By: Ani Nrusimha
This past month has been depressing, to the say the least, for those of us who were hoping for a viable third candidate in the Democratic Race. As it stands, since the debate, two of the five candidates have dropped out after disappointing performances.
Jim Webb was what used to be called a Dixiecrat. These were democrats who were socially conservative and fiscally mixed, but found more common ground in the Democratic party, eventually moving to the Republican side under Ronald Reagan. Needless to say, they exited the party. Jim Webb seems to have missed the memo. He dropped out soon after the debate.
Lincoln Chafee was a much sadder story. His dad was a famous politician, but, as he and Jeb Bush seem to exemplify, public speaking skills are not genetic. With perhaps the most startling performance ever seen in a debate to be president of the United States, Lincoln Chafee, when asked about why he voted for a bill that was very controversial in Democratic circles, responded in a way that would sounded like it was from a high school debate: “Glass-Steagall was my very first vote. I had just arrived. My dad had died in office. I was appointed to the office. It was my very first vote.” The resulting exchange was brutal for Chafee, and that wasn’t even his worst moment of the night. In a rambling and very dubious attack on Secretary Clinton’s email scandal, he not only missed his mark, but timed it horribly, as Bernie Sanders had just thrown the topic in the trash by swearing “Enough about your damn emails!” This haphazard attack by Chafee not only fell face first in the mud, but gave Clinton a chance to completely shut him down: when asked to respond, she declined, a move that has yet to be repeated at any debate this year. Chafee also dropped out shortly after the debate.
The remaining candidates are Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, and Bernie Sanders. All of them had relatively good debate performance with no major slip ups. However, if there was a winner for the debate, it would be Hillary Clinton for that exact reason. Currently, Clinton is in the lead by a fairly wide margin, and the only group she is losing to Sanders in are young white liberals, who don’t form even close to the a majority of the party. If things remain as they are, Clinton actually will slowly get a boost as the fervor for Sanders dies down.
Comparing the Democratic and the Republican debates, the relative lack of candidates leads to more time for each candidate, and a more even distribution of questions. As much as Jim Webb was disappointed, the crowd heard a reasonable amount from O’Malley, who is polling at 1%, and we had heard enough from Webb and Chafee. Also, the topics discussed for both sides are very much party-centric, with Obamacare only being mentioned once and neither side ever mentioning how they would have bipartisan appeal. Clinton even said republicans were her greatest enemy, a fact that could hurt her in the general election.
Overall, the debate was for the most part a continuation of the status quo. However, two candidates who were effectively out of the race made it official, and the rest had relatively good performances.
