those are not going to decide the core support of the democratic voters in these primaries and caucuses. so i don t think that his absence is going to twist the field. it might pose some tricky questions. if hillary clinton can t deal with those, then she s in serious trouble. margie, this is bernie sanders big opportunity. he s never been seen. he s been pulling the biggest crowds for democrat, no question about it. but in terms of television audiences, he s never had the exposure that hillary clinton has had. is there a special strategy that he should be working on for this debate because it is going to be in many ways for him, an introduction to many new voters? i think you re going to see him introducing himself to people. people who seeing him speak for the first time, they may know a little bit about him but they don t know that much about him. so i think he s first order of business is really saying who he is, his background, and what he s about and the things that he stand
be have an impact on her numbers. she has to move beyond it by talking about what she is, what she represents, the kind of narrative and the purpose of her candidacy. but she also has to speak in a candid way about who she is as well. i think the character questions are more important than the e-mail questions. so she has to establish what kind of leader she would be. and i think for many democrats, and this may just be anecdotal, you may be seeing it in the numbers. the problem ant e-mails is that it won t go away. she has to it put it to rest as an assertion of of her own strength and that strength is what people are going to want to see tomorrow night. listen to what president obama said about the e-mail controversy last night on 60 minutes. i don t think it posed a national security problem. i think it was a mistake that she s acknowledged. margie, a mistake that she s acknowledged. there s the president calling it mistake but hillary clinton has already called it a mista
other candidates and certainly most other candidates she s faced in her career. would you expect her to try to emphasize that tomorrow night? yes, i would. i mean, the risk the risk of it being you can start to sound a little in the weeds and a little boring. right. and a little establishment. yeah. it would be a major mistake for her to do that. i think her strength is her strength. yeah. she s got to project the core essence of who she is which is an extremely strong leader and a strong woman. and someone who can speak authentically at a time when voters, democrats and republicans, are looking for that authenticity. polysubstance does not equal authenticity at this time. emotion, character, forcefulness, direct communication and an honest answer to questions, those are the kinds of factors that i think are shining through. and that s true for bernie sanders especially. and, yeah, margie, that is that s what bernie sanders is running on basically, is i ll tell it t
a new national cbs poll released on the eve of the debate shows hillary clinton holding her solid lead at 46% with bernie sanders holding steadily in second place at 127% and joe biden running third to bernie sanders at 16%. that same poll shows that if joe biden is not a candidate hillary clinton would get two-thirds of biden s supporters pushing her up to 56% and bernie sanders would pick up the rest and move up to 32%. joining us now richard wolffe, executive editor of msnbc.com and margie, democratic pollster for purple strategies. margie, these polls with biden in, biden out, clearly show that he does more damage to hillary clinton than to bernie sanders, but what they don t show is any upward movement for him over the last, say, 60 days. well, there was a time earlier when some outlets were actually not even including biden in the match-ups.
so that side-by-side comparison is going to be harder for bernie sanders, thousands and thousands of people are eager for your every word. it wasn t easy for barack obama. it wasn t particularly easy for him even at the end of the prime minister debates. debating skills weren t there. the way you project hope and change is not really the same as the way you really slash and burn through a debate. even though it s not going to a slug fest it still requires those skills. people want to see the fight brought to life on the stage. if only it s a fight against republicans. bernie sanders has to embrace that while also looking the part on that debate stage. that s not easy. richard wolffe and margie o mara, thank you. thank you. coming up, reaction to a report saying that the police killing of 12-year-old tamir rice was justified.