It doesn’t say much for my social life that I had nothing better to do on a Friday night than watch the Democrat Candidates Forum on MSNBC. Somehow I managed to get through nearly two hours of Rachel Maddow.
To begin with it wasn’t a debate. Rather Maddow interviewed each candidate individually – O’Malley, Bernie & Hillary. Bernie Sanders got more applause for walking on stage than O’Malley did in 30 minutes. I don’t think O’Malley should be confused with Jim Webb but when he said he was part of the party of FDR & JFK, I said to myself that that Democratic Party is dead and gone.
The crowd was loving Bernie with ample helpings of the 1 percent, millionaires & billionaires plus the Koch Brothers. He did, however, walk a fine line on gun control.
Most who love Bernie don’t hate Hillary. Bernie did not do anything to change this state of affairs. My roomie Christopher Kain summed up Hillary in this way: “We need to do something about this problem because it is an issue.” He then went to bed. It might be the most intelligent and sensible I’ve heard about Hillary in this primary season.
Maddow asked a silly question about which Republican presidential candidate she’d pick as her VP. Hillary said she’d pick a Republican just not any of them. At that moment 15 Republicans breathed a sigh of relief.
I do give Maddow credit for asking Hillary about her speeches to Wall Street (Goldman & Sachs in particular). Hillary said she told Wall Street to cut it out on sub-prime mortgages. Maddow should have countered by asking why she voted for TARP. It is worth noting Maddow did not ask Hillary about her e-mails. I guess she’s tired of Hillary’s damn e-mails too.
But a week in politics is a lifetime. Perhaps there will be more e-mail revelations between now and when Democrats actually debate a week from tomorrow night in Des Moines. This debate will air on CBS.