For the Record peeps! Thursday night marked the 12th primary debate we’ve tuned into since August. We still have 10 more to go (never mind those pesky general election debates, which are basically Narnia at this point in the cycle). Two of them are in the next week! We hope Martin O’Malley enjoys them from his couch, because we’re counting down the days until the last one is over. The best way to describe the look on our faces is the confounded emoji.
But still we press on.
O’Malley’s absence onstage meant Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton could debate Thursday without worrying if little bro got his share of time. After Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow read the Ten Duel Commandments, the pair got their combat on. The craziest thing: It actually looked like a debate, not the multi-person circus the GOP debates have looked like for several months. The pair taunted, “I’m more progressive than you,” they tangled over Wall Street ties and foreign policy experience, they tarried onstage past the claimed 10:30 p.m. end time. In the end, it was Clinton’s pragmatism vs. Sanders’ revolution. But for all their differences, they could agree on one thing: they’re a hundred times cooler than the Republicans.
Some questions we had at the end of the night:
Does an artful smear campaign look like a Jackson Pollock?
What can we learn from Clinton’s paid speech transcripts that will teach us how to make hundreds of thousands of dollars by simply talking?
Where are all of the side-eye gifs from this debate?
Lucky for us, we only have to wait six whole days before we hopefully see these questions answered, since Bern and Hill will hang out in Pabst Blue Ribbon Land for yet. Another. Debate. Speaking of which…
While it felt like the stakes were raised at this latest #DemDebate, imagine what it’s going to be like NEXT WEEK, post-New Hampshire primary. Bernie could garner a win, making Hillary that much more desperate to prove herself the Democratic savior. If you believe the polls, that’s the most likely outcome for this coming Tuesday. But not so fast, says N.H. Gov. Maggie Hassan — Hill could pull through. Wait, what? Hassan reminds everyone that Clinton did win the state back in 2008. And even if Clinton can’t make the magic happen this time around, the governor figures that she’ll still be the nominee. Sorry, Bernie. At least you guys can commiserate over the way the Patriots’ season ended.
Source: Jessica Estepa, Joanna Allhands and Brett McGinness, http://www.usatoday.com