the duel in durham
Referee's Report Card for the 5th Democratic Debate

February 5, 2016 - Last night, the 5th Democratic Debate was held in Durham, New Hampshire.

Since Martin O'Malley dropped out of the race, only Secretary Clinton and Senator Sanders were on stage. As always, we were watching and calling penalties according to our 3 rules; answer the question you are asked, don't stray off topic in your response, and don't compare any of your opponents to Nazis. Below is a summary of how many times the candidates were penalized.

*All the quotations in this article are from the helpful debate transcript available here.

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The Candidates
(Listed below based on number of penalties received)

Bernie Sanders - 3 penalties

Failure to answer: When asked about which foreign policy experts her listened to, Sanders referred to a Georgetown speech he had given on the issue. At no part did he mention any advisers he had met with.

Failure to answer: Sanders was asked to prioritize in order of importance the threats posed by Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Instead, Sanders discussed his concerns about North Korea and Russia (without ranking them) and did not mention Iran at all.

Failure to answer: Sanders was asked about the fact that he has never supported any trade deals during his long time in Congress. Would this mean that he would ignore global trade entirely and allow China to write the rule book for the next century? In response, Sanders explained that he was for fair trade but made no mention of how he would check China’s growing economic power. 

Hillary Clinton - 2 penalties

Failure to answer: In the first question of the night, Secretary Clinton was asked to expound on her criticism that it is “very hard to see how any of [Senator Sander’s] proposals could ever be achievable.” But when she spoke of his plans for free college tuition and universal healthcare she spoke mainly to her disagreement with his positions rather than their political feasibility.

Failure to answer: Clinton was asked about prioritizing her first year and a half in office as president. The moderator asked which of her campaign promises would be her top priority. Clinton responded with an all of the above answer that listed tackling income inequality, installing a half billion solar panels, getting universal health coverage, paid family leave, increasing childhood education, helping small businesses, immigration reform, and rebuilding America’s infrastructure. An aggressive list to be sure, but it did not answer the substantive question of how to prioritize an agenda.