So Clinton loves Obama, Sanders just really likes him. Clinton doesn't like Wall Street, but Sanders really, really hates it. #DemDebate
— Perry Bacon Jr. (@perrybaconjr) January 18, 2016
AVG GOP DEBATE QUESTION: how will you kill terrifying scary muslims on verge of destroying us all
AVG DEM DEBATE QUESTION: can u fix racism
— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) January 18, 2016
Keep in mind as these guys talk foreign policy: none listed foreign policy, fighting terrorism, defeating ISIS, as their top priorities.
— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) January 18, 2016
Which, according to all the polling, is consistent with how Democrats feel generally. https://t.co/9yTLSTIir2
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) January 18, 2016
The RNC is sending reporters multiple rapid response emails defending Bernie Sanders from Clinton's attacks. Very unusual.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 18, 2016
Bernie Sanders, calling for a 50 state political strategy, hasn't raised a single dime for a state Democratic Party this cycle #DemDebate
— Wyeth Ruthven (@wyethwire) January 18, 2016
Okay, I’m a partisan (having been a Democrat my whole life, not just since last Fall), but while it sounds like both Clinton and Sanders had an excellent debate last night, seems like Clinton may have the edge. Ed Kilgore, at NYMag, “Clinton’s Clever Debate Strategy: Cling to Obama in a Party That’s Already Missing Him“:
If Democratic primary voters were as furious at their own party’s powers-that-be as are Republican voters, the posture taken by Bernie Sanders in the NBC/YouTube debate Sunday night would be a clear winner: both parties have been bought by wealthy interests, and only an anti-corporate crusader like Bernie can avoid the terrible policy mistakes committed by and under the Clinton and Obama administrations. Indeed, if a sizable majority of Democrats thought the last two administrations of their own party were the corporate betrayals that many of Sanders’ most avid supporters consider them to be, HRC would be the perfect symbol of the continuing DINO establishment that had to be overthrown to install progressive governance.
Alas for the Sanders campaign, that’s not how Democrats feel. According to the latest Gallup weekly presidential job approval tracking poll, the 44th president’s rating among Democrats is 84 percent. Among self-identified Liberal Democrats it’s at 89 percent; among African-Americans it’s at 85 percent. Yet it is extremely difficult for Sanders to make his case that HRC is too close to Wall Street or too militaristic or too timid on domestic policy without co-indicting the incumbent president. Hillary Clinton understands that, which is why she took so much care in the NBC debate to identify her approach to regulation of Wall Street with Obama’s; to defend Obamacare in contrast to Sanders’ advocacy of a single-payer health care system; to remind Democrats she was a major architect of Obama’s foreign policy; and to refuse opportunities to separate herself from Obama even though some consultants probably think she’ll need to do that to win a general election..
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Apart from rehashing old battles (and remembering that, whomever the ultimate Democratic nominee, whichever hairwad ends up at the front of the Repub swarm will be waywayway worse), what’s on the agenda for the evening?