We’ve already had a bit of pre-debate drama this evening – and justifiably, I’d say. CBS News is hosting the debate this evening. And they put out word earlier today that they had dramatically rewritten the questions and the approach of tonight’s debate in light of the terror attacks in Paris. On its face, that doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea. It’s hard to compare terror attacks. But by a lot of measures this is one of the worst mass casualty terror attacks in modern history – certainly in a major European or North American city. And the fact that ISIS is taking responsibility for the attacks puts America into the mix because of our possibly expanding role fighting ISIS.
With all that happening, it seems quite reasonable to see what the candidates have to say about. But the Sanders camp also has a pretty good argument that the terms of this debate were agreed a long time ago, preparations and plans have been made. And this was never supposed to be a foreign policy debate.
I can see both sides of this. I think the Sanders’ team has a good point. There’s a decent contrary argument that this is the nature of the presidency itself. Things happen that change everything in a moment. Having everything get turned upside is in a way quite a good test for what a president might encounter.
The real bottom line is that I can see no way that this doesn’t help Hillary Clinton a lot. In the immediate aftermath of an attack, more hawkish views have more resonance with most, though not all voters. More importantly, though, this whole part of the US political and policy conservation just isn’t a big part of the Sanders campaign. It’s a much bigger part of the Clinton campaign. So whether she’s right or wrong, good policies or bad, this is terrain Clinton is happy to spend time on. Much less so for Sanders.
