I have to start by saying how disappointed I am with CNN. They would like for us to think they are just doing us all a favor by holding this debate, but it became quite obvious from the beginning that for them this was just an opportunity to make a lot of money from advertisements. The debate was scheduled for 7:30pm, but it was about 18 minutes later before the candidates actually began to speak.
I probably should have expected that, but it's still disappointing. Also disappointing was their overuse of graphics to try and turn the event into some kind of entertainment show -- rather than just an opportunity to perform their function to inform the public. But that is what corporations do -- try to make everything an entertaining and profitable venture (even when it would be better not to do that).
I will give credit to Anderson Cooper, who moderated the debate. He wasn't afraid to ask the hard questions of all the debaters -- and he did a fairly good job of making them answer those questions.
How did the candidates do in the debate? All of them did fairly well. Sanders was strong on the economic issues (which is his forte), but seemed to struggle on gun violence and the Middle East questions. Clinton was strong on gun violence, held her own on the economic issues, and sounded like the voice of reason on the Middle East. Both did well on education, opportunity, and college costs. Both did well in discussing global climate change. Both were also good on Social Security and blasted GOP attempts to cut it. Sanders wants to expand benefits, and Clinton called for enhancing benefits for those getting the smallest benefits. Both disappointed me when talking about Edward Snowden and his actions.
Sanders did have the political courage to say he would vote for marijuana legalization. I applaud him for that. Clinton was not willing to go that far (sadly), but only came out in favor of medical marijuana and decriminalizing possession. I doubt this is going to be a huge issue in the Democratic primaries though.
In the final analysis, I don't think either of them lost or gained support -- and I'm betting the polls next week look very much like the polls last week.
As for the other three, they showed (at least to me) why they are not first-tier candidates. They seemed to be struggling to stay up with Clinton and Sanders throughout the debate. I would be very surprised if any of the three start climbing much in the polls. I do think Martin O'Malley trumped all the other four with his plan to have the country 100% on green energy by 2050 -- but I doubt that will be enough to vault him into contention.
Was there a winner? Not really. Clinton and Sanders performed as expected, and neither made any real gaffes. I think the supporters of both probably left feeling satisfied with the performance of their candidate.
There are five more of these debates that will be held. After watching this one, I think that will be plenty -- and I can't agree with those who are calling for more that that.
NOTE -- One thing did sort of surprise me. I had expected a lot of talk about how bad the Republicans and their policies are, but while a few jabs were thrown, there wasn't a lot of that. For the most part, the debate was centered on Democratic issues.