My thoughts (as a liberal independent Clinton supporter):
- Clinton, Sanders, O'Malley all sounded great, and made some great points without attacking one another.
- Jim Webb needed to suck it up and understand that he's not going to get equal time. Whining about it to the extent that the moderator had to talk him down multiple times made him look foolish.
- Anderson Cooper did a good job. He may be the only person on CNN I can listen to.
- O'Malley got a nice shot in at the DNC Chair when he addressed her saying something like "look how great it is to be having debates!" For the unaware there's a rift in the party over how many debates are needed, with O'Malley saying more, and the DNC Chair saying less.
- Clinton could have explained the whole progressive/moderate thing a little better. What she (and everyone else on the stage) wants to do is not outrageous left-wing stuff, but rather things that most people want like affordable healthcare, protecting women's rights, marriage equality, etc. In a political environment poisoned by the extremists on the right, these ideas look like Lefty Liberal Hootenanny. In every other country in the world, everyone on the stage would be a moderate.
- Clinton messed up responding to the question about the email inquiry, saying it was an admitted partisan effort to hurt her poll numbers. There is indeed an admitted partisan effort to hurt her ongoing, but she's referring to the Benghazi investigation.
- Webb's shirt looked like the collar was an inch too small. Agree with whoever mentioned he reminded them of Cotton "I killed fi'ty men" Hill.
- Chafee sounded unprepared and unserious.
- Bernie looked old. Nothing wrong with that of course - on the contrary I think we should look to those with wisdom and experience to help with the tough issues the country is facing. But I can't help wondering how he'll handle the rigors of being president. I've read that the constant stress the president is under essentially causes him or her to essentially age two years for every year in office. For 74 year old Sanders that could be a problem. Obama looks worn out to me and he's 25 years younger.
- I wish Clinton wouldn't have hit the "I'm a woman" thing quite so hard. Mention it once, maybe, but bringing it up any more than that makes it sound like she thinks that her gender is reason enough to vote for her. I know she doesn't actually think that (and explained that very point last night). We want the best person for the job, man or woman. Anyone out there voting for her solely because she's a woman is already locked in.
Overall I thought Clinton came off the best (biased opinion alert). It's been said that these debates can't really help her, only hurt (hence the debate on how many debates to have), but I disagree. I think Clinton talking in a less rehearsed setting (still rehearsed of course, but not like a stump speech) is appealing. I like Sanders as well and my support for Clinton was teetering somewhat, but by the end of the show last night I was back on board. I'm really looking forward to casting my vote for her in the primaries and the general.