The first time Hillary Clinton got cheered by the pro-Bernie crowd watching Tuesday night’s presidential debate was when her face popped up on the big TV after a 15-plus minute technical glitch at the beginning left the audience staring at a blank screen.
The second and only other time she drew applause was after Sanders told the former Secretary of State that the public was not interested in “your damn emails.” She then declined an offer to respond to former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, who thought the email controversy undermined Clinton’s honesty. Asked if she wanted to respond to Chafee, Clinton uttered a simple “No,” and the Burlington crowd roared.
Otherwise, the nearly 300 people, many younger, who packed a Burlington arts venue to watch the CNN debate with fellow Progressives, cheered for the Hometown Candidate. Many praised Sanders’ intensity, passion and consistency of message. There were also a few kind words for Clinton and the other three candidates, particularly former Maryland Gov Martin O’Malley. A few said they thought Sanders started slowly and improved as the debate went on.
“I think he did great,” said 27-year-old Emma Halvorsen. “I felt like every time he spoke, there wasn’t really a negative. No one really brought up a negative point to anything he said because it was just really clear and honest. Even the commentators or the people leading the debate, they’d ask him a question and he’d answer it really awesome and then they’d move on.”
“They didn’t beat each other up as much” as the Republican candidates did at their debates, Halvorsen said. “There was much more agreement.”
But, added 36-year-old Ron Stewart of Burlington, “It sure wasn’t a snorefest,” as Republican front-runner Donald Trump had predicted.
The crowd punctuated the event with mostly cheers for Sanders, and an occasional boo for one of the others, usually Clinton (as well as when the name of debate sponsor Lockheed Martin, a defense contractor, appeared).
Sanders drew the biggest applause from the crowd at Arts Riot when he expressed frustration with all the attention paid to Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as Secretary of State.
He received equally loud cheers when he said climate change was the biggest threat facing the world.
His message about college student debt also resonated. Jeanette Bacevius, who is in her 40s and lives in Shelburne, said the candidates’ proposals were focused on future students, not those already in debt. “It’s a big issue,” she said.
Cathie Irish, a 24-year-old seeking to attend UVM next year, said she agreed with Bernie on 99 percent of the issues, including finding ways to help pay for college and hold down student debt. Asked to assess the rest of the field, Irish said Clinton “was throwing a lot of shade,” O’Malley “can stand on his own two feet,” former Virginia Sen James Webb was “grumpy” about not getting enough time to speak and the fifth participant, Chafee, was in her view, “a goober.”
Wendy Coe, a longtime Burlington Progressive, said even though Sanders is at 74 years old, the oldest Democrat running, he is “speaking to young people more than any of them” and she said they “can’t sit back and have to get involved.” She said she also appreciated Sanders’ “sarcasm.” Coe’s husband, former Burlington City Council Gene Bergman, praised Sanders’ clarity. Of Clinton, he said: “You can see the timidness of her proposals.”
The crowd mocked Clinton on several occasions, including when she denied changing her position on the controversial Keystone pipeline by saying: “I never took a position on Keystone until I took a position on Keystone” last month.
Casey Goldman, 44, said she moved to Burlington when she was 18 to go to UVM. Her mother told her there was a female governor, Madeleine Kunin, and a Socialist Mayor, Bernie Sanders. She stayed ever since.
“I was incredibly inspired,” Goldman said of the debate. “This is the first time that I’ve felt incredibly inspired to pay attention.”
With Sanders, Goldman said: “It’s the first time I’ve really felt I could trust a candidate to follow through on the promises, on the plan. I liked a lot of what some of them had to say on different issues but what I coming back to was promises… and who would fight with all they’ve got and sacrifice.”
A woman from rural Virginia, Lyndsey Walker, 27, said she and her boyfriend drove 11 hours to watch the debate in Sanders’ hometown. “We’re really excited about all the energy here tonight. I’m excited for the revolution he was talking about” and hoped to bring the enthusiasm she felt back home. “There’s not a lot of support for him in rural Virginia.”
Robert Appel, 64, the former head of the Vermont Human Rights Commission, agreed with Walker’s interest in major structural change: “I thought Bernie was wonderful. Bernie’s Bernie. He’s been saying the same stuff for 40 years. What was it that Chafee said? That he was a block of granite? Bernie’s the block of granite, he hasn’t altered his message, and in time the country’s caught up to him and his talk of a revolution, as far as I’m concerned, he is spot on.”
“I look forward to a Sanders presidency,” Appel said with a smile. “Gulp.”
