republicans. could have saved all the drama. they never got any republican votes in the end anyway. but, no. they were trying for republicans and it made everything that much harder. then it was the fiscal commission which was going to take on big structural fiscal issues, remember? and the democrats didn t really want president obama to do. that he said he would do it anyway because he was sure the republicans would be willing to work constructively on this issue. months spent, tons of political capital wasted it turns out. it turns out that republicans were not actually willing to be constructive on that issue after all. this law failed by seven votes. when seven republicans who had co-sponsored the bill had co-sponsored the idea, suddenly walked away from their own
so for comparison s sake, at this point in that stunning race in 2007-2008, there were a lot of televised democratic debates. and in part, there were a lot of them because they got huge audiences every time they were on tv. they got 2.8 million people watching in august. 2.2 million people watching in in september, 2.5 million people watching in november. these were just huge audiences for the democratic primary debates. but the biggest audience that year by far was for the final democratic debate which happened really late. happened at the very end of the contest in april in philadelphia. it was on abc. and this was, again this was very late in the process. this was after super tuesday and everything. and nobody, still, that late in the process had, any idea if barack obama was going to win or hillary clinton was ultimately going to win the nomination. so this was the last big head-to-head brawl in that incredible race. unsurprisingly, that last
democratic debate in 2008, it broke all records. 10.7 million people ended up watching that last democratic debate. nearly 11 million people. well last night crushed that. last night over 15 million people watched the debate. and i can t give you anything official. i can tell you anecdotally as a person who works in the tv business and talks to other people in the tv business, i can tell you that the estimates within our industry about what kind of an audience was going to turn out for that debate last night was nowhere near 15 million people. it wasn t half 15 million people. but, surprise. turns out that people care. and people want to watch this stuff. and, no, there are not 17 different democrats running like there are republicans this year. and there s no crazy donald trump character running on the democratic side. and so the republican audience for their two debates so far, their audiences were bigger than
one major candidate is now signalling, will not happen again if democrats win another shot at the white house to succeed him. and it has to do with republicans. it has to do specifically with this president s view of who republicans are and what they want and how republicans should be treated by democrats. the last time okay, let s be honest the only time i interviewed mr. obama when he was the democratic nominee for president, that issue of how he feels about republicans ended up being a focus of our discussion and it has stuck with me ever since. watch this. senator, you criticized the bush administration frequently. but you almost never criticize the republican party itself. other democrats much to your chagrin. well yeah, actually. other democrats you hear them talk about the gop as the party that s been wrong on all the big stuff. creating social security, civil rights, war in iraq. you don t do that.
bernie sanders, whether or not you re a supporter of bernie sanders for president of the united states, bernie sanders, you have to admit, had a great night last night in the first democratic presidential debate. you want to know who else had a great night? this guy who now more americans than ever can confidently say is a man named martin o malley. last night s first democratic presidential debate was his chance to basically introduce himself to a much larger swath of the american people than could have recognized him before last night. but he did that interduction. it happened in very positive terms. there s no such thing as a complaint about martin o malley s performance last night in that debate. and most importantly for him, i think it s pretty clear that his performance made him seem more like a bernie sanders and hillary clinton caliber candidate than the kind of guy who ought to be relegated to