A Low Energy Night for Bernie in Nevada

Michael Tomasky noted it:

"Bernie Sanders Is Low-Energy in Las Vegas."

"The grueling pace of the campaign seemed to be getting to Sanders at Thursday’s Las Vegas town hall, but he was effective at laying out his first principles."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/19/bernie-sanders-is-low-energy-in-las-vegas.html

Tomasky puts it well overall. As I've argued in the past, Bernie is the hedgehog in the race, while Hillary is the fox. This again showed last night. 

"Sanders is a good pontificator. He didn’t usually talk about what he would do to ensure that X thing did or didn’t happen. If the question was about immigration or veterans care or discrimination, he stated first principles. What he believes. This is all eye-of-the-beholder stuff. If you’re the kind of person who wants to hear first principles enunciated with passion, it works. If you’re the kind who wants the specific question answered, it doesn’t."

"Clinton was in many ways Sanders’s opposite. When someone asks her what she’ll do about X, she usually answers, allowing for the usual sugarcoating. She doesn’t do first principles, which is part of why she’s in the pickle she’s in."

"There was one moment in particular that was illustrative. A woman had asked Sanders a question about her husband. She’s legal, as are their two kids, but the husband is undocumented and got sent back to Mexico for 10 years. It’s now year six. She asked Sanders what he’d do, and he talked in broad strokes about the need for comprehensive immigration reform. When Clinton came out, she found the woman unprompted and turned to her and said, “I will the end the three- and ten-year bar provision” of immigration law, which is the provision under which the man was deported."

I do have to correct the record on one thing Tomasky said:

"She did get ambushed once. A guy asked her to release her Goldman Sachs speech transcripts. She said she’d release my transcripts when every other candidate does, and every other candidate gives these kinds of speeches, “including Senator Sanders.” Then she rattled off her anti-Wall Street bona fides. Then Chuck Todd gave the guy a follow-up! “Please just release the transcripts so we know where you stand.” She somehow shifted the topic to her support for LGBT rights, which I didn’t quite get."

I think that's a fair answer. If we are going to have an epidemic where everyone has to release every paid speech they ever did, then, alright. But why should she alone have to deal with a witch hunt?

On her second response, Tomaksy must have missed it. The guy actually prefaced his follow up by saying that he supported her until 10 years ago she had stated that marriage is between a man and a woman.

That was why she reiterated her strong support for LGBT rights.