Bad Format Diminishes the CNN Democratic Debate: No News is Good News for Clinton

    Several quick reactions. This was the worst debate by far. First, inviting a partisan audience into the proceedings skews the whole afffair; the constant clapping and booing was both artificial and distracting. And, if one is going to allow audience participation, you can't have someone like Wolf Blitzer (not a strict disciplinarian, so to speak) running the proceedings. Because of the format and the setting, the whole field was diminished.
    Second, given all this, far less came out of this debate than the others. Hillary was back in form, which was no surprise (she hit the softball gender question out of the park), and her two main competitors -- while showing occasional flashes of passion -- didn't really hit any memorable notes and didn't look good when they were on the attack against her. Ironically, in fact, the attacks allowed her to respond frequently -- giving her more floor time to dominate the discussion.
   Any debate night in which the race remains static helps Clinton.