged the kind of frontal assault that would be required to dislodge a front-runner who commands Clinton’s breadth of institutional support. Indeed, in what may be the most important moment of the debate, Bernie Sanders declared, to her insufficiently-suppressed delight, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.” […]
Clinton came into the debate with a clear plan to position herself as Obama’s successor. Asked how she would not simply offer a third Obama term, Clinton replied that she would be the first woman president. Asked for a policy-based difference, Clinton proposed to extend and deepen Obama’s program rather than abandon or correct it.
It may be obvious in retrospect, but few people predicted beforehand just how thoroughly the debate atmosphere would play to Clinton’s advantage. The media has viewed her campaign message almost entirely through the filter of the email scandal. Clinton was able to use the poorly-disguised partisan excesses of her Republican tormentors in Congress to escape responsibility for a serious error in judgment on her part, framing the issue (not altogether inaccurately) as a partisan fight, so that Democrats would rally to her side. She further played off the campaign media, casting its email obsession as an unworthy distraction from the policy discussion that she, her fellow candidates, and nearly all the Democratic voters want to hear. Clinton, suddenly finding a moral ground on which to stand (which the news media had denied her for months), burst out in uncontrollable glee.
He says she is once again the all but certain Democratic nominee.
Jonathan Allen says Hillary silenced her critics:
This is the Hillary Clinton Democrats have been waiting for.
The most important aspect of Clinton’s performance in Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate, though, wasn’t whether she won — she did — but how she connected with progressive Democrats who worry whether she shares their values and whether she can withstand Republican attacks on her policies and character.
She was confident about the substance of her campaign and comfortable in making the case that her policies are the right ones to move the country forward — even if they don’t always sound like a wish list for the left.
“I’m a progressive who likes to get things done,” she explained when CNN moderator Anderson Cooper asked to label her politics. […]
Clinton’s never going to be the perfect candidate for the left wing of the Democratic Party. She’s too much of a capitalist, too willing to use military force and too willing to shift positions to make all liberals love her. But she can be inspiring on a lot of issues that do matter to progressives and good enough on most of the others.
What she needed to do Tuesday night was three-pronged: remind Democrats of what they like about her, reassure them that she’s on their side and convince them that she’s the most likely to win the general election. There wasn’t anyone else on the stage Tuesday night who is nearly as plausible a president.
At one point, Clinton noted that after years of congressional investigation into the Benghazi attacks and her emails, “I am still standing.”
“Hillary has a very strong night. Bernie has a very strong night. They are running one-two in this race, and they are probably stronger now than they were entering the debate. It complicates the rationale for a late entry.” — David Axelrod, quoted by Politico, on the prospects for Vice President Joe Biden entering the presidential race.
Matthew Yglesias on the surprisingly entertaining debate:
In the end, the debate was in many ways surprisingly entertaining. Webb fondly remembered having killed a man, Sanders yelled a lot (including at one point yelling about the inefficacy of yelling as a strategy for political change), and Chafee became the butt of dozens of jokes for a hilariously inept effort to beg off responsibility for a 1999 bank regulation vote on the grounds that he was new in the Senate and his dad had just died.
But most of all, Clinton reminded Democrats why they like her. With the attention focused on policy rather than email, she showed off her superior range and depth of knowledge and repeatedly reminded the party faithful of her long record as a fighter for the causes she believes in. Sanders held his own and will continue to be a hero to his fan base, but did nothing to really hurt her or expand his appeal.
Rebecca Traister at the New Yorker says Democrats can stop freaking out about 2016.
Okay, Eeyores, let’s snap out of it. Tuesday night should mark the end of what has felt like an endless phase of Democratic (and media) bedwetting about Hillary Clinton, the state of the party, and the general grimness of this year’s presidential prospects.
From Las Vegas, we saw what was surely one of the higher quality debates Democrats (and certainly Republicans) have held in ages, and it was especially good if you were a Hillary Clinton supporter, a Bernie Sanders supporter, a left-of-center Democrat or anyone who is deeply sick of reading Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Banished were fears of an unlikable, unrelatable, robotic Clinton: Vegas Hillary was relaxed, confident, playful, eager to acknowledge her fellow debaters mostly as allies, with allusions to the years they’d spent together in the political trenches; she even made a joke about how it takes her longer to pee. Yes, she went after Bernie on guns (fairly) and he after her on Iraq (also fairly) but this was a debate; impassioned argument is supposed to be part of the deal. Mostly, Clinton was as loose as she’s been for a while. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her pull off a televised moment as nimbly as she did the one in which moderator Anderson Cooper asked if she wanted to respond to Lincoln Chafee’s long-winded complaint about her email issues and transparency by saying simply, “No.”
She and Sanders both looked spiffy and happy to be there: her hair was soft, his brushed. Each seemed to enjoy talking with the other. He gave her the night’s biggest Valentine, with his declaration that “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” but she responded in kind, with genuine gratitude and a warm smile.
The truth is, Sanders has offered Clinton – and Democrats – a million gifts so far this season. Among the most valid fears was that Hillary’s candidacy would go unchallenged, would proceed as a coronation. But the senator from Vermont has already ensured that this won’t be the case. He is a serious challenger, a smart and good man who is probably going to beat her in early states, and perhaps beyond. This is not bad news for Hillary. As tonight’s debate showed, it’s great news. It means there’s someone to keep her on her game; no Hillary is worse than a coasting Hillary. It means an engaged electorate and candidates who need to pay attention to the direction in which their party’s voters want to go.
I am looking at you Jason330. Snap out of it.
Unfortunately for Biden, Hillary Clinton’s adult performance just made it a lot harder for him to take a seat at the table. […]
Clinton inarguably made that choice a lot more difficult. She confidently dispatched tough questions about her flip-flops on trade and the Iraq War. She embraced Obama’s achievements while deftly saying she would go “beyond” his record on student debt and healthcare. And she got the greatest gift she could hope for when Sanders declared her emails a non-issue. Clinton’s spontaneous, and warm, embrace of Sanders after their exchange showed that, no, she’s not a robot.
Going into tonight, Clinton’s strategy was to make Biden seem “unimportant” by focusing on substance and policy. On those fronts she delivered big, and did much to sooth the fears of her anxious supporters.
Suzy Khimm on why Bernie Sanders lost the debate:
Bernie Sanders had a big test at the first Democratic debate: to prove that he could broaden his appeal enough to be a genuine threat to Hillary Clinton for the nomination. While the Vermont senator has made recent gains in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, he’s still more than 20 points behind her on average—and that’s with Joe Biden listed as an option and drawing support from Clinton. After Sanders’ poll numbers rose sharply in the summer, he’s plateaued, stuck in the mid-20s. That raises the question of how much higher he can really go, especially with Clinton’s sizable advantages among women and voters of color. Though he had some memorable moments that lit up Twitter on Tuesday, the debate revealed why the political instincts that have fired the progressive base could ultimately keep him from breaking through to the rest of the party. Clearly, Bernie’s gonna be Bernie. […]
Essentially, the debate seemed to confirm that Sanders isn’t interested in stretching himself as a candidate for the sake of broader political appeal. That’s exactly why his supporters love him so much: He is a true believer who believes that “the casino capitalist process” has corrupted the country and is unwavering in his focus on the issue. And that message is having an undeniable impact on the Democratic primary. This debate opened with a discussion between Sanders and Clinton of “Democratic Socialism,” and the merits of capitalism—subjects that would never have arisen without Sanders in the field. But his moments of weakness in the debate also suggested that he doesn’t have the political instincts or the appetite to court voters on issues outside of those policy priorities. And Bernie, being Bernie, would probably consider that a compliment.