Anna Wiegand is a senior integrated studies major and writes ‘Tower of Babel' for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Write to Anna at acwiegand@bsu.edu.
On Saturday, CBS hosted the second Democratic debate. Now that Lincoln Chaffee and Jim Webb have dropped out, the three remaining candidates had plenty of time to discuss their policy plans and views on a number of issues, ranging from foreign policy and Wall Street to gun control and immigration reform.
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Here are three notable points to take away from the debate:
Focus on the Paris Attacks. The debate began with a moment of silence for the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. It continued in a somber mood, with a heavy focus on how the candidates would deal with ISIS. Clinton distanced herself from President Obama’s earlier comments that ISIS must be “contained,” saying that defeating them was the only option.
Sanders said that the Middle Eastern countries must lead the efforts to fight ISIS, with support from the United States, and criticized Hillary’s willingness to support the use of “regime change” as a tool to affect the politics in other countries. While Sanders and Clinton seemed to agree that the U.S. could not be solely responsible for defeating ISIS, O’Malley seemed to think that America should be the country at the forefront of the fight.
Sharp moderator. Although he condescendingly shut down Martin O’Malley before a commercial break—“you’re breaking the rules, Governor”—moderator John Dickerson consistently asked tough, intelligent questions and didn’t let the candidates off easy when they avoided the questions.
Some of the questions included the candidates’ opinions on the phrase “radical Islam,” used by Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. All three seemed eager to distance themselves from it. They wanted to make sure that they weren’t perceived as anti-Muslim, just anti-extremist.
Dickerson also called Clinton out for giving Sanders a hard time about past decisions on gun control when she’d voted in favor of the Iraq War. He also questioned O’Malley about his lack of foreign policy experience, asking if the world was “too dangerous” for him.
Clinton dominated. As in the first debate, Clinton came out the clear winner. Though Sanders and O’Malley seemed a bit more willing to criticize her than in the first debate, nothing they said seemed to ruffle her feathers.
She successfully defended herself on what she claimed was an attack on her integrity by Bernie Sanders, who accused her of being in Wall Street’s pocket. She later proceeded to steamroll Sanders about his record on gun control, despite Dickerson’s comments on her hypocrisy in doing so.
The highlight of the night, however, was Martin O’Malley calling Donald Trump an “immigrant-bashing carnival barker,” making Clinton smirk and eliciting chuckles from the audience. After the debate’s conclusion, CBS correspondent Major Garrett gave Twitter stats on which moment was the most popular for each candidate. O’Malley’s peak moment was his Trump comment. Sanders’ was his remark about Eisenhower being a Socialist, and Hillary’s was saying that 60 percent of her donations came from women.
It’s questionable how many people actually watched the debate, especially younger viewers, since it occurred on a Saturday night. It’s a shame, since this debate was filled with actual information, unlike the last GOP debate.
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