Bernie Sanders
Related: About this forumHow'd he do last night at the Town Hall?
I can't watch these things anymore...
yellerpup
(12,253 posts)He started out slow with a cool audience and by the end they wanted to hug him for his kindness. (whether they were for him or not)
LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)MuseRider
(34,111 posts)it was as well but then I am already solidly behind him. Apparently others felt differently as I learned until I convinced my husband to turn of the stupid news shows.
yellerpup
(12,253 posts)Actually, Hillary lost me on the transcript question when she said, "...Republicans, too." My stomach turned over and I couldn't watch.
dr60omg
(283 posts)1. Cuomo is not a disinterested party so I question the integrity of these town halls. I wish there was still a fairness doctrine in place.
2. I saw he was disarming and genuinely funny ... despite the ridiculous questions thrown at him by Cuomo
3. Why does he always go first? That is interesting given the record.
4. I changed the channel before Clinton I think to watch HGTV
jillan
(39,451 posts)To me it seems like he should go last because more people are going to remember what you said. Just my two cents. Other than that I thought he did great. He was given a lot tougher questions then Hillary.
Mufaddal
(1,021 posts)And he usually does quite well with this format. It would be nice for him to call out the moderators a bit more when they ask questions that are framed in the form of Republican talking points. Regardless, he got a few chances to show of his knowledge particularly on "free trade" deals, his answer on this repeated and dumb line of questioning about his spirituality was better than ever, and overall he did a typically fine job connecting with the audience (or so I thought).
I think he should have doubled down on his CIA position (not necessarily abolition--although I'd be fine with that--but by saying it's unrealistic to expect its abolition at this point even if that might be ideal, and then going even harder on their history than he did). That being said, I think it's hilarious that in a Democratic primary there is someone who is cozy with Kissinger attacking him over criticism of the CIA's history of overthrowing democratic governments and installing fascist dictators. For real, what non-right candidate runs a campaign of "Kissinger is good, the CIA is even better"?
EDIT: Here is his answer on the spirituality question:
BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)Cuomo's first question was a gotcha on something Bernie said about the CIA in 1974, and did Bernie believe the CIA should exist? Later he asked Bernie essentially the same question about his religious faith that he asked him in a previous Town Hall and paraphrased Bernie's previous response, as if to try to force him to give a different answer this time.
The crowd was pro Hillary, I suspect with help from the DNC, and after Cuomo let her duck the first question on releasing her transcripts of paid speeches to Wall Street, virtually all of the rest of the questions were softballs.
Bernie did fine but you didn't miss anything.