Winners and losers from the fourth Democratic presidential debate
Please don't faint
by Chris Cillizza
Winners
* Bernie Sanders: Yes, Sanders has one volume: shouting. And, yes, he got tripped up a few times during the debate on his voting record -- especially on guns. But throughout the debate's first hour -- the hour when most people, especially on the East Coast and in the Midwest, were watching -- he was the prime mover in virtually every discussion from Wall Street reform to health care to climate change. He was on offense, accusing rival Hillary Clinton of half-measures and political caution at a moment when boldness is required.
Sanders held his own in the foreign-policy-focused second hour of the debate, something he had not done in debates past. And he had one of his best moments of the exchange at an unlikely time -- in response to a question about his criticism of Bill Clinton's past behavior. Sanders turned the question into one focused on how the campaign he is running is about policy, not personal differences -- to much applause.
More than anything he said, though, it was the passion and disruption that Sanders oozed from every pore over the two hours that should push Democrats on the fence about the race into his camp. Sanders effectively positioned himself as the anti-status-quo candidate, a very good position to have in this electoral environment.
Hillary
(snip)
So, why is she in the loser column? Because she did nothing in the debate to slow the momentum that Sanders is building in Iowa and New Hampshire. Aside from guns, where Clinton scored a clean hit on Sanders, she was unable to effectively cast him as a pie-in-the-sky idealist and herself as the only person who could truly fight -- and win -- for Democratic priorities.
Time and again, she found herself boxed into defending a status quo that the American public -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- are dissatisfied with. This tweet from the New York Times Nicholas Kristof perfectly captures that sentiment:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/17/winners-and-losers-from-the-4th-democratic-presidential-debate/?tid=sm_tw
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