Official start time is 8:30pm EDT, on CNN. It’s supposed to be broadcast live online, but the CNN-Go app keeps crashing for me. The CNN Facebook link should start at 8pm…
The Guardian is already liveblogging here:
… The contrast between Clinton and Sanders, side-by-side, will be one of the night’s main attractions at the Wynn on the Vegas Strip. But any of the three other candidates onstage – former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley (CV), former Virginia senator Jim Webb (CV) and former Rhode Island governor and senator Lincoln Chafee (CV) – has the potential to seize the conversation and define the evening.
Is Clinton in trouble? Can Sanders expand his appeal? Will O’Malley or Webb have a breakout moment? Will Chafee repeat his calls to pardon Edward Snowden and encourage the US to adopt the metric system? We’ll be answering all those questions and some even more outlandish ones throughout the evening right here, with a cast of characters from Washington and way, way beyond…
Kevin Drum will be liveblogging at Mother Jones here. His pre-debate take:
* Hillary Clinton will of course get a question or 10 about her email server. She’ll give a standard scripted reply, and the others will all shuffle around nervously when asked to respond. They’d love to take a shot at Hillary, but they’ll be reluctant to look like they’re stooges for Republican conspiracy theories.
* Bernie Sanders will be asked if he’s really a socialist. Sigh.
* Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee will both be asked some version of “Why are you here?” This is actually a fair question since neither seems to be running a serious campaign and neither has even the slightest chance of winning.
* There will be some kind of question about Joe Biden. Everyone will insist that they love Joe and have nothing but the highest regard for him.
* There will probably be some kind of question that dutifully inventories all the conservative complaints about Obamacare and asks what the candidates are going to do about them…