Democratic Debate 2015.1

Way less entertaining than the GOP debate, as predicted.
   I thought Sanders did great. I've been becoming more and more pro-Sanders, and his performance last night kept me on that trajectory. I don't think he can win, and I don't see how he can pay for all the freebies he wants, but he's a reasonable, principled guy who is not just some silly lefty. In fact, he largely came across as just someone who is serious about what I'd call the fairly centrist project of trying to put the brakes on the project of turning the U.S. into a freaking plutocracy...
   Clinton did well, but largely because she lied and BS'ed at crucial points, which seems to me to be par for the course. (E.g. the bit about the TPP "gold standard" comment, which I don't even have to look up to know was BS.)
   Webb hurt himself, I thought. I just don't think he's a good BSer, and he seems to have been prepped to try to turn every comment toward his legislative accomplishments. He made an interesting point about affirmative action, but it isn't going to fly with many Dems, unfortunately. His comment about killing the North Vietnamese soldier who wounded him didn't go over well. The new 'do and the makeup job were not helping him.
   Chafee really hurt himself, especially with his "it was my first day" defense with respect to Glass-Steagall ...though I think that's a reasonable defense and I admired his honesty. I think he's out.
   O'Malley...dunno. For some reason he was really off-putting to me, and I was getting annoyed with the green energy mantra. I don't think I'm a good judge of that guy.
   As for Anderson Cooper...his rushing through every question and his disrespectfulness toward Webb were really annoying me. The former was not his fault...the people in charge of the format need to go. Fewer questions with more time for each answer would be the thing.