By Mehmet Zorluoglu
Opinions Contributor
The first two states to vote in the presidential primary process are Iowa and New Hampshire. As the date quickly approaches, pundits expect both the Democratic and Republican races to pick up, with candidates desperate to increase their chances in the early states.
Keeping in mind that the debate on Jan. 17 was the final debate before these first two crucial states vote, I will grade each candidate’s performance based on how much they have or have not improved their chances of winning those states.
Of all the Democratic debates, this debate was the hardest for me to declare an outright winner. The public perception of who won will depend heavily on who the media portrays as the winner, as the debate was on a Sunday after two consecutive NFL playoff games where viewership is unlikely to be very high.
Bernie Sanders: B
One advantage that Sanders had this debate was the coverage he received leading up to the debate and the reports suggesting that Clinton was going to go after him due to his surge in the polls in early voting states as well as nationally. Sanders and Clinton irrefutably dominated the stage in terms of how long each got to speak, and also in terms of sound-bites, which the media tends to play back over and over in summary of the debates.
This was the first debate where Clinton was not necessarily being looked at by the majority of viewers as the “inevitable” candidate as she had been before. Even in South Carolina, a state where Clinton has unsurprisingly dominated the polls, Sanders received significant applause. It will be very interesting to see which candidate’s attacks will actually hold water in the eyes of the primary voters.
Best line: “Secretary Clinton — and you’re not the only one, so I don’t mean to just point the finger at you, you’ve received over $600,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs in one year. I find it very strange that a major financial institution that pays $5 billion in fines for breaking the law, not one of their executives is prosecuted, while kids who smoke marijuana get a jail sentence.”
Hillary Clinton: B
Clinton performed well, once again bringing the issue of guns to the forefront, as well as making the point that while Sanders’ policies might sound great for many, they will not come to fruition due to the checks and balances in the United States government. In this way, she claimed that she would be the candidate that could actually work with Congress and enact substantive policy reform. She said that she will not raise taxes on middle class Americans while saying that Sanders’ plan would. Similar to Sanders, many of the things she said received significant applause. I doubt that this debate performance from Clinton will make her voters flock to Sanders, but with the races in Iowa and New Hampshire seemingly very tight, it would not take a huge upheaval of voter opinion for Sanders to edge Clinton, or vice versa.
Best Line: “One out of three African-American men may well end up going to prison. That’s the statistic. I want people here to think what we would be doing if it was one out of three white men.”
Martin O’Malley: C
O’Malley was largely absent from this debate. He was not given enough time to state his case for the nomination effectively, but when he did speak he was quite direct and coherent. Many pundits have suggested that O’Malley may be making a great case to be the running mate of whoever wins the nomination. However, as has been the case for a while now, he does not seem to stand a chance as far as actually winning the nomination himself.
Best line: “Look, as Frederick Douglas said, we are one, our cause is one, and we must help each other if we are going to succeed.”
