Debates giving us better look at Democratic candidates

Debates are a great way to get a little better look at someone running for office. In the past couple of weeks—minus a lot of the earlier hopefuls who have dropped out—viewers have been able to see the Democratic candidates for U.S. President on the debate stage once again.
    If I was a Democrat, I would be concerned with the candidate list. At the top of that concern is the current front runner—Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist who wants to make major changes in this country.
    While the party, and media, are doing everything they can to push Bernie out of the way (again), he seems to have a wave of followers who may be hard to stop.
    And many of his supporters are young people who apparently don’t know, or don’t care, what socialism is.
    Bernie’s trying to recover from comments the past week about Cuba, when he said Fidel Castro’s regime was exemplary in some ways, pointing out its successful literacy program. Does that really mean much when the regime controlled what the people could read and write? That’s kind of like praising the new tires on a car even though faulty brakes caused it to crash through a guardrail and kill all its occupants. He’s trying to backtrack from the comments, as  party officials have another concern with the effect in Florida voting, where many former Cubans reside.
    The next week is going to move the race in a direction that’s hard to predict. Super Tuesday arrives March 3 when 14 different primaries are scheduled, including some big states like California and Texas. The states casting ballots on Tuesday together comprise 40% of the U.S. population.
    In any sense, whoever is nominated on the Democratic ticket will have an uphill battle against an incumbent President with a positive economy.

    Since we’re talking elections, the filing deadline for candidates for local races is just around the corner. Final day to file is Monday, March 2, by 5 p.m. in the county clerk’s office. There are a lot of important offices open, including seats on the school board and city council, as well as county commissioner.