Everyone's a Winner! Well, Everyone But Biden, O'Malley, Chafee, Webb, and the Public

Who "won" the first Democratic debate?

CNN

Who won the debate last night? It's not a basketball game, people; there doesn't need to be just one winner. Hillary Clinton "won" by looking like the nominee (if it weren't so short, her closing statement could've passed for an acceptance speech) and by letting the press replace its overblown "Hillary is struggling" narrative with an overblown "Hillary is back!" narrative. Bernie Sanders "won" by reaching new fans (an awful lot of people Googled his name last night) and by establishing himself as the main alternative to Clinton. I won't be surprised if in the next poll, Clinton and Sanders both gain at Joe Biden's expense.

Too much of the post-debate commentary has focused on Sanders' refusal to go after Clinton for her email scandal, declaring that he's "sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails." It was a memorable moment, but it's hard to see how it changes the picture: He hadn't been attacking her for the scandal before, and it isn't the sort of issue he was ever likely to jump on. If Clinton's emails injure her candidacy in the primaries, it's going to be because (a) she lands in serious legal trouble and/or (b) party leaders are so worried that the issue will hurt her in the general election that they switch their loyalties to Biden. Neither of those is contingent on anything Bernie Sanders says.

So Clinton and Sanders are both gaining steam, with Clinton, as always, the likely nominee; Biden is still in the wings, but he's somewhat less likely to jump in; and a few other candidates are hanging around without much support. (As I wrote last night, Webb may get a small bump just by showing any rural populist Democrats who tuned in that he exists. But not a bump big enough to have an impact on the outcome.) This debate may have changed the race a little, but mostly it clarified where everyone already was.

Comments

[SugarFree]

America lost. That's all that really matters.

[sarcasmic]

Economic fallacies sure came out on top. That's for sure.

[Hugh Akston]

The Cubs won.

[brady949]

Boo.

[Fist of Etiquette]

If their absurd notions were challenged more often, we would end up with better Democrats.

[Loki]

The losers were anyone who were dumb/ bored enough to actually watch that shit. Poor bastards.

[Free Market Socialist $park?]

What difference, at this point, does it make?

[CatoTheChipper]

By far the most significant comment of the night came from Hillary. Regarding the Libyan intervention: "Our response, which was smart power at its best."

Here we see what the ruling elite consider success: a pile of dead and decaying bodies, a sodomized despot, and years of chaos that spread to Mali and elsewhere in Africa, and which will likely end with a medieval Islamist regime. The Libyan intervention was so successful, that the State Department attempted to replicate "smart power at its best" in Syria until Putin shamed Kerry into considering a less murderous policy. "Smart power at its best" is currently working its wonders in Yemen.

It's time to quit thinking that American ruling elites define success in the same way that ordinary, non-evil people define it. Their idea of "American values" is not the same as the values held by ordinary Americans.

[John Thacker]

I am pretty sure that she explained that "at its best" meant that without ground troops, very few Americans died, just fuzzy little foreigners no one cares about. There's a constituency for that position among some ordinary Americans.

[John Thacker]

Webb is the thinking man's Trump. I am certainly not a fan, but there is actually a constituency for his populist positions, as Trump is showing. It wouldn't be totally surprising for him to get a small bump, I agree.