I only caught the last half of it but everyone (except Webb who I muted when he talked) and Chaffee (not sure why he was there) was on fire!
I may be a Bernie person but I think Hillary made a lot of good points and it was nice to see her all fired up. I think she showed some weak spots, not having issues with the Patriot Act being a big one in my book, along with thinking we need time to see how things go with marijuana. Really? Well in the meantime the states that have legalized it will continue to appreciate their massive amount of tax income.
Anyway, more over the fold.
I am listing links to polls and focus groups since I have seen people asking for them, then I'll go into what I thought about the debate.
Screen grab of some of the online polls.
Here are some links to the polls as well: Time
Fox 2 News ( not Faux)
Slate
MSNBC
As far as focus groups:
Link
The overwhelming media and political consensus was that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won Tuesday night's Democratic primary debate.
Clinton was crisp and polished, making almost no mistakes throughout the evening. Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), her chief rival, was at times flustered, especially while addressing gun control early on.
But a focus group of Democratic voters, conducted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, could undermine the takeaway that Clinton won.
A majority of that focus group — as well as those conducted by CNN and Fusion — said they were most impressed with Sanders.
In a brief Fox News segment, Luntz started off by asking the participants who was supporting Clinton at the start of the debate. About half raised their hands. He then asked who was still supporting Clinton — only a few said they were.
The Fusion Group
Fusion brought together a dozen 18-to-34-year-olds to react to the CNN debate in real time. Sanders was the clear favorite throughout the debate.
“Bernie was on fire the whole night,” said Chauncey, 24, who told Fusion he went into the debate undecided.
The panel voted 8 to 3 for Sanders against the runner-up Hillary Clinton, with one panelist saying it was a tie between the two.
As for Clinton, two women on the panel said it was more important having a good president than a female president.
Whereas the MSM media are
pushing their opinion that Hillary won:
Bloggers, commentators and the Twitterati quickly weighed in on the first Democratic debate, scoring the winners and losers. Hillary Rodham Clinton was the clear victor, according to the opinion shapers in the political world (even conservative commentators)
Now I have seen some dismiss the Fusion focus group as "Well the young people already liked Bernie so who cares." I'd like to remind those people that the Milennials make up 1/3 of the population and they are the ones looking at a future of a crap ton of educational debt, a stagnant economy and dealing with the fallout of climate change. They, if any of us, have more to win or lose in the next 4-8 years so perhaps dismissing them is not the best idea. They also seem highly motivated so far in this election to help GOTV. If we want to retake Congress, we will need them.
My impression of the debate was that it was well run and dealt with a lot of issues in the time allotted. I thought Anderson did a great job controlling it, moving it along and not letting people go off on tangents. I also thought the questions and pace was excellent since we are only getting six debates. We need to cram as much into them as we can.
As far as the answers, O'Malley was great, I think he should definitely stay in politics and keep trying to push his visions and ideas. I'm a Sanders supporter so of course I was pleased at how he did. I was also not surprised. I never understood why people thought he may screw this up somehow, he's been in politics for so long he knows what his positions are and how to answer tough questions.
When it comes to Clinton, I agree she did very well, she showed passion and strength. She did however show some serious areas of weakness as I stated earlier, the Patriot Act, her response on the NSA and Marijuana were a problem. I also thought her tactic of dropping the fact that she would be the first woman president in whenever she could was pointless. We know you're a woman, don't let that be the first thing you say when asked how are you going to be different from Obama.
I thought it was an interesting tactic of distancing herself from the Clinton name since in 08 Bill was on the road with her quite a bit. It probably stems from the fact that as SOS she has more of her own accomplishments to stand on than 2008.
The one other thing that bothered me was the China delegation story, about her and Obama crashing their "secret meeting." For one, I hope to hell no one can disprove that, especially after the sniper story incident. However, even if they can't I find it a bit disconcerting that she pretty much accused a trade delegation from another country of lying about their whereabouts, stalking them and busting in on their meeting.
I mean, as a reality show tactic or something along those lines, it's sounds great and very drama filled. Thinking of Obama and Clinton stalking through the halls trying to track down a delegation just to push them on a topic is something a bit different. It's a cool story, I hope it doesn't come back to bite her in the ass.
The debate was fiery, presented a very sharp contrast to the Republican trainwreck and will hopefully get people to start realizing how idiotic it would be to vote for any Republican this time around. It's scary as hell that any Republican is getting 40% or more in the GE polls, even this far out.
(Oh and to address the usual commenters that seem to enjoy stalking any diary I write that has any pro Bernie stance. I don't hate Hillary, I am not a "Bernie zealot" nor do I think that he has magical powers. I am not a sexist because I am not voting for Hillary and nowhere in this diary have a stated any gleeful expressions of thinking Hillary sucks. Now back to your regular programming)