All of the Democrats had something to prove when they took the stage Tuesday night. For Martin O’Malley, former governor of Maryland, it was the seriousness of his candidacy. For Bernie Sanders, the goal of the debate was to show his party his electability. And for Hillary Clinton, the debate was her time to rebound from the email scandal that has cast a shadow over her campaign for months. Time will tell whether these goals were accomplished, but even now Democrats seem to agree that Clinton stole the show.
The night opened with each of the candidates presenting their platform and a summary of who they were and why they were running. Lincoln Chafee, an unfamiliar face to most who have been following the election, spent his time defending his former allegiance to the Republican Party. Jim Webb, another less well known Democrat from Virginia, highlighted his history of working in defense. In contrast, Bernie Sanders’ cry for more attention to the poor and to the working class struck a chord with many Americans. And then Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and former Secretary of State, surprised everyone by proving herself while under great scrutiny. Throughout the entire evening, Clinton was polished, well prepared, and yet all the while connective.
One of the highlights of the debate came when the moderator, Andersen Cooper, asked Sanders a question about his professed beliefs in Socialism. Sanders responded unequivocally, explaining, “What Democratic Socialism is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of 1 percent in this country own almost 90 percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.” On the topic of socialism, Clinton also made her mark responding to Sanders’ suggestion that the US should follow the lead of northern Europe in embracing socialist principles. She responded, “I think what Senator Sanders is saying certainly makes sense in the terms of the inequality that we have. But we are not Denmark. I love Denmark. We are the United States of America. And it’s our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn’t run amok and doesn’t cause the kind of inequities we’re seeing in our economic system. But we would be making a grave mistake to turn our backs on what built the greatest middle class in the history…”
Another tense moment came in the debate over gun control. Sanders, as a representative from the rural state of Vermont, advocated for gun policies that “respected gun owners.” But Clinton and some of the others disagreed wholeheartedly, believing in no capitulation to the NRA. As we prepare for yet another Republican debate on October twenty-eighth, the contrast between the two parties could not be clearer.