“We cannot afford for a Republican to succeed President Obama as president of the United States,” Clinton said. And she mentioned Republicans a lot in this debate — more than all the other candidates combined. She mentioned them 15 of 27 times they came up by name: “Republican” or “Republicans.” (We’re not counting Chafee’s references to his prior membership in the Republican Party.) One of many ways Clinton projected the confidence of a front-runner in the debate was by using it to start making her general-election case — by focusing on the other major party as much as she focused on her opponents for the Democratic nomination.
