Editorial: Bernie Sanders' night: Authenticity wins the Democratic debate
Democrats have a surprisingly competitive race for their presidential nomination, and if you watched their announced candidates debate Tuesday night, you saw why. Not because the candidates, like their Republican counterparts, spent much time and effort attacking one another; they didn't. And not because Hillary Rodham Clinton suffered grievous wounds or damaged her standing; she didn't.
No, what came closest to electrifying the night was a Vermont senator, a self-described democratic socialist who honeymooned in the Soviet Union, and who probably can't get elected president. Bernie Sanders demonstrated time and again Tuesday night why he's the force vector in this race. If you watched, you now know why he attracts the huge crowds, the money, the energy of rank-and-file Democrats — a party to which he doesn't even belong.
You also know why he gives Clinton conniptions. While she behaved like the front-runner — confident, competent, comfortable — Sanders was connecting with the audience. He even managed to profit from a Clinton problem while tacitly excusing her from it: "The American people," he said, "are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails!" Sanders wanted to talk about issues that trouble Americans.
Clinton surely believes she had a good night. But her answer to the first question — essentially, given her flip-flops, would she say anything to get elected? — betrayed her agenda: the cautious politics of addition. She first pivoted to an earnest non sequitur; she would, she said, heal an America riven by economic inequality, racial divides, gender inequities. Pressed on whether she would commit to being a progressive or a moderate, she straddled: "I'm a progressive, but I'm a progressive who likes to get things done."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-democratic-debate-clinton-sanders-edit-1014-20151013-story.html
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