The first debate was the Hillary and Bernie Show, and Hillary received top billing.
Not only was Hillary Clinton on the receiving end of the night’s biggest gift — her rival, Bernie Sanders, declaring it time for people to shut up about her email scandal — she also delivered some of the evening’s most stinging retorts.
The Democratic front-runner showed renewed energy and comfort on a presidential debate stage where she, but none of the others, had been before. But one of the most dramatic and memorable moments came from Sanders. And it was a plea for the political conversation to move on from the email controversy that has consumed much of the conversation about the overall Democratic race.
“The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” Sanders declared, after Clinton defended her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and cast the Republican-led congressional investigation as overly partisan.
Clinton beamed wide and, when Sanders was done, reached over to shake his hand. “Thank you Bernie,” she smiled. Inside the room at the Wynn resort and casino, there was a standing ovation among the Democratic attendees of the debate.
It wasn’t just Clinton and the crowd that was celebrating. Behind the scenes, her team was too. “Bernie Sanders just did for Hillary what her own staff could not,” one source close to the Clinton campaign said in an email.
Clinton did plenty for herself. She moved with relative ease from swipes against her Democratic rivals to more direct attacks on Republicans. And she succinctly summarized her candidacy when pressed about some of her shifting positions about whether she is a moderate or a liberal.
“I’m a progressive. But I’m a progressive who likes to get things done,” Clinton declared.
Other candidates besides Sanders and Clinton struggled to break through. Jim Webb complained repeatedly about not getting a chance to speak. Martin O’Malley registered few memorable moments. And Lincoln Chafee mostly faded into the background. More than an hour into the debate, data from Twitter showed that the top three candidates mentioned on the platform were Clinton, Sanders and — not one of the other candidates on stage — but instead Donald Trump, who was live-tweeting the debate himself.
It was not all smooth for Clinton. She was put on the defensive more than once for changing her position on issues and at one point declared, “I never took a position on Keystone, until I took a position on Keystone,” the controversial oil pipeline she recently opposed after long refusing to articulate her stance.
She used the fact that she would be the first woman president to deflect questions twice — once on the fact that she would be the second Clinton to get the “crown” of the presidency and once about how she would be different from Obama.
Clinton also managed to get in some sharp jabs at her surging rival. The memorable moment of kind sentiment between Sanders and Clinton came after she had ripped into him in the opening minutes of the debate, going straight after Sanders for his position on guns, one of the few issues in which the democratic socialist is out of step with the Democratic base.
When Sanders was pressed by CNN moderator Anderson Cooper on his position, he cited his current “D minus” rating from the National Rifle Association. However, the Vermont senator has a mixed record on guns, in part a reflection of his constituency — his state prides itself on a deep hunting and gun culture. Sanders voted against the Brady Bill, but voted for an assault weapons ban, and voted to allow firearms on Amtrak, while voting for universal background checks.
Asked if Sanders’ stance was hard enough on the gun lobby, Clinton replied tartly, “No, not at all.”
Sanders went on to say that he did not believe that a gun shop that legally sold a gun to someone should be punished if that person goes out and does something crazy. «Of course not,» Sanders said. Clinton shot back that «it’s time that our country stood up against the NRA.»
That wasn’t the only issue on which she went after Sanders, who has surged in the polls, particularly in New Hampshire. She criticized him for his refusal to embrace capitalism and his holding up of European socialism as a model for America.
In the opening moments, Sanders said that, “I think we should look to countries like Denmark, and Sweden and Norway and look to what they have accomplished for their working people.” And the self-described democratic socialist refused to embrace capitalism. «Do I consider myself part of the casino capitalist process by which so many have so much and so many have so little?» he asked, rhetorically.
Clinton was having none of it.
“We are not Denmark. I love Denmark. We are the United States of America,” she declared. And she said it was the job of leaders to “rein in the excesses of capitalism” not to oppose it. «We would be making a great mistake to turn our backs on what created the greatest middle class in the history of the world,» she said.
The Sin City high-stakes debate represented a potential inflection point in the race. It was a chance for Clinton to turn the page on the email-server story that has consumed much of her candidacy. It was a chance for Sanders, her chief rival in the polls, to expand his appeal beyond the progressive base that has sent thousands to his rallies and powered him to a surge in early-state polls. And it was a rare opportunity for the rest of the field to make any impression at all on the national stage.
The debate, held at the Wynn resort and casino in Las Vegas before a live audience of more than 1,000, represented one of the biggest moments yet in the Democratic primary.
A big question is how Clinton’s strong performance may change the calculation of Vice President Joe Biden, who planned to watch the debate from his Naval Observatory residence in Washington.
Biden’s allies have continually pushed back the timetable for his announcement about whether he’ll jump in the race, and he still may wait until after Clinton’s high-stakes testimony next week before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Even without a formal declaration, Biden has been polling in the strong double digits and could further erode Clinton’s lead if he makes a serious go of it.
Another large presence in the race who was not in attendance but was still front-of-mind — Trump. The Republican front-runner made a bid to turn the debate into The Trump Show, updating his Twitter feed with real-time retorts to what the Democrats were saying on stage. He kicked it off with a quick jab, tweeting, «Putin is not feeling too nervous or scared.»
He also attacked Clinton on her newly stated opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, saying «The trade deal is a disaster, she was always for it! #DemDebate.»
Trump lit into the lower-polling candidates, tweeting, «O’Malley, as former Mayor of Baltimore, has very little chance,» and «Can anyone imagine Chafee as president? No way.»
He also said none of the candidates in the Democratic field could come close to his wattage. «Sorry, there is no STAR on the stage tonight!»
Annie Karni, Gabriel Debenedetti and Hadas Gold contributed to this report.
Politico October 13, 2015
