Joseph Sabino Mistick: Democrats' ugly debate forgot about party

No one seems happy with half a loaf anymore. And that was the big takeaway from the Democratic Party’s presidential debate in Nevada last week.

Half a loaf for Democrats would be defeating Donald Trump, even if it means that some Democratic candidates have to put their personal glory on hold for now.

Instead, the six candidates — Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, former mayors Pete Buttigieg and Mike Bloomberg, and former Vice President Joe Biden — spent much of their time trying to rise to the top by pushing the others down. And it got ugly.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said that Klobuchar looked presidential in the debate, but when he asked her if the debate was good for the Democratic Party, she said, “Not my favorite night.”

The New York Times reported that the candidates “turned on one another in scorching and personal terms.” The Washington Post called it a “two-hour free-for-all that sizzled with animosity.”

Fox News said “the conflagration quickly expanded into an all-out melee and easily the most aggressive debate of the nomination season to date, as each of the candidates took sharp and often personal shots at one another.”

And when Bloomberg responded to a Sanders proposal to force some corporations to issue shares to their employees and require that workers serve on their boards, he said that a move like that would play right into Donald Trump’s hands. And he could have been describing the whole night.

“I can’t think of a way that would make it easier for Donald Trump to get reelected than listening to this conversation,” Bloomberg said. “It’s ridiculous. We’re not going to throw out capitalism.”

Some Democrats will trumpet the Nevada debate as an old-fashioned family free-for-all, but they are forgetting some things.

Not everyone can forgive and forget and pull together after a night like that. Even if the candidates can set aside the personal attacks for the good of the party, many of their supporters will carry the grudge through the general election and sit it out.

The Democrats can’t win without big money, and right now Bloomberg is the only potential benefactor who has it. He has pledged a billion dollars to beat Trump, even if he is not the candidate, but no one could blame him for second thoughts after being cuffed around like he was in Nevada.

And if the candidates are relying on those national opinion polls that show them beating Trump in a head-to-head contest, they need to know that those polls don’t count for much. You have to win the right states to win the next election.

Those who understand political polling will tell you that it is not reliable to poll when the information available is unequal. When the general public starts paying attention — usually after Labor Day — polling will start to matter.

Maybe the candidates needed to vent on that stage in Nevada. If that’s what that was, it’s not too late to put the Democratic Party’s interest first. But unless they can do that, they can all forget about even half a loaf.