The New Democratic Debates

At the outset of the 2016 Presidential cycle the Democratic Party made the official decision that there would only be six debates for the entire campaign and they were spread out. Bernie Sanders always wanted more debates but the frontrunner Hillary Clinton was satisfied with the number, but still Bernie asked for more. The Chair of the party Debbie Wasserman Shultz said no.

Low and behold the frontrunner is now motivated to have more debates. MSNBC and New Hampshire's Manchester Union Leader proposed to do a debate prior to that state's February 9 primary. Clinton said yes immediately, Sanders very shrewdly said maybe and then negotiated three additional debates.

The first of these took place last night and it was unbelievably a good debate. Sanders and Clinton went at it hammer and tong. Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow did a great job moderating because they kept themselves out of it and did not interfere in the exchanges.

I have no idea what it's impact is but I do know it's worth watching and I hope that the Republicans will soon get to this point when it is a serious two person race and they decide to actually debate the important issues.

The polls, which are increasingly inaccurate, show Sanders with a twenty point lead. New Hampshire has a habit of surprising people. So based on flawed data and zero insider information my prediction is Sanders will win but the difference will be under ten points. He won't win for the reason that Clinton will spin it which is that he's a neighbor of the state. He will win because of his message and because they are not interested in an early Clinton coronation.

For those of you who regularly follow my mind droppings you may recall that quite some time ago I said that six scheduled debates was enough. The reason is because by and large our modern political debates suck. The moderators tend to make it about themselves and spend too much time asking trivial questions. If debates went the way last nights did, then I'm all for more of them.