Democrats show it’s possible to have a civil debate

Oh, this won't do. This won't do at all.

The Democrats got together for a presidential debate Tuesday night at the Wynn Las Vegas, and not a single candidate vilified an opponent's looks, weight or degree of perspiration. There wasn't a single barb worthy of Don Rickles, much less Don Trump — unless perhaps it was the moment Martin O'Malley chided the current GOP front-runner as "that carnival barker in the Republican Party."

The specter of the GOP's joker in the deck appeared only briefly during the two-hour affair moderated by CNN's Anderson Cooper. And that's a good thing. The questions were serious, at times brutally pointed. The candidates managed to keep their responses respectful and above the belt.

There wasn't much grist for the late-night talk show comics or a reality TV producer. And that's a better thing.

There will be a lot of talk around the water cooler today following the performance of former Maryland Gov. O'Malley, who combined passion with pragmatism and delivered some inspired closing remarks.

And there will be someone in every crowd overheard admitting, "I kind of like that Bernie Sanders. He isn't nearly as crazy as I've heard." The Vermont senator, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, brought an authentic voice to his unabashedly progressive political views. Whether American voters will ever send a big-government socialist to the White House remains to be seen, but no one who heard him speak can doubt where Sanders is coming from on the issues of income inequality, single-payer health care, free public college tuition and the long shadow of the Iraq war.

And there was frontrunner Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, with all that experience — and so many places to hit thanks to her shifts on major issues. She took no shortage of jabs — and kept on swinging. Her enemies and critics were surely reminded of her unmistakable resilience. She scored with the faithful with lines such as, "I know how to find common ground, and I know how to stand my ground."

Nevada Rep. Dina Titus, a declared Clinton supporter and member of her Tuesday night spin team, got it right when she predicted, "All of the candidates are going to be adults on the stage" in reference to recent Republican debates that at times degraded into circus sideshows with Trump as ringmaster.

The candidates took on each other, but on occasion came to each other's defense, such as when Sanders weighed in on Clinton's email imbroglio and offered, "Enough of the emails. Let's talk about the real issues."

With the exception of former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a conservative who compared to far-left Sanders and ex-Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee sounded like a holdover from the GOP's recent marathon, the discussion was progressive and bursting with talk about growing the middle class, raising the minimum wage, punishing the gangsters of Wall Street and taking on the "casino capitalists" and billionaires who control so much of the nation's wealth and politics. (As an aside, I'm wondering how generous GOP donors Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn felt to have the debate practically in their kitchens.)

It all played better than watching a big-haired blowhard making with the wicked wisecracks about his opponents and shadowy criminals from south of the border in a nation of immigrants.

Some will shrug and say the low blows are coming, just wait until the Democrats meet again. Others will laugh and remind those daffy Democrats that someone has to pay for all those social programs they care about so deeply.

But unless the Republicans want to watch the election of America's first woman president, "Feel the Bern," witness a winning "Rally for O'Malley," or even watch the country go "Ridin' With Biden" in 2016, the GOP's grownups have to find a way to cut Trump's microphone — and soon.

— John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. He can be reached at 702-383-0295 or jsmith@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith