ONLY ONE DEMOCRATIC DEBATER LOOKED & SOUNDED PRESIDSENTIAL

…The five Democratic candidates in the First Democratic Debate.

 

In both parties, there are some running that seriously “need not apply for the position”.

 

One thing became very clear after the first 2015 Democratic Debate in Las Vegas.  It showed that three of those on the stage should not have been there.

 

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, former Virginia senator Jim Webb and former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee were totally out of their league.  In addition, Hilary Clinton’s experience of having previously participated in 25 presidential debates, plus those she participated in while running for the Senator of New York, paid off in spades.

 

Bernie Sanders must have forgotten that he had a microphone or he thought that he was at one of his large stadium speeches as he shouted his responses throughout the night.

 

And Hillary used an interesting technique when challenged by the others on the stage.

 

Sanders and Chafee both criticized Hillary on a very old issue.  Her decision in 2003 to vote for the authorization of force in Iraq.  A vote she has consistently said in hind-site was the wrong decision.  But Clinton just replied: “Well, I recall very well being on a debate stage, I think, about 25 times with then-Senator Obama, debating this very issue. After the election, he asked me to become secretary of state.”

 

No acknowledging or denying of the issue, just making it clear that in 2009, even the new Commander-in-Chief had put that issue aside and offered Hillary the most important seat in the president-elect’s new cabinet.

 

When Governor O’Malley went after her for being too trigger-happy with the US military, Clinton responded with a personal jibe, “You know, I have to say, I was very pleased when Governor O’Malley endorsed me for president in 2008, and I enjoyed his strong support in that campaign.”  Bullseye!

 

Clinton was easily able to parry with the others as if they were on a level below her.  She would not let them get to her and she only offered inputs on the subjects she chose.  She scored high points on key Democratic issues such as paid sick and family leave, equal pay, gun control, Planned Parenthood, and excessive executive pay.

 

When she was questioned on her changing her views on the TPP Asian trade deal, she was able to explain how the final plan’s details had not meet her original “high bar” expectations.

 

Of course, the most remembered moment was when Bernie Sanders was invited to criticize Clinton.  He instead came to her defense saying,  “I think the secretary is right, and that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn e-mails.”  The Democratic partisan audience cheered while Clinton shook Sanders’s hand and thanked him.

 

Clinton then said once again that her private e-mail server was a “mistake”, but she said the House committee had exposed the issue as “a partisan vehicle.  That fact was admitted by the House Republican majority leader, Mr. McCarthy, to drive down my poll numbers.” Then she added: “I am still standing.”

 

As one pundit has written, “She was in short, a man among boys!”

 

The CNN Moderator, Anderson Cooper nailed Sanders with just one sentence when he stated, “The Republican attack ad against you in a general election — it writes itself. You supported the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. You honeymooned in the Soviet Union. And just this weekend, you said you’re not a capitalist.”

 

Then Sanders personally drove the nails in his own coffin when he said the United States needed to follow the way that Denmark’s economy worked.

 

Clinton grabbed that line and responded with, “We are not Denmark. . . . I love Denmark, but we are the United States of America. And it’s our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn’t run amok and doesn’t cause the kind of inequities we’re seeing in our economic system. But we would be making a grave mistake to turn our backs on what built the greatest middle class in the history of the world.”

 

The debate was amazing because only a month ago Clinton was in what was being called a “free fall” and she was “plunging in the polls”. Sanders was gaining, the draft-Biden movement was in full force, and Republicans were absolutely “giddy with anticipation” of her upcoming grilling by the House Benghazi committee.

 

Clinton’s performance showed that there was no need for the current vice president to immediately throw his hat into the campaign.  Clinton is doing just fine, thank you very much.

 

At the end, Sanders was seen as defending Democratic Socialism, while Clinton was defending the American middle class.

 

Hillary Clinton may have been the shortest one on the stage.  But she was the only one that actually looked presidential.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2015