My debate summary:
Hillary gave her best debate performance, by far, and she once again, at least for the moment, managed to thoroughly neutralise a good deal of the negative feelings I had towards her, policy specifics aside, of course. Graciously accepting Bernie's apology, for one or more of his team taking advantage of the campaign data firewall failure, was undoubtedly the right thing to do for the Democratic party, and set the right tone for the evening. She did indeed speak with authority, and looked impeccable, to boot.
Bernie's opening statement was fine, but he was clearly pissed about something (probably the Party's handling of data breach), and, that angry tone is not a good look for him. He bounced back immediately, though, with a perfect response to the firewall failure, with an apology to his supporters, too. As the night went on, he really found his stride, and he had some great responses, especially on the opiate and heroin addiction ravaging America. Despite not dominating the foreign policy exchanges, that doesn't mean he isn't right on the substance; purely concentrating on defeating ISIS, and not also toppling Assad, which might, yet again have unforeseen consequences. Also, the wealthy Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, should be doing far more, in helping to defeat ISIS, as the United States has enough blood on its hands, and we cannot afford, and should not be involved in, perpetual warfare.
Martin had his moments, but he came across to me largely as someone doing his damndest in a drama class, i.e. trying too hard.
The most telling exchange was again in the area of Wall St., where Hillary's response to the question "Should corporate America love Hillary Clinton?", with "Everybody should", which was cute, but Bernie is absolutely right when he said "No, I think they won't," adding that "Wall Street will like me even less.", as it should not be a government's job to make corporations like them; they should
respect them, applying a fair hand that encourages growth, whilst at the same time defining clear boundaries, and levying necessary taxes.
The funniest moment for me, as Bernie supporter, was Hillary nodding away to Martin's comments, only for him to go on a full scale attack, of Hillary (did anyone else catch that?)
.
So Hillary completely managed to avoid any notable snafus, even if she had no answer for the big hike in Obamacare premiums and deductibles, and the night's WTF moment went to ABC, with that shameless late Hillary softball, with the, out of the blue, Libya question, with her long winded answer just putting me to sleep (it was not as if they hadn't already spent a ton of time on foreign policy)...
What was also funny, was that instead of perhaps going back to that focus group, they went to another advert, to eat up the remaining time...
Overall winner? Bernie, by a nose :).
