Because I can’t help myself and I also like to know what I’m talking about, I stayed up super late and watched a replay of the first Democratic debate. This also meant that I overslept, but at least I now know what I’m talking about.
I have a lot of impressions to share about what I saw. For starters, there was a lot of novelty to the debate and it wasn’t really predictable at all, which made it much more interesting to watch than most debates. It’s a strange thing to watch two Democrats debate a socialist, a former Republican senator, and Jim Webb. We have a big tent, indeed.
What struck me about Clinton was that she appeared almost jovial and much more relaxed than she usually seems. She had some awkward moments, of course, and some of her answers were so scripted that they made me cringe. But she came across as happy to be there, mostly enjoying herself and the process, and ready enough to answer the questions that she had little difficulty adding little flourishes and quite a bit of passion to her answers. For a candidate who has been in a bit of a bunker and often displays a bunker attitude, this was a significantly better-than-average performance. I say this knowing that it’s focused on superficial aspects rather than the substance of her answers, but it isn’t substantive answers that Clinton needed to improve on. She has to be likable. She has to establish trust. She can’t appear defensive and secretive, and she definitely doesn’t want to come across as petulant or entitled. This is why the superficial stuff is so important for her. And I’d have to give her very high marks for style.
Bernie had an opportunity to do three things. First, he got to introduce himself to everyone who cares about politics more than baseball, which must be a few hundred thousand people, at least. Second, he got a chance to demonstrate that he can stand on the stage with a seasoned campaigner and debater and hold his own under hostile questioning. Third, he got a chance to create a sound byte that would be replayed all day today.
On all three tests, he did an outstanding job. Let’s face it, Bernie can be a little gruff. But he didn’t come across that way except when he was blasting the moderators and the media for obsessing over Clinton’s emails, and that was his sound byte and the highlight of the night. He got a good grilling from the moderators and some sharp criticism from Clinton and Jim Webb, but he stood up under the pressure. So, I think he’ll be fine in future debates and probably improve with each one.
Martin O’Malley has some crowd-pleasing moments and I can’t really find much to fault him on. If I have one criticism or critique, it’s that he doesn’t have a lot of presence. He seemed smaller somehow than the other candidates, even the meek Lincoln Chafee. Sanders, Clinton and Webb have a way of grabbing your attention when they speak that O’Malley lacks even when he’s speaking with passion. This was also his first stint on the big stage, and that could be part of the problem. He was willing to make some sharp contrasts with Clinton which earned him a withering gaze or two. This was good, because a lot of people suspect that he is auditioning for a place on the ticket and no one wants to see a tomato can of a debater. I suspect that there are lot of people who were seeing him for the first time, and there wasn’t much not to like. So, I think he helped himself.
A lot of people are talking about Lincoln Chafee’s supposedly flubbed answer for why he voted to repeal Glass-Steagall. I actually thought it was a refreshingly honest answer. It was his first vote in the Senate and he had just been appointed after the death of his father. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, and he was basically unprepared to take a contrary position. In other words, if the bill had been contentious at the time and if he had had more time to prepare and understand the issues, he would have voted against repeal, but that wasn’t the situation he was in.
I think that’s an adequate excuse, frankly, and I’m grateful to see a politician explain why they screwed up and ask for people to give them a bit of a break.
That doesn’t mean that it will sell well after if goes through the post-debate media meat grinder, but I still liked his answer. Chafee seems to be there to be the peace candidate which is fine by me. It means he isn’t a waste of space. But he’s close to that because he doesn’t have any additional rationale for his candidacy other than that he’s scandal-free and didn’t get taken in by Dick Cheney’s information war machine the way that Clinton did back in 2002.
Jim Webb was interesting mainly because he is unpredictable. I didn’t really know what he was going to say until he said it. What he said, though, is not what a person says if they want to win the Democratic nomination. What he did was introduce some different perspectives that the other candidates had to adjust to on the fly, and that made his contribution worthy. It prevented the thing from devolving into an exercise is oneupmanship as each candidate tries to outflank the others from the left.
I might focus more on substantive aspects of this debate in a later post, but this superficial response is all I have right now. It was a much better discussion than what we see in the Republican debates. If there was any group-delusion is was that anything can get done as long as the Republicans remain locked in the grip of collective insanity. But even that bubble was pierced on several occasions.
My understanding from reading Blue Virginia is Webb does not have any campaign staff
Do not know why he is running
I found his references to killing someone a little bizarre.
He is an odd duck, clearly. If he is going to run, he needs to get some funding, and hire staff. It’s ridiculous to allow him to take up oxygen on the stage if he has no staff.
He represents people like me, who are more on the right than many Democrats. However, if he is just going to pretend to run, it’s annoying.
Same reason as half the republican field, really.
Webb gets to raise his profile. To what ends, who knows, but most signs point towards personal profit.
I was struck by the gun issue, and how Sanders was put on the defensive by it. The gun issue isn’t important to me (since I don’t think the Supreme Court will allow much to be done). It may matter more to the base.
By contrast, anytime Iraq comes up Clinton winds up treading water, and I thought she did so last night.
FWIW there are really only three campaigns here in NH – neither Webb nor Chaffee have campaign staff in the way the other three campaigns do. In this sense O”Malley’s campaign is qualitatively different from Webb and Chaffee.
Appears as if you and I watched the same debate.
Although in Chafee’s Glass-Steagall answer you better heard the “refreshing” element and I better heard the “excuse making” component while recognizing that with good prep work he could have turned it into a very strong answer. While also not as well articulated as they could have been, Chafee did display a better grasp of the reality in the ME and the various regional inter-relationships including Russia than any of the others.
High stylistic marks for Clinton from me as well. However, as with Reagan, those with some knowledge of or experience in acting cannot not see tricks of the trade. And in her case because she doesn’t have natural acting ability, appreciate how much work went into getting her there.
He [O’Malley] seemed smaller somehow than the other candidates,…
Consistent with other O’Malley appearances I’ve seen on video/TV. It’s as if all his conventional physical attributes that put him at the top of a scale combined for a camera knock him down to a five. He did display an appropriate amount of passion, gravitas, and knowledge (well prepared); so, there was no problem there. It’s possible that he does lack what we call charisma or it gets washed out by cameras. (Hollywood knows to pass on good looking guys like O’Malley for leading roles.)
I thought Chafee’s response to Webb on the Mideast was a miss. He attacked Webb for saying the Iran treaty let Russia in, which I don’t think Webb quite said,though he was happy to endorse the position. This is too complicated a question to score points on in a debate. He should have attacked Webb for saying the Iran treaty allows Iran to get nukes. Instead,he gave Webb an opportunity to backtrack a little without seeming to.
Stipulated that Chafee was neither well prepared nor naturally articulate. A shame really because he could make a meaningful contribution to the debate.
I remember the 2012 convention when they let O’Malley speak after Governor Patrick. The contrast was obvious.
Yes. That was the first time I saw him speak.
The two statements that should be getting much more attention are Jim Webb’s statement that the Iran treaty allows them to get nukes, and Clinton’s statement that the Iranians are one of the enemies of whom she is most proud. That says not only that she sees the Iranians (and the way she stated it means the people, not the country, thought that is probably not what she meant) as an enemy, but that she wants them to be an enemy – that she is proud to call them enemies. This is a shockingly inappropriate statement and sentiment from a former SOS and Presidential contender regarding a country with which we are trying to improve relations.
YES!
I was shocked and appalled when I heard this from her last night. I cannot imagine that we would have achieved the agreement with Iran if she had still been our Secretary of State.
Going by the demographics, Iran is dying. It’s not as in terrible shape as other countries, but it’s far from a healthy country. Obama is and was absolutely right to throw them a lifeline. The United States could have a genuine friend (not a stupid backstabbing friend like Israel or Saudi Arabia, a real one) if they play their cards right. But Clinton, man.
Clinton’s foreign policy is PNAC’s. Iran was designated for conquest long ago. Remember her trying to outMcCain McCain in 2008?
Iran used to belong to British Petroleum, and clearly Carter didn’t reconquer it. Then Iran became the Republicans’ secret buddies during Iran-contra. Now not so much.
Here’s the thing. In case you missed it, the US has been fighting wars in that area of the world to control the petroleum stuff in the ground. I’m not sure when it was first drawn up, but by the mid-nineties Brezsinki (sic) and the oil companies had their plans for a pipeline from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India and all those factories where American jobs went. I suspect that it may have been on the drawing board back when we started giving Osama and the Mujahadeen their TOW missiles to knock out the Russians there. And in fact in the first summer of the Dubya years Colin Powell had worked out a deal for the pipeline with the Taliban. Then the Taliban backed off the deal. Then 9/11 conveniently occurred and the rest is bloody history.
The problem, aside from the difficulty in pacifying the region to make it safe for plunder, is that Iran wants to run a pipeline to India. That would cut US oil companies out of the picture. Iran also made an agreement with the old Shia leader in Iraq (forgot his name) and Assad to run a natural gas pipeline from Iran through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean. It would be a Shia (and friends) pipeline, in stark opposition to our allies the Sunni Salafist House of Saud. In fact, the US began the slow process of overthrowing Assad began right about the time of that pipeline’s announcement, in 2011.
So when Clinton says that Iran is her (our) greatest enemy, it’s got nothing to do with a possible nuclear bomb. They are a threat to all the oil profits to be made. I wouldn’t doubt that Putin is throwing his lot in with the Shia. Maybe he’ll join in on the Shia pipeline with Iran, Iraq and Syria.
Ah, but Russia and the ‘stans were so close to being ours after the capitalist free for all. The new Russian oligarchs did get a bit greedy and Yeltsin was an unhealthy old drunk, but “we” were so close. Until Putin emerged and snatched it all back.
I want to point out something else: Clinton called for a no-fly zone in Syria. This puts us in direct military confrontation with Russia, something we tried to avoid in the Cold War and have far less reason to do now. She says this is to bring Russia to the table, but the obstacle here seems to be our insistence that Russia betray Assad, which is stupid and unreasonable. She is saying this to an audience unlikely to be sympathetic – it seems unlikely this stance is advisable, even from a GE standpoint – and despite the fact that it contradicts the policy of a President in whose administration she served. The Iran comment too was off-the-cuff (“Of which enemies are you the proudest?” is not a debate question you prep for). I think, therefore, that these comments are sincere and that Clinton is signaling – unconsciously because this is politically ill-advised – that she wants war. If you are proud to call the Iranians your enemies and you want to establish military control of the region while Putin is trying to clean up the mess your country made (Putin is doing it for his own selfish reasons, of course, and it is very much not a good thing that he is the one doing it, but what he is doing is, by and large, what needs to be done, and what we are doing is foolishness), you are asking for war. And in an absurd situation. Because we would be getting into a war on which we have no side. The people we back are too insignificant to rule if we handed them power on a platter. We would have to do it all, and we have already shown that we cannot.
And this, too, is a danger to our coalition on top of all the other things horrifically wrong with it. When the body bags start coming back and the people without limbs, when the cities of the mideast burn in ruins, and all the intelligence and treasure we need to solve our real problems is deflected into making Clinton proud to kill Iranians “but she’s the first woman President”, “Sanders’ supporters are a bunch of privileged white males”, and “he said all lives matter, not black lives matter (the first time)” are going to sound very hollow.
That was a good, can’t-prep-for, question because unlike most of those quick take throw in questions, the answers were informative. Here are the ones given.
Chafee’s was convoluted and poorly articulated (as were most of his answers), but he did have to go first on this question.
Webb’s was too personal and violent.
O’Malley’s lost out due to fact checking: Hard On Guns O’Malley Accepted NRA Money As Chairman Of Democratic Governors Association (which also somewhat undercut one of his better claims for himself earlier in the debate.)
Clinton went with the “kitchen sink” strategy. What’s interesting to me is that not one of those she listed was authentic enough for her individual history or politically savvy to include.
NRA – generic DEM answer because the NRA contributes to at least 90% of DEM opponents and she hasn’t been at the forefront of DEM efforts to reign in the power of the gun lobby.
Health Insurance Companies — half the electorate doesn’t remember that they were behind defeating “HillaryCare” and she wasn’t involved in the PPACA when those companies found common ground with the legislation. In electoral and bully pulpit politics, it’s ill advised to be proud of having an enemy that was the runaway winner.
Drug companies? Guess she was lumping them in with the insurance companies over her health care proposal. More obscure and sort of redundant.
The Iranians. Bad on every level. All the people of an entire nation may be acceptable when that nation has fomented an active war against the US or our allies to move the populace to support active military engagement. Otherwise, it’s the stuff of school yard bullies. With the conclusion of an agreement with Iran, it’s particularly obnoxious. The political party of an administration that achieves any reduction in hostile relations with any country should be irrelevant. Shame on Republicans doing that in this instance. Democrats (other than the Cold War warriors that never wanted it to end) and liberals didn’t decry any arms reductions agreements that GOP Presidents accomplished. Doubly inappropriate to use this when it’s an accomplishment of her former boss. Except for very well informed Americans, they wouldn’t have a clue when or why the government of Iran was her personal enemy.
Probably the Republicans. Probably safe enough but IMO too broad and too generic. “The Republicans in Congress and the media that are using a tragedy at a State Department facility to feather their own political nests” would have been sharper.
Sanders nailed the question.
While I agree that Clinton gave the best performance, I think Bernie may see the poll jump, because this is the first time many people heard what he has to say.
I hope that Bernie gets a big jump from this debate – I certainly felt like he was speaking for me.
Now that some people have seen O’Malley for the first time, I hope that O’Malley gets some attention in the press.
I think the decision by Hillary Clinton to have her own personal email server showed very poor judgment on her part, but I hope that Bernie’s comments and this debate put the email question to bed once and for all.
And I hope that Biden jumps into the race.
I think it would be great to have 4 serious candidates in this race – Biden, Sanders, O’Malley and Clinton.
Second everything you wrote, especially the bit about the email server showing poor judgement. That is what bothers me about that whole thing. I doubt there is or was anything on that server that wouldn’t draw a pass or a tut-tut if it was anyone but Hillary, but because it is Hillary she has a tribe of enemies who will drag the whole thing out to the bitter end just because they can. And the poor judgement is mostly that she had to know that, yet she did it anyway. Bad judgement for a former SOS and current candidate, potentially a geopolitical disaster in the making for a Commander in Chief in today’s world.
You know what the big deal with the emails really is? That it confirms she’s a Zionist tool, among other things. Wonder what it shows re: Keystone.
Her e-mails aren’t necessary, assuming any of them would even expose such information, because she’s publicly stated that she would be a better friend to Israel than Obama has been.
Also including “the Iranians” on her list of those she’s proud to have as an enemy was a dog whistle for those that can hear that pitch.
Ok, I didn’t see the debate, haven’ listened to the debate, don’t know the exact questions that were discussed. I DO, however, follow many people who did exactly those things.
My Take:
Chaffee is dead meat. He just doesn’t have what it takes. And $$$ is only part of it. From what I’m getting on the comments (here and other blogs) no one really knows why he’s running … no one cares, either.
Webb is not only dead, he’s turning rancid. Webb is presumably running for the same reason he ran for Senate: He thinks no one is looking out for the kids who actually have to do the bleeding. However, he’s not doing a very good job of it. He didn’t do much for them in the Senate either, except that he managed to piss of Dubya. Good for him.
Biden wasn’t there. And no one cared.
O’Malley hasn’t got the chops right now, but in the future who knows. He’s got lots of work ahead, but a stint as senator and he’s in the thick of it.
Bernie did great (fantabulous if you already liked him). He was the quintessential Democrat (ala Truman) who is willing to stick it to the man and make it stick … but with class. The thing with gun control showed why you always prepare. In 1990 it was a different age. Shit happens and you might re-think your positions. Bernie has apparently done exactly that. That didn’t come across in any way. If that exchange had come up in a prep session a great answer could have been expounded and Sanders could actually have ended up OWNING the issue. But he didn’t. Too late.
Hillary didn’t implode. She showed appropriate aggressiveness in the one issue where the D base totally favors her perceived position (gun control). She didn’t dis anyone on the stage and wasn’t about to take shit from anyone on the stage … of course, no one was going to sucker punch ANYONE, but perceptions count.
Losers (in order of significance): Biden, Webb, Chaffee
Winners: HRC, Bernie (1 and 2, but close)
No Contest: O’Malley.
I think that a lot of statements that Clinton has made are going to come back to bite her once the debate euphoria wears off. There’s no way that comments like
‘Iran is our worst enemy!’,
Waffling on Medicare/Social Security expansion,
‘I’m proud of the Patriot Act!’,
‘I never took a position on Keystone until I took a position on Keystone’,
‘I basically said, cut it out. Quit foreclosing on homes’,
‘College students must work 10 hours a week’
Won’t come back to bite her in some form or another.
Any of you guys remembered when Star Wars Episode I came out and there was about a couple of weeks in which fans sort of lied to themselves about how shit the movie was and instead focused on the sorta-decent parts like the Darth Maul lightsaber fight or Liam Neeson’s performance? That’s the vibe I’m getting right now.
Oh my god. Our politics has been taken over by politicians.
Look, there’s no way those statements can be spun nicely. They’re by no means gaffes on the level of ‘oops’ or ‘it was my first day’, but as a whole they’ll either hurt her in the primary or in the general election. Maybe the MSM and other candidates give her a pass, but they were still pretty stupid things to say.
As for me, the only one super-objectionable was ‘The enemy I’m most proud to have made was Iran.’ Way to convince me that your Presidency won’t be walking into an easily-avoidable foreign policy landmine.
Yeah. Those made me cringe and a few more.
‘College students must work 10 hours a week’
iirc she prefaced or concluded that with the claim that she worked while in college. Can’t recall her ever before mentioning any jobs she held while an undergraduate. Ten hours a week during school terms may not seem like much, but getting those hours scheduled so that they don’t interfere with class and study time isn’t easy.
It’s the norm for anyone on federal work-study, and has been for decades.
So? Did Clinton have a work/study gig? Did you?
Back then, they weren’t all that plentiful or easy to get. I did land one for a semester. And those ten hours a week spread out over four days were worse than a ten hour Saturday or Sunday job would have been.
Work studies also vary in difficulty of the job itself. Friend of mine got one as a “lab assistant”. She cleaned beakers.
I turned down a $1,000 work study. I’d rather take on debt at 4% interest than ruin my grades working 10 hours a week. I suppose
I had the privilege of making that choice, but it’s not one students should be forced to make.
Should have said “more exhausting” instead of “worse.” I did like my chem lab assistant work/study job (except for diluting the H2SO4). I was probably taken advantage of as there was never enough free time during the lab hours (instructors left me to monitor the students) to complete the grading of student work papers and tests and so, had to complete them off the clock.
I did — mid 70’s.
And my daughter (Class of ’13) did.
Both were 10 hours a week.
yes, college students should work 10 hours a week? they should study while they have a chance; presumably they’ll have plenty of hours of work in the future [maybe not with Hillary’s help]
Tuition free does not mean room and board, meals or transportation. It does however put a college education within reach. Hillary was a rich Goldwater Girl.
I did not watch the debate, so appreciate your summary.
Alas the coverage has been the usual “who this helps in the polls” focus and zero on the actual policy differences between the principles. So of course I’ve read about how it’s helped Hillary and Bernie (first names, naturally) but not the others. The other three didn’t stand out, apparently. Two of them are former Republicans, though only one of them actually held office as a member of the devil party. But still, 2 of 5 Democratic candidates were Gullible Oligarch Party members well into adulthood. Weird. O’Malley looks like a good competitor on paper but just doesn’t seem to gain traction in reality. Odd.
So we’re left with the anointed one (Version 2.0) and the left-wing extremist. As much as we make fun of the GOP for basically having every breathing human who is supporting by a billionaire on their list of candidates, it would be nice to have more real choices on the Democratic side than this. Of course, if we did, the press would be calling them “the seven dwarves” or similar, as they have done in past elections dating back to 1988.
But given that we have those two candidates – plus three contenders – the debates are basically superfluous. The whole freaking country knows HIllary – love her, hate her, tolerate her, whatever you certainly know her. People who vote in Democratic primaries and caucuses either know Sanders or will do so by primary election day. So I figure these debates are just pre-season practice,
zero on the actual policy differences between the principles.
Those that care about policy differences watched the debate. There was a surprisingly high amount of that. And have to conclude from the focus group polling, that those not already in line for one of the candidates had no difficulty discerning those differences and mostly moved in Sanders direction.
Also I don’t know why Chafee didn’t bolt from the GOP with Jeffries in 2001. Perhaps it was out of respect for his father or family. Even with his voting record with the left wing of the DEM party (far better than half the DEMs), it wasn’t enough to save him in 2006 when a majority of RI voters demonstrated more sophistication than most voters and went with the guy that would oust the GOP from the Senate majority but otherwise not different from Chafee.