Seeking a breakout: Chafee, Webb and O'Malley look for a big night among Dems
Politics
Seeking a breakout: Chafee, Webb and O'Malley look for a big night among Dems
Somewhere in America, Jim Webb, a former Virginia senator, and Lincoln Chafee, a former Rhode Island senator, are alive and well and running for president. So is Martin O'Malley, who has campaigned more aggressively than both. On Tuesday night, all three will take their place on stage with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the first Democratic presidential debate, fielding questions from CNN’s Anderson Cooper and claiming their stake in the presidential election. With very few campaign appearances, media visibility or responses to reporters’ messages, Webb and Chafee are running shoestring campaigns while making a virtue of necessity by ostentatiously forgoing big donations. All three have one thing in common — an inability so far to generate any of the enthusiasm among voters that has pushed Sanders into and kept Clinton at the top of the field.
This will really be the first time that nationally voters see that there’s more than one alternative to this year’s inevitable frontrunner, Secretary Clinton.
Martin O'Malley
O'Malley, a former Maryland governor who touts his executive experience in dealing with issues such as gun control, is critical of Clinton for her recent shifts on policy issues, among them her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which he calls a “reversal.” Expect Chafee to go after Clinton for her 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq. Webb, a Vietnam veteran, has deep experience on military issues and foreign policy, and has been critical of Clinton’s handling of the conflict in Libya. Even if they don’t boost their own candidacies, less popular contenders can still have an impact on a debate stage with original proposals and ideas.
