John in Cleveland offered an assessment of the debate last night that I suspect many Bernie Sanders supporters agree with to a large degree. The essential feeling is that Bernie needed to be a lot tougher on Hillary than he was:
If Hillary were down 20 and Bernie had such a big vulnerable target sitting out there she would be hammering him left right and sideways on it to try and win the nomination. When you're trying to take down Goliath you don't have the luxury of living exclusively on the "high road" as Bernie has limited himself to.
To those who share such worries, I would like to point out that
this was just the first debate.
I definitely acknowledge that the debate went about as well for Hillary Clinton as she could ever have hoped for, but this not the final debate before Super Tuesday. We are still at a 'setting the table' stage of Bernie's overall debating strategy vs. Hillary Clinton and I think he accomplished pretty much everything that he wanted to accomplish at this point.
I don't think it was ever his strategy to deliver the final blow to the Hillary Clinton campaign at this time. People seem to forget that in order for Bernie Sanders to win the nomination, he is going to have to win over a lot of people who are currently Hillary Clinton supporters. There may be a time when Bernie really does need to express more disapproval of Hillary within the debating format, but this was definitely not it.
In this debate, there was an important communication objective that Bernie needed to accomplish, which was essentially to create a certain kind of impression in the minds of those Democrats who know little about him:
This debate was, in fact, Bernie's first opportunity to introduce himself to many millions of Democrats who are fully aware of who Hillary Clinton is, but who have only a vague idea of what a Bernie Sanders is.
Lack of name recognition has always been the single biggest factor that has accounted for his poor position in national polling relative to Hillary. That is why the single most important thing that happened last night for the Sanders campaign was Bernie simply appearing on the stage with Hillary Clinton and exploiting that opportunity in a way that did not give the audience a negative impression of him.
I dare say that that little achievement by itself is likely to produce a bump in his national polling in coming months as people begin to listen more carefully to what the man is saying.
For Hillary's most fervent supporters, there can be no doubt that last night's debate feels like a glorious success. Hillary did perform as well as she could reasonably hope to and Bernie Sanders did nothing last night to leave them quaking in their boots.
Unfortunately, this sucks them back into the 'invincibility' frame of mind, and that will make it all the more difficult for them when/if Sanders continues to chip away at her leads. If she's so invincible, why is she continuing to bleed support?
Yes, Bernie needed to take the high road in this debate cuz he knows he must ultimately win over some of Hillary's supporters if he wants to win the nomination and he could not afford to give them an excuse to view him as a 'hated enemy.' I think he did a great job of that at last night, especially with the Damned Emails line.
Just as Hillary was quite willing to express gratitude to Bernie for his emotional comment, Hillary supporters cannot help but think approvingly of his gesture. It is the sort of thing that can encourage doubters to listen a little more closely to what the Senator is saying instead of viewing his impassioned words through the filter of The Enemy.
But the really good news for Bernie Sanders supporters is the knowledge that campaign's ability to raise money for The Political Revolution could end up being THE single most important factor that wins him the nomination. If the fund raising trend we have seen continues, there is actually a very good chance that the Sanders campaign will start to raise significantly more $$ than Hillary is able to attract.
With that money available for advertising and organizing, continued improvement in Bernie's polling numbers is quite likely. After all, he's doing quite well in those states where he's been able to grow the size of his campaign infrastructure.
Yes, the debates will become increasingly important as we go along, especially if the polling numbers continue to narrow. So as good as Hillary supporters are feeling right now, I'm afraid that it's still a bit early for them to be doubling down on the invincibility argument.
After all, if the path to success I'm envisioning above does unfold, they may find that the 'done deal' argument they've been advancing has started to work against them; indeed, it becomes difficult to sound rational in your analysis when/if your candidate is continually losing ground to The Political Revolution.
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The Republican Nemesis