[Benjamin F. Alexander]

I’m posting this note Wednesday evening. Did you have a chance to watch last night’s debate? What did you think? What sort of impression did the candidates (any one or ones that you’d like to mention) make on you? I’m interested in hearing/reading your thoughts.

I’m on a bus where wifi capacity is limited, so I can’t test video links to see how they work, but according to the search engines, the full video can be found here. Snippets of key moments are here, but of course that gives a limited picture of what took place.

[Margaret Layne]

I thought it was a great improvement on the Republican debates. Issues were debated that were of importance to voters. I thought Hillary Clinton redeemed herself after a few months of malignant Bengazi emails witch hunt by the GOP. She came prepared, looked at ease and confident in her delivery on issues and responses to hard questions. Her position on stage, if not deliberate, was a focal point that allowed for stark visual contrast. I liked that the Democratic candidates were all focused on getting their agenda out and were not adversarial. There were very few differences on major policy issues, guns/IRA and trade solicited some interesting exchanges.
Bernie Sanders was his usual energized self. I think he is the most authentic of the candidates, but his hard line views, though appealing to his supporters may to some degree hurt him. Change does not come easy, and his open and honest socialist ideas may scare some people away.
Martin O’Malley did well he was able to position himself as a viable candidate. The other two unfortunately – Chafee and Webb have a long way to go and seemed unprepared and not very convincing last night.
Overall I think it was a good night for the Democratic party and though there were five candidates, they all seemed to have common ground on a lot of issues and that portends to a more unified message to the electorate