Responses to the Democratic Debate
The first Democratic Debate engaged Americans across the country and many students on campus. Jeffrey Chen and Keelly Jones discussed their individual reactions to the debate, while Maroons for O'Malley, College Republicans and Students for Hillary all wrote responses as well. Read their thoughts below:
AFTER THE DEBATE: IS BERNIE SANDERS STILL A DEMOCRATIC FANTASY?
Jeffrey Chin
Mr. Sanders debate presence was successful, defending himself adequately from Mrs. Clinton’s charges while calling attention to his own unique policies. As a result, not only do more people know the name “Bernie Sanders”—more people are aware of the issues he cares about (that is, if we are to accept that more Google searches and tweets correlate to increased popularity). The Washington Post subsequently declared Bernie Sanders a winner of the Democratic Debate alongside Mrs. Clinton (and Denmark, which was mentioned favorably several times in the first half hour of the debate).
MARTIN O'MALLEY: A PROVEN RECORD
Maroons for O'Malley
Not many people were giving Martin O’Malley much thought in the build-up to Tuesday night’s Democratic debate. Before the debate, the Institute of Politics took a snap poll of those present for their watch party and, out of the fifty or so present, about 5 percent thought Martin O’Malley would win the debate. Two and a half hours later, almost 50 percent of those in the room thought that he was the winner. What the governor’s supporters have long known, the rest of the country learned on Tuesday night: there is no candidate on either side of the aisle who has done more to move our country forward than Martin O’Malley.
BERNIE SANDERS: LIKEABLE, BUT ELECTABLE?
Keelly Jones
As the hype and hysteria surrounding the first of the Democratic debates comes to a brief standstill, I believe that a moment of reflection is in order. What have we, as the audience members, learned from this debate? Hillary Clinton is a woman running as a woman for women. Bernie Sanders has a complicated relationship with a former lover known as “gun control”. Martin O’Malley has solved every major world issue within the 345,687,200,000 square foot area of the state of Maryland. Jim Webb fears the omnipotent powers of China, and Lincoln Chafee relates best to a “block of granite”.
CLINTON SHINES IN FIRST DEMOCRATIC DEBATE
Students for Hillary
Anyone who was “Feeling the Bern” this summer got a reminder that seasons change quickly. While Sanders and the other candidates performed in their predictable routines during the Democratic Debate last week, Hillary Clinton’s performance proved to be crisp and refreshing, and she was highly praised by both the media and those tuning into the debates from home.
BERNIE SANDERS: IN IT TO WIN IT?
College Republicans
The first democratic debate was the showdown that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters have been waiting for. The frontrunners in the race for the Democratic nomination stood on stage ready to show their positions on the issues, and land a punch or two, before an audience of 15.3 million viewers. But while Hillary came to Las Vegas looking for a fight, Bernie refused to engage her, discounted his own political prowess, and allowed her to co-opt the progressive position he’s staked out over the course of the campaign. This makes me question Sanders’ commitment to winning the presidency. Does he really want to be Commander-in-Chief? Or does he simply want to shift the Democratic primary and its current front-runner to the left? Sanders’s progressive ideals clearly dominated the debate, but because he neglected to present himself as the candidate to accomplish them, Clinton emerged as the victor.
The image featured in this article is licensed under Creative Commons. The original image can be found here.