By Jessica McBride Special to OnMilwaukee.com Published Nov 15, 2015 at 8:09 AM

The opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the opinions of OnMilwaukee.com, its advertisers or editorial staff.

While some of the Republican debates have been truly comical, I felt like I was watching a "Saturday Night" Live skit during some points in the second Democrat debate on Saturday. Larry David’s take on Bernie Sanders is so spot-on that they’ve blurred together as one in my mind. I loved it when Sanders shouted that people should stop shouting at each other. It was also funny when he said he still doesn’t give a crap about Hillary’s emails.

But none of it was really very funny. In fact, I think this was a disastrous debate for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in general. She should hope that almost no one watched (which is certainly possible). This was somewhat surprising because she defied expectations and had a great debate the first time. This time she was so bad she even admitted she’s yesterday’s news: "I come from the '60s — a long time ago." Yeah, I’m taking that one out of context (it was a response to a question about activism by young people), but she said it, and the GOP will use it.

I think, with Democrats, Bernie Sanders will be perceived as having done well in round two, and he was certainly more succinct than she was (Martin O’Malley just bored, when he wasn’t weirdly calling Hillary "Annie Oakley" on guns anyway). Although I disagreed with a lot of what Sanders said, he has a way of speaking that seems forthright, clear, and memorable, whereas I needed a Rube Goldberg machine to interpret some of her answers (indeed, Politico reported Hillary spoke for more time than either opponents, over 40% of their shared time).

It was like Paris threw Hillary off because it highlights elements of her record that she has trouble explaining (such as the Obama administration’s record in dealing with ISIS and her own vote for the Iraq war). She was so thrown off, in fact, that when asked about the biggest crisis she handled, she started babbling on and on about how hard of a decision it was to advise Obama to kill bin Laden. She referred to the decision as "excruciating." What? (Even if it was a tough call for various reasons – the compound was in Pakistan, the intelligence imperfect – I’m not sure most Americans will like you more, especially with renewed fears about terrorism, if you argue you had a hard time deciding to get bin Laden. Tone deaf. She should have used that as a calling card instead for why she will deal strongly with ISIS, as in, "I was in the room when we took out bin Laden!")

With the general electorate, I’ve got to think the debate was just roundly bad for Democrats in general. Democrats have some points on the economy ($7.25 is indeed really low for minimum wage and debt-free college is a good goal). Sanders had a point and a good line when he said, "It is not a radical idea" to say someone working 40 hours a week shouldn't live in poverty.

But there was also some economic goofiness, such as when Sanders was asked how high he would go to tax rich people, and he settled on answering that he won’t go higher than 90 percent. Ninety percent! He did have a good line when he followed that, though, by arguing, "I'm not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower."

Unfortunately, he’s not much of a general, either.

Foreign security is simply not in the Democratic wheelhouse and post-Paris this race is going to be more about national security than it was before. And I think the Democrats knew that going into this; that’s why Bernie Sanders’ aide was reportedly upset with CBS moderators for starting the debate with Paris. I mean, seriously?

When they started debating, you could see why. Their talking points seemed very Nov. 12. It’s like they didn’t adapt to the realities of a post-Paris world and the concerns those attacks will reignite. It’s like they were stuck in an old conversation, and we’re all having another one.

In the worst moment for Hillary, she started the debate off by saying that ISIS is not America’s fight. "This cannot be an American fight," she said. I also don’t believe that this should ONLY be an American fight, but the way she said it was off. Is that really what Americans want to hear in the wake of the horrors in Paris? Remember they are switching channels from scenes of horror to scenes of Hillary saying it’s not America’s fight.

O’Malley had one of his few memorable moments when he responded, "I actually disagree with Sec. Clinton on this. This actually is America's fight…"

Asked whether she and Obama underestimated ISIS, Hillary repeatedly dodged the question in a rambling response that brought up everyone from Bush to Assad. So I guess she’s saying it’s Bush’s fault that she and Obama underestimated ISIS. She did have a good moment (and took a swipe at Obama, before later praising him) when she said ISIS needed to be destroyed not contained. The "it’s Bush’s fault" isn’t going to fly very far in a Dem primary when you voted for Bush’s war and worked for a president who’s had almost two terms to create his own strategies (acknowledging that, in retrospect, knowing what we know now, it was a mistake to go into Iraq. Only Bernie owned that terrain, but he still had to explain what he would do now).

Hillary sort of has it wrong in all ways. She supported the Iraq war but now doesn’t think ISIS is our fight.

Hillary’s response is kind of the equivalent of, on Sept. 12, 2001, taking the stage and saying "Al-Qaida is not our fight." Well, that might be a slightly unfair analogy because ISIS didn’t attack America on Friday. ISIS attacked France. But, in another way, the analogy works because an American college student was among the victims, and ISIS wasn’t just attacking France, ISIS was (and has been) attacking humanity. Clinton (Bill) argued that some conflicts create a moral imperative when he went into the former Yugoslavia. ISIS has beheaded Americans, tossed gay people off cliffs, brutalized the good people (Muslim and Christian) of Iraq and Syria, raped women, you name it. Yes, this is our fight. It’s also our fight because we broke it and then abandoned the Iraqi people to something worse after promising them freedom. It’s a moral imperative to not leave them in the clutches of these ISIS lunatics.

And what would Bernie do now? He emphasizes diplomacy (didn’t Obama try that?) He said he absolutely still thinks climate change is the biggest problem and linked climate change to terrorism. OK….seriously? He talked about Paris for a few seconds at the top and then segued swiftly to billionaires and campaign finance reform (hey, Bernie, all Americans were thinking about on Saturday was Paris).

None of them would agree to call ISIS "radical Islam." Worse, Hillary didn’t take a stand and explain why she won’t clearly. She rambled around the point. And Hillary doubled down on taking all those refugees from Syria, although she promised they would be properly screened. As well as they were in Greece? Where two of the Paris attackers may have passed through as refugees? That’s what I mean by Nov. 12 talking points. She didn’t even acknowledge these new realities in her responses. And I think that’s going to be a big problem when she gets to a general election. Which she probably still will if we are honest, but I think Bernie’s going to enjoy a new surge on the left after this debate.

That’s because while the right will go bananas over Hillary’s answers on foreign policy, the left will go bananas over some of her answers on economics. For examples, she wants a $12 minimum wage and Bernie wants $15, and they’re already going at her hard on this on Twitter.

She doesn’t want free college, although she had a great line about not wanting the taxpayers to pay to send Donald Trump’s kids to college. Of course this misses the point that Trump doesn’t want that either. She also had a really bad moment when she tied her donations from Wall Street to Sept. 11. As I said, a tone deaf debate for her. Somewhat surprising.

Meanwhile Bernie went wild on Wall Street, basically accusing the entire industry of fraud. But this may help him with the left.

Could we end up with a Trump-Sanders general election? Now, I am not saying that’s going to happen and is even likely. But wouldn’t that be something? (don’t discount how Trump’s strong man, tough image is what people will want, especially after Paris… and the recent Reuters/Ipso poll showed him breaking 40 percent in the GOP primary for the first time with a 17 percent surge since Nov. 6.)

I wouldn’t count Sec. Clinton out yet, not by a long shot. But this was not a good night for her.

"I've heard a lot about me in this debate," Hillary said. It turned out that didn’t help her.

Jessica McBride Special to OnMilwaukee.com

Jessica McBride spent a decade as an investigative, crime, and general assignment reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and is a former City Hall reporter/current columnist for the Waukesha Freeman.

She is the recipient of national and state journalism awards in topics that include short feature writing, investigative journalism, spot news reporting, magazine writing, blogging, web journalism, column writing, and background/interpretive reporting. McBride, a senior journalism lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has taught journalism courses since 2000.

Her journalistic and opinion work has also appeared in broadcast, newspaper, magazine, and online formats, including Patch.com, Milwaukee Magazine, Wisconsin Public Radio, El Conquistador Latino newspaper, Investigation Discovery Channel, History Channel, WMCS 1290 AM, WTMJ 620 AM, and Wispolitics.com. She is the recipient of the 2008 UWM Alumni Foundation teaching excellence award for academic staff for her work in media diversity and innovative media formats and is the co-founder of Media Milwaukee.com, the UWM journalism department's award-winning online news site. McBride comes from a long-time Milwaukee journalism family. Her grandparents, Raymond and Marian McBride, were reporters for the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel.

Her opinions reflect her own not the institution where she works.