Raddatz, ABC News’s chief global affairs correspondent, has been coming down strong on the candidates, making sure they stick to the debate rules and pressing them to answer the questions asked, not the questions they want to answer. Early in the debate she reminded Hillary Clinton to “stick to gun control” after Clinton tried to redirect a gun question towards the formation of an anti-ISIS coalition. Later she pressed Clinton on whether she would be willing to shoot down a Syrian or Russian plane, given than Clinton was talking about no fly zones and neither ISIS nor al-Qaeda have aircraft, and asked Bernie Sanders what he would do if his original plan for Muslim ground troops in the Middle East failed. Sanders said his plan was “to make it work.”
The candidates may be feeling the heat from Raddatz’s performance but observers on Twitter are loving it:
This isn’t the first time Raddatz has successfully shepherded a debate. In 2012 her moderation of the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan was so good that CNN declared her the night’s winner.