Democratic debate viewers frustrated over lack of hard questions

LAS VEGAS | Some of the toughest questions facing the country were never put to the candidates in the first Democratic presidential debate, prompting activists for hot-button issues such as illegal immigration and abortion to declare CNN the biggest loser out of Tuesday night.

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and the four other candidates on the stage sparred over their philosophies of capitalism and socialism, who would do more to crack down on Wall Street and who was most opposed to deploying U.S. troops to Syria.

But Mrs. Clinton triumphantly exited from the debate, which was hosted by CNN and Facebook and moderated by CNN host Anderson Cooper, without having to account for the reams of classified material that the State Department discovered in the private email account that she exclusively used for official business as secretary of state.

And none of the candidates were challenged on undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood officials negotiating sales of fetal tissue for medical research, drawing a rebuke from pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, which said it was a marked omission.

“Moderators failed to pose a single question on the candidates’ support for abortion on-demand, up until the moment of birth. Nothing on taxpayer funding of abortion. Nothing on Planned Parenthood. Nothing on late-term abortion and the GOP move to stop it. Nothing,” fumed Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the organization.

The candidates did go in-depth on how far to go in limiting banks’ ability to lend and invest at the same time, with the depression-era Glass-Steagall Act garnering a surprising amount of attention.

And candidates sparred over the extent the government should go in cracking down on gun ownership in the wake of the recent community college shooting in Oregon.

But they faced no queries over the issues dominating Capitol Hill right now, including the looming debt limit, government spending and the budget “sequesters” or the Iran nuclear deal.

On immigration, CNN kept the questions focused on what benefits the Democrats would guarantee to people who enter or stay in the country illegally, such as whether they would get enrolled in Obamacare or pay in-state college tuition rates.

That left both sides of the immigration debate disappointed by what was left unsaid Tuesday night by Mrs. Clinton and her rivals — Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb.

“CNN was avoiding the subject. The candidates didn’t even get a chance to avoid the subject,” said Roy Beck, executive director of low-immigration advocacy group NumbersUSA.

He faulted CNN for not exploring the impact illegal immigrants and legal immigrants have on the U.S. labor market and whether they contributed to the suppression of wages and income inequality that the Democratic candidates vowed to correct.

“They just moved on,” he said.

Lynn Tramonte, deputy director of the pro-immigration group America’s Voice, said that Americans know the Democrats support citizenship for illegal immigrants but need to know much more on the subject.

“Pro-immigration voters want more. Supporting refugees from near and far; expanding deferred action; and reuniting families separated by deportation are all issues we want to hear more about,” she said in a statement.

CNN did not respond to questions about the debate.

But the network released a statement trumpeting the Nielsen ratings for the event as the most-watched Democratic presidential debate in history. The debate averaged 15.3 million total viewers and an average 4.8 million viewers in the 25-year-old to 54-year-old demographic, setting the record for a Democratic debate.

It was still well shy of the first two Republican debates this year, which netted 24 million for the kickoff debate, hosted by Fox News in September, and 23 million for the second debate, a CNN production, earlier this month.

The GOP debate in Cleveland was the highest-rated nonsports telecast in cable television history, according to Nielsen.

Tuesday’s debate, CNN said, ranked sixth.