I don't give a tinker's dam what the polls say -- especially unscientific Internet snap polls. Nor do I care what the pundits say.
I don't support Hillary Clinton. I won't vote for her, period. Call me "disloyal" if it makes you feel good; it won't change my decision.
But she won last night's debate.
Or, more correctly, she won whatever last night's spectacle was.
It was only superficially a debate. In reality, it was some kind of combination of Firing Line, Monday Night Football and reality TV, with a veneer of debatiness. It took place in a Las Vegas casino, for crying out loud.
Anderson Cooper pelted the candidates with a fusillade of Republican frames, delivered at the pace of an overcaffeinated auctioneer on Mexican radio. What was the point of that? Did he really not have time to ask questions in a more conversational manner? I don't think so. I think his presentation was a deliberate attempt to get the candidates to mirror him -- to hype them up, to get them talking louder and faster themselves, in the hope of eliciting a gaffe, a jab or some other ill-advised remark.
Of the candidates onstage, only Clinton, in my estimation, realized what was going on and rolled with it. That's why she won. To anyone focusing intently on content, I don't think she scored any points. Pressed to say whether she was a progressive or a moderate, she proclaimed, "A progressive!" then proceeded to give moderate answers to every question reflecting a progressive-moderate division. She set herself up for Internet memes by saying, "As a senator from New York, I represented Wall Street," and her answer to how her administration would differ from Obama's was wholly without substance. But what she did do, with great success, was adapt to the pace of the questioning without losing control. She didn't shout. She didn't stumble. She kept up her guard-turn-parry-dodge-spin-thrust without missing a beat. She dodged the rockets, used her power boosts and collected plenty of magic coins.
In contrast, Sanders -- who did a lot of other things right, and might well have won a debate that was actually a debate -- didn't seem to realize the nature of the game. A more suspicious person than I might believe that the rapid-fire format was specifically intended to trip him up. He didn't fall, but the speed was evidently too much for him. At one point, after Webb had given some kind of word-salad reply, Cooper snapped to him, "Sen. Sanders!" and it took him a moment to realize he'd even been called on, let alone what he was being asked. I'm not sure what Cooper was asking him, or whether there was even a question at all. Naturally, his response was halting and took several uncomfortable moments to cohere. Sanders' rhetorical style is long on strength but short on dexterity. He's a distance runner who found himself on the set of American Ninja Warrior.
At least Sanders had the benefit of being accustomed to speaking from his heart. O'Malley, for the first half-hour, didn't seem to have the energy to keep up. It came together for him eventually, but first impressions matter. Chafee's multifaceted haplessness could elicit nothing but pity. Webb was an ass.
I still support Sanders, but I do hope his team analyzes what happened last night and prepares him for the possibility that not only his opponents but the debate moderators may play dirty. He can't let himself be bait-and-switched like that again if he wants to win this election. (And he's absolutely got to prepare a better answer to, "Are you a capitalist?") My consolation? Obama stank up his first televised debate, and he went on to win.