{"id":17505,"date":"2015-11-14T14:13:35","date_gmt":"2015-11-14T22:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=17505"},"modified":"2015-11-14T14:13:35","modified_gmt":"2015-11-14T22:13:35","slug":"democratic-debate-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/14\/democratic-debate-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Democratic Debate Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tonight from 9:00 to 11:00 PM EST (6:00 \u2013 8:00 PST) the three contenders for the Democratic nomination will debate at Drake University in Des Moines, IA.  CBS will televise the event,  and I plan to watch.  If you don\u2019t have access to a TV, you can stream it at CBSNews.com<\/a>.  Several issues are likely to come up.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"1114Debate\"With just three candidates left, the Democratic presidential race isn’t nearly as contentious as the Republicans’. Polls indicate Democratic voters are lining up<\/a> behind Hillary Clinton, who had a strong performance in the party’s first debate in October and followed it up with an affirmative showing at the 11-hour Benghazi hearing. <\/p>\n

That doesn’t mean Clinton’s two challengers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, are giving up. Expect them to challenge Clinton in the party’s second debate, hosted Saturday night by CBS in Des Moines, Iowa. They will likely try to draw comparisons between their lengthy liberal records and Clinton’s more-moderate stances from the last time she ran for president. <\/p>\n

On matters of both politics and policy, the three candidates clearly have a lot to talk about. Here are the top 13 issues likely to be discussed at Saturday’s Democratic debate: <\/p>\n

1. Terrorism and the Islamic State<\/h6>\n

The tragic events in Paris<\/a> on Friday night will surely be heavy on everyone’s minds when the Democratic candidates take to the debate stage. And CBS has assured some of the questioning will focus on how to combat terrorism. <\/p>\n

“Last night’s attacks are a tragic example of the kind of challenges American presidents face in today’s world and we intend to ask the candidates how they would confront the evolving threat of terrorism,” CBS News vice president and Washington bureau chief Christopher Isham said in a statement. <\/p>\n

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility<\/a> for the Paris attacks, which French President Francois Hollande said amount to an act of war<\/a> from the terrorist group. France is a U.S. ally in launching air strikes over Iraq and Syria to disrupt the terrorist group, which came to rise amid leadership vacuums in the Middle East in 2013 and 2014. <\/p>\n

But the battle recently got more complicated with Russia’s sudden intervention this fall in Syria to attempt to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Not coincidentally, Obama announced he’s putting 50 Special Ops commandos on the ground in Syria, appearing to go back<\/a> on his past statements he wouldn’t commit ground troops to Syria.r <\/p>\n

Republicans have tried to link Clinton’s time as secretary of state to the rise of the Islamic State; Clinton has said the long-running civil war in Syria led to the terrorist group’s outgrowth. She has advocated for “doing more to help the rebels” and instituting a no-fly zone in Syria<\/a>, a notable departure from Obama and her main challenger, Sanders. Clinton has not said whether she would dedicate U.S. troops to creating the no-fly zone. <\/p>\n

Whatever has been said before though, the events of Friday night certainly make the issue much more salient and could change things for everyone involved\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Washington Post<\/a>> <\/p>\n

Hillary\u2019s experience combatting terrorism, as Secretary of State, should give her a huge advantage on this issue, and I have no doubt that this weekend\u2019s terrorist attack in Paris is likely to shift the focus of the debate toward this topic.  That will not help Bernie.<\/font><\/p>\n

However, the article has a list of thirteen topics, and I only shared one.  Click through for the other twelve.  Go, Bernie, Go!!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tonight from 9:00 to 11:00 PM EST (6:00 \u2013 8:00 PST) the three contenders for the Democratic nomination will debate at Drake University in Des Moines, IA.  CBS will televise the event,  and I plan to watch.  If you don\u2019t have access to a TV, you can stream it at CBSNews.com.  Several issues are likely […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}