“Actually,” Hillary Clinton was telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper the other night, “I’ve been very consistent.” She said this during the Democrats’ first presidential debate in response to a question about her habit of altering policy positions to fit the latest poll numbers or whim du jour of her party’s liberal wing.

Clinton’s reply was unconvincing, particularly regarding her recent flip-flop on free trade, where she now marches lockstep with Bernie Sanders in opposing a treaty she had long championed. Whatever one may say about Sanders, an avowed socialist who only recently added the descriptive word “democratic” to his self-description, the senator from Vermont has long opposed global trade agreements. He actually has been consistent.

If straight talk is your thing, even from someone who embraces the collectivist policies that tend to have a stagnating impact on national economies, Sanders was a breath of fresh air. I don’t know what possessed the anti-fossil fuel party to hold its first debate of the 2016 presidential cycle in the neon mecca of the Nevada desert, but Sanders didn’t care. Immersed in the bright lights of the Las Vegas strip in Steve Wynn’s high-rise ode to excess, Bernie stayed the course, railing for two hours against the “casino capitalism” aided and abetted by Washington’s political class.

The line that handpicked Democratic Party activists, not to mention the press, liked best was Sanders’ concurrence with Clinton that “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails!” But Sanders didn’t make that remark to help Clinton. He made it to get back on topic, his favorite topic, which is crony capitalism.



“In my view, Secretary Clinton, Congress does not regulate Wall Street,” he said. “Wall Street regulates Congress.”

All night, he kept to his task, perhaps too diligently. He reminded many media tweeters of their crotchety New Deal-era uncle or, worse, a borscht belt entertainer who lacks a sense of humor. But if Sanders (and, even more so, Martin O’Malley, James Webb, and Lincoln Chaffee) was mercilessly needled by journalists on Twitter, Hillary Clinton was praised from one end of the mainstream media to the other.

One by one the usual suspects pronounced HRC the “winner” of the debate, as if such a conclusion is not wholly subjective.

Polls conducted afterwards of the viewing public produced the same result, although caveats occur to the skeptical mind. For one thing, the percentage of Democrats who say Clinton won the debate is suspiciously similar to those who say they are voting for her. Ditto for Sanders’ numbers. Also, with the TV talking heads immediately pronouncing Clinton the victor, survey respondents may have recognized this is the “correct” answer.

Political messaging guru Frank Luntz found a different dynamic in his focus group of Florida Democrats. Although focus groups are not as scientific as polling, one couldn’t help but notice that half of those in Luntz’ group supported Hillary going in, and only about one-third raised their hands on her behalf when it was over. The big winner? Bernie Sanders. Solicited for a brief description of the sage of Vermont, the group gave answers such as “for the people,” “straightforward,” “direct,” “sincere,” “educator,” and “smart.”

The establishment media wasn’t impressed. The Fourth Estate doesn’t believe the Democratic Party will nominate a 74-year-old socialist who won’t even criticize the front-runner. This is probably right, but to conservatives or independents, the pro-Hillary coverage smacked of something else: It seemed that the Establishment media expressed a collective sigh of relief that it can coalesce around a candidate with the chops to defeat those damn Republicans.

Nonetheless, there are reasons polls show that all the leading Republicans are competitive in a mock matchup against Clinton—and those factors were on display in Las Vegas. For starters, there was the nagging issue of trustworthiness raised pointedly by Anderson Cooper in the debate’s first question.

“Plenty of politicians evolve on issues, but even some Democrats believe you change your positions based on political expediency,” he began. “You were against same-sex marriage. Now you're for it. You defended President Obama's immigration policies. Now you say they're too harsh. You supported his trade deal dozens of times. You even called it the ‘gold standard.’ Now, suddenly, last week, you’re against it. Will you say anything to get elected?”

Clearly prepped for the question, Clinton replied that she had said she “hoped” it would be the gold standard. “It was just finally negotiated last week, and in looking at it, it didn’t meet my standards,” she added.

This is not quite the truth. As secretary of state Clinton didn’t say she “hoped” it would be the gold standard, she said it was the gold standard. Clinton also never said what new details in the agreement supposedly aren’t to her liking. Most observers believe that the concessions made by the administration made the deal more palatable to liberals, but in any event the White House hasn’t made the final deal public yet, which begs the question of how Hillary even knows what’s in it.

The sparring over the trade deal underscores another reality revealed by the Las Vegas debate, which is just how far left the Democrats have moved. After hearing for years how the Republican Party has moved steadily to the right—as it certainly has—the vast plurality of Americans in the political middle can see that similar forces are pulling the Democratic Party to the opposite pole on the political spectrum.

Jim Webb, the former U.S. Marine and war hero? He was an afterthought on that stage, a man without a party. It’s Bernie Sanders who is setting the agenda now, or perhaps it’s the unfettered millennials who flock to his campaign events. Free college for all, Bernie says, so Hillary echoes a modified version of his plan. Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, he thunders. Yes, indeedy, Hillary agrees. Until recently, the Democratic Party had two litmus tests, abortion and affirmative action. Now it has too many to count: add to those two gay marriage, global warming, universal health care, gun control. On this last issue, Clinton sensed squishiness in Sanders—even a socialist has to make sure he’s re-elected in heavily rural Vermont—and she pounced.

Barack Obama, seeking to score partisan political points, once said that Ronald Reagan couldn’t be nominated in today’s GOP. That seems silly to me, but I understand the point he’s making. But it can be made for the 2016 Democrats as well. The party now in a headlong rush to nominate Hillary Clinton wouldn’t choose a candidate with the policy positions espoused by its 1992 standard-bearer. It wouldn’t nominate Bill Clinton.