CNN Democratic debate: analysis and commentary

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See also: Boulder, Colorado CNBC Republican debate (October 28, 2015) and Insiders Poll: Winners and losers from the Third Republican Debate

The columns below were authored by guest columnists and members of Ballotpedia's senior writing staff. The opinions and views belong to the authors.

No Debate Over the Role of Government

October 14, 2015
By Karlyn Bowman
Karlyn Bowman, a widely respected analyst of public opinion, is a senior fellow and research coordinator at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.

A few weeks ago the Gallup organization released the results of a poll on the proper role of government. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans put themselves at points 1 and 2 of the scale question indicating they believed that government should do only the things necessary to provide the most basic government functions. Fifty-seven percent of Democrats put themselves at points 4 and 5 indicating they felt the government should take active steps in every area to try and improve the lives of people.

I thought of those findings during the debate last night when the Democratic candidates embraced a very active role for government in addressing the economy and jobs, inequality, immigration, health care, and race relations, to name only a few of the topics CNN moderators covered. The differences will be central to the contest next November when the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees face one another.

I continue to believe the Democratic nominee will be Hillary Clinton. Nothing in the debate altered her front-runner status. Her nearest competitor Bernie Sanders helped her when he said people were tired of hearing about her damn emails. None of the candidates landed a punch on her. Clinton had clearly prepared for most of the expected questions, and she was not only able to answer, but also turn questions to her advantage as when she brought up Planned Parenthood and abortion, two issues of importance to the Democratic faithful. Sanders had his moments, and Martin O'Malley had a strong close, but they didn't best her performance.

Whether Mrs. Clinton can broaden her appeal remains to be seen. But at least right now, after a solid debate preference, she doesn't appear to have much to worry about among Democrats.

Of Two Take-aways from Last Night’s Debate, One Can Carry Clinton through Election Day

October 14, 2015
By David Kusnet
David Kusnet is a former chief speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton. He is the senior writer and a principal at the Podesta Group, a government relations and public relations firm in Washington, D.C.

Debates are about moments, and the moment that the media, the Twitter-verse and the voters will remember from last night’s Democratic presidential debate was Bernie Sanders turning towards Hillary Clinton and saying: “I think the secretary of state is right, the American people are sick and tired about hearing about your damn emails.”

The soon-to-be-iconic image that followed of Clinton smiling at Sanders and eventually shaking his hand defined a debate in which the structure of the campaign remained unchanged: Clinton (whom I support) in the lead; Sanders running second; and the other contenders left struggling to find some space in the race.

Memorable moments require preparation, and preparation means anticipating scenarios, not memorizing sound bites. While neither Sanders nor Clinton could have foreseen exactly how their exchange about emails would unfold, both arrived at the event with a similar strategy: Engage each other on the issues while remaining personally cordial.

Debate-prep sessions hone such strategies, as well as the sound bites and body language that follow from them. But Clinton’s other enduring achievement – her definition of herself as a progressive pragmatist – flows from her entire public career, reflects a sophisticated familiarity with political history, and will serve her well from the primaries through the general election.

Facing a philosophically driven opponent, the self-described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, Clinton was called upon to characterize her own views. When CNN moderator Anderson Cooper asked her whether she is “a progressive or a moderate” – a question her husband would have rejected as “a false choice” – Clinton responded that she is “a progressive who likes to get things done.”

At another point in the debate, after Sanders was asked about his socialism, Clinton was asked whether she is a capitalist. Her response, in essence, was that she believes in private enterprise, particularly small businesses, but sometimes “We have to save capitalism from itself.”

Together with her overall approach of embracing economic populist concerns but emphasizing achievable reforms, this answer revealed that she is a careful student of the progressive tradition in American politics.

Confronting critics from his Left during the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt respected their grievances but repeatedly explained that his goal was not to transform the economic system but rather to save capitalism from its own failings.

During a very different period – the 1990s – Bill Clinton turned that phrase around, telling associates and occasionally journalists that his goal was to save liberalism from itself by promoting its goals while eliminating its excesses.

By adapting FDR’s phrase last night, Hillary Clinton situated herself in a pragmatic progressive tradition, crafted a self-definition that can carry her from October 2015 through November 2016, and was true to her own personal record and convictions.

Not bad for a night’s work.

What We're Learning from the 2015 Presidential Debates

October 14, 2015
By James A. Barnes
James A. Barnes is a senior writer for Ballotpedia. He is the founding editor of the National Journal Political Insiders Poll and is a co-author of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics.

The 2016 pre-primary debates are not just good television; they’re giving us a glimpse of the general election campaign that's still a ways off.

Ratings for the CNN Democratic face-off in Las Vegas this week were another bonanza for cable TV: more than 15 million watched on television and another million were streaming the debate online. That's a 50 percent increase over the viewership of the highest rated Democratic primary debate in 2008. And the two Republican debates have chalked up record audiences of 24 and 23 million.

And the frontrunners in the Democratic and Republican nominating contests have not been shy about engaging their rivals. Often, a frontrunner will try to deflect attacks and all but ignore their opponents. While Hillary Clinton did not quite show the same brio that Donald Trump has in jousting with his fellow Republican White House hopefuls, she didn’t hesitate to throw jabs at Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on the virtues of capitalism, his college tuition proposal or his less-than-sterling record on gun control. The old rule for frontrunners was "stay above the fray." The new rule may be, "mix it up a little."

As my fellow Ballotpedia debate commentator David Kusnet has observed, women tend to be well prepared when it comes to debates and Clinton, who is well-known for her discipline and work habits, certainly came ready to rumble in Vegas. But perhaps even more important, Kusnet noted how Clinton adroitly positioned herself as a progressive, both a liberal and a pragmatist at heart. That could be persuasive argument in fending off a challenge from Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist who is exciting the passions of a lot of Democrats out on the stump. And it could be an effective way for Clinton to frame her approach to issues in a general election.

And that coming campaign, as Ballotpedia commentator Karlyn Bowman noted, may well revolve around the question about the appropriate role of government. That's an enduring debate in American politics, but in recent presidential contests it has not been front and center. In 2008, in the wake of the financial collapse, that election was largely a referendum on incumbent George W. Bush and his policies, even though he was not on the ballot. Nevertheless, voters were in a mood to punish Republicans. Democrat Barack Obama was campaigning as a post-partisan figure that was going to change the self-dealing ways Washington. He eschewed overt ideological appeals. In 2012, the Obama campaign effectively made the election a referendum on Mitt Romney, whom it portrayed as a vulture capitalist.

No doubt, the outcome in 2016 will be shaped by the perceptions of the character of the Democratic and Republican nominees, whoever they are. Voters always take this measure of White House hopefuls. But maybe the role of government will have a bigger role in the deciding the outcome of 2016 than in recent elections. Amid the personal attacks and bickering in the Republican debates, one thing the GOP candidates seem to agree on is the importance of limiting the size and scope of the federal government.

At a high point for Clinton in the Vegas debate, she sounded a call to arms for Democrats to confront that GOP stance. Defending the legitimacy of government requiring paid family leave and providing health care, Clinton declared, "We can do these things. We should not be paralyzed by the Republicans and their constant refrain, 'big government this, big government that' except for what they want to impose on the American people. We're going to make the wealthy pay for it. That is the way to get it done."

Now that would be a debate worth having in the fall of 2016.

See also


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