It’s clear that the Democratic establishment is for Hillary, since they keep scheduling the debates on weekends when the audience will be the smallest. When you’re ahead in the polls, you want less debates — that’s just normal. Why risk anything?

Overall, the debates always help the challengers and hurt the front-runner. I think Bernie and O’Malley did well and probably improved their chances.  (Ha ha! I implied that O’Malley had a chance!)

Bernie was a bit too much like a politician in that he had his talking points he wanted to get out and he was going to work them in whenever possible. He also demanded to respond to comments made by Hillary a few times but instead of responding, he made new points. Not impressive there.

Hillary was quite good in some places and really dishonest in others, such as implying that Bernie was against Obamacare when he was one of the Senators writing the damn thing. “He wants to get rid of Obamacare!” she said. No, Hillary, Bernie wants to replace Obamacare with Medicare for All, a much better plan.

Hillary also argued that we need to be brave and fight for what is right while at the same time saying that we can’t fight for Medicare for All because it just wouldn’t pass. “Vote for me and together, we can accomplish mediocre things!”

So much politics is about personality. If Sanders were 20 years younger and looked and talked like George Clooney, he’d be way ahead in the polls.

When asked how they would bring the country together, Hillary’s answer wasn’t too convincing. “The Republicans have hated me since the 90s but they’ll work with me once I am President. Honest.”

“Democrats: We actually believe in science!” – Martin O’Malley.  Now there’s a good campaign slogan.

This is a major difference between the Democratic debate and the Republican debate: None of the Democrats think a good foreign policy is “bomb them all until they glow.”

Overall, it was a much more boring debate than the Republican ones, partially because these guys basically like each other and agree 90% of the time. No matter who gets the nominations, the others will support him or her. Plus they are sane.