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Once again, welcome to a post-debate column. As always, these are my own snap reactions, uninfluenced by what others are thinking or saying. Also as always, any of the quotes below were hastily jotted down, and may not be word-for-word accurate. That's enough of an introduction, at this point, so let's just dive right in.
On Monday, I took a look at the Republican nomination race, so I thought it'd be fair to check in today with the Democratic contest. One obvious reason why I (and others in the political commentary world) have been paying so much more attention to Republicans is the continuing volatility of the GOP campaign, which still has (as of this writing) 14 official candidates running. By comparison, the Democratic race is a lot more calm after half the field has already dropped out, which has left only three candidates still in the contest: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley.
What is going to happen to the Republican Party in next year's general election campaign? We could be on the verge of a major shift in the American political system, which is always interesting to speculate about (whether it winds up happening or not). Donald Trump, love him or hate him, has certainly followed through on making this one of the most interesting presidential nomination races of all time. As the saying goes, we're all cursed to be living in interesting times -- at least for the next year or so.
Last night I wrote down my snap reactions to the fourth Republican debate. Today, rather than looking backwards again, I'm going to instead look forward (both literally and figuratively) to the upcoming Democratic debate which will be held this Saturday night.
winnow vb -- 1 : to remove (as chaff from grain) by a current of air; also : to free (as grain) from waste in this manner 2 : to get rid of (something unwanted).
Barack Obama has had not only his most stable year of job approval polling, but quite likely the most stable year ever recorded for any president (since scientific public opinion polling began). Now, this doesn't mean Obama's been charting extraordinarily good numbers (he is roughly 13 points lower than President Bill Clinton was, at this point in his second term), nor extraordinarily bad numbers (Obama is also polling 13 points above where George W. Bush was, at this point) -- but Obama's numbers have indeed been extraordinarily stable. Both his job approval monthly average and his job disapproval monthly average have kept within a range of around one percent, all year long.
Hillary Clinton just had the best week of her campaign yet. Not only did she shine at the Benghazi hearing yesterday, three of her Democratic opponents dropped out of the presidential nomination race. Joe Biden was never actually in the race, but his announcement that he wouldn't run was more significant than Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee ending their campaigns. This leaves Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, and Lawrence Lessig. Of those four, only Sanders and Clinton have any chance at winning the nomination, and Hillary's doing better in the polls than Sanders. So, all in all, a very good week for Hillary Clinton.
It has been a busy few weeks for the Democratic presidential race. First the debate, then Jim Webb's exit from the race, and today the news that Vice President Joe Biden has declined to jump into the contest. Tomorrow, Hillary Clinton will testify before the Benghazi committee. All of this will have an effect on the voting public, but it's still too early to make any definitive statements as to how everything is going to shake out. Still, some trendlines are already emerging, and they could be very good news indeed for Clinton.
After two seemingly-endless Republican debates, this week the Democratic candidates for president finally got their turn to face off against each other on national television. While the audience was smaller (since Donald Trump was not on stage), it was still a lot bigger than most political debates in the past -- over 15 million people watched on CNN, and a further million livestreamed it. This is up from the usual audience of 2-to-5 million, it should be noted, from years past.
Overall, I would agree with some of the closing statements -- this was a much more substantial debate than anything the Republicans have yet put on. No insults were hurled, no bigoted statements were made, on the whole it was a lot more sober than watching Trump take on all comers. However, having said that, tonight's debate was a lot more spirited and feisty than I expected. There weren't direct face-to-face confrontations, but a lot of differences were clearly outlined between the candidates' stances.