Democratic debate in Las Vegas Tuesday

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on Sunday backed away from a controversial vote he cast in 2005 on legislation to grant immunity to gun manufacturers and dealers from liability if their firearms are used criminally.

Who fires the first shot? But he added that democracy at its heart is about spelling out differences on policy.

O’Malley, who takes pride in “forging new consensus”, has accused Clinton often of “following public opinion” on issues like immigration, the Keystone XL pipeline and, more recently, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Her aides are also trying to find a way to undermine Sanders’ momentum without alienating his backers by belittling his proposals. But Clinton has spent the past several months blurring distinctions with Sanders on trade, financial regulation and more. But I don’t believe a no-fly zone is advisable. The Democratic primary debate will give him a chance to show donors that he can compete with higher-profile candidates. The absence of them this cycle has deprived the challengers to Clinton of a major vehicle to lift their profile, which may well have been the point. “When I signed up to be vice chair of the D.N.C., no one told me I would be relinquishing my freedom of speech and checking it at the door”.

Sanders often says that he has never run a negative ad and that he doesn’t want to start now. Before Sanders launched his presidential bid, he had an e-mail list with 400,000 names.

A Wason Center poll in April reported that Clinton, who announced her candidacy that month, was favored by 80 percent of Democratic voters.

The most favorable candidate was Biden with positive support from 46 percent.

The candidates need to spend a few time in the Las Vegas debate outlining what they would do to make the system better and how they envision building support for reforms that usually die on the vine after a president has been elected. Bernie Sanders’ has based his presidential campaign on his wide ranging economic platform, one that seeks to provide the solution for problems such as the minimum wage to racism.

“Secretary Clinton is always quick for the military intervention”.

“‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is over”, Clinton said.

And how does Hillary Clinton handle the ghost of Joe Biden at the debate?

He said he views the 2016 field as “wide open” on both sides and emphasized that he doesn’t need to make a decision on the race until late in the summer. Biden supports the deal and will fight for its passage in Congress. All are largely afterthoughts in early preference polls.

Back in August, the TV personality and business magnate said he was willing to spend $1 billion on his campaign if that is what it takes to win the White House. Lessig won’t be on stage Tuesday night because he fails to meet CNN’s polling requirement.

“I think people are going to turn it on for a couple of minutes and then fall asleep”, he said in an interview on Fox & Friends. It’s scheduled to run two hours. Sanders and Clinton will be joined by Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb.

All eyes will be on Clinton, whose campaign’s been less than flawless.

Lessig said he would now focus wholly on getting into the second debate. “The Democratic Party is a big-tent party, and we embrace the diversity of opinions and ideas that come from our members”. “This is really about her not having a shield up”, Trippi says.

O’Malley, Chafee and Webb appear only as mere asterisks on the poll. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley had hoped to be in Sanders’ shoes, presenting a younger, slightly more liberal alternative to Clinton. He’s not participating in the first debate – though if he enters after it’s held, his presence could shake up the race. But for the first time in a while, the positives of Hillary Clinton, judged against the positives of Joe Biden, would also be raised. And what the campaign does in Nevada, Marshall said, will pay off across the country.