here. in just a few minutes we're counting down to the debate. anderson cooper will be the mod ray for for that debate. thank you for watching "out front". anderson cooper 360 right now. good evening everybody from las vegas. we're just 30 minutes from now five democratic presidential candidates face off for the first time. there is certainly a lot at stake and a lot of excitement at the center podium on the debate stage, front-runner hillary clinton. to her right bernie sanders, to the left martin o'malley, lincoln chafee and jim webb. dana bash will be here. cnn espanol washington correspondent juan carlos lopez. don lemon will bring in questions via facebook. there's been a lot of activity and the excitement is palpable.

we're joined now on the floor from brianna. >> hi there anderson. i want to give you a look at the stage behind me me. you can see where dana bash and juan carlos will be. you'll be asking questions of the candidates. their five lecterns stand ready for them. they're not far from the debate hall. they're in their green room trailers. we were just out behind the hotel. martin o'malley has a guitar in his trailer. lincoln chafee, jim webb, we saw them out there. also, as we await hillary clinton and bernie sanders at their trailers, it's really interesting as we await for them certainly to come through what really is sort of the back of the hotel here and eventually make their entrance on to the stage. they did, at least a couple of them get a welcome from senator harry reid who came to their trailers to say hello.

looking out at the audience here, a lot of people excited. they're milling around. we saw familiar faces. jesse ventura, jesse jackson. wayne newton. we have a real housewife of beverly hills even. you have a lot of people ready for this debate to get under way in a little over a half hour. anderson? >> how have the candidates been spending the last 24 hours? we saw secretary clinton out at a demonstration outside a trump hotel here with some workers, i believe, who were wanting to unionize. were they doing debate prep today? >> yes, they were doing debate prep today. i know specifically for hillary clinton, i spoke with one of her aides and she had debate prep this afternoon. remember, there was a walk-through that a lot of the candidates did. she did not do that. she was focusing on that debate prep. she's been working for some time. this is the last minutes of all it. she's been working for weeks with a team of litigators. martin o'malley has been working for weeks.

he also is doing some debate prep today as well, ab der son. >> thank you brianna. peter beinart is here. donna brazil. democratic strategist, paul is here. pro-hillary clinton super pac and was a long time adviser to president bill clinton. paul, if you were backstage with hillary clinton, which i'm pretty sure you're not allowed to be, since they're part of a super pac, what will you be telling her to do? >> this is the part i miss the most. i was the last person to talk to bill clinton before he went out to every debate. this is what i would say to hillary, which is what i said to her husband. you've got good one-liners, you've got a good plan. but if something pops in your head, say it. you have great extinction. you trust your extinction and don't rehearse canned lines. that's what she needs more than anything. the confidence to throw deep. it's hard to do when you're the front-runner. >> are her instincts as good at

her husband's? >> nobody is as good as him. >> is a candidate who has debated as much as she has, do you think she gets nervous? >> absolutely. i'm sure there are times when she wants to make sure that she remembers not just her lines but what the other candidates have been saying. you know what, the goal is to be yourself. to really be in the moment. look at this crowd. this is an amazing crowd. this is a democratic party. you see familiar faces, new face, a lot of shiny new objects. i think she's going to get out there and feel this energy and perform very well. >> it's interesting, peter. comparing this audience to the one at the reagan library, the last gop debate, that was 500 people or so. i think there's 1300 seats here. i think you're going to feel and hear this audience a lot more than you did than the reagan debate. i fully expect to be booed by this audience.

>> probably some wet kisses of love. >> i doubt that. i checked out where the exits are after this debate. bernie sanders, peter, there's so much enthusiasm among his supporters. if you were hillary clinton, do you try to appeal to those supporters tonight or do you try to make yourself be more of a moderate for a general election matchup? >> i think she can't get worried about the enthusiasm gap. there is an enthusiasm gap. the most partisan and enthusiastic democrats are with bernie sanders. what she needs to focus on is not him but pivoting away from this disastrous summer by reminding people of her core strength. her core strength is that she knows the policy, she's someone, even if you don't believe she's trustworthy, she's well-informed and qualified. she's very good when she talks policy. she's very good on substance. i think she needs to remind people of that core strength. >> paul, some of these candidates who are very low on the polls, 1%, 2% at most, do they try to punch up?

do they try to make a name for themselves by going after hillary clinton or bernie sanders? >> they might but it's not smart. today's abc news poll has hillary's favorability at 79 among democrats. that's remarkable given that she's had the summer she's had. >> she has independents. >> she has to win the democrats first. if i were advising her, i would say never punch down. a soft word turneth away wrath. not my favorite passage from the bible. she's a better person than i am. she could do that. >> he introduced themselves anderson. they want to connect with the people inside and begin to tell the world outside who they are. why they're running and why they should be the front-runners in the race. i think this is going to be a good night for democrats and a good night for america. >> donna, if you're bernie sanders and introducing yourself to a lot of viewers who have not been to one of your rallies with tens of thousands of people and maybe have a lot of questions

about, wait a minute, you're a socialist, do you play that up? do you try to appeal to more moderates? what do you do? >> i said last night, it's not what people call you, it's what you answer to. i think bernie sanders answered to working class families. he answered to people who are struggling, who want to get a job and make ends meet. there's no question that bernie sanders who has never run in a democratic primary is now in a democratic primary. we're excited about him. he's really appealed to a lot of new voters. tonight is an opportunity for all of us to feel the bern. if you "feel the bern," anderson, are you going to get wavy and groovy like everybody always on a "feel the bern" team? >> is there anything wavy or groovy about me? you think i have an ounce of that in me? >> anderson, i've seen some moves lately. >> there were some moves. i don't know what you're talking about. >> thank you all. the countdown clock is certainly ticking. in just a few minutes, the five

democratic candidates are going to take their places on the podiums, on the lecterns on the stage behind us. let me just ask you, because i mean, paul, you certainly have been in a lot of debates with bill clinton. how nervous does a candidate get? i mean, even a candidate who has been -- who has done a lot of them. hillary clinton has done dozens and dozens? >> they get quiet. i sat before one debate in the general election. i sat with governor clinton and bounced a basketball back and forth silently. when he did talk, he wanted to talk about the spy novels he was reading. get your mind out of it for a bit. these folks, all of them, even jim webb, he's a war hero and accomplished senator. they've all come prepared. they're thoroughbreds. i can't wait to see them. >> what's interesting, sanders has not been preparing. he's a little bit like donald trump. his calling card is awe then tis at this. they made a point that he hasn't

done a lot of this. it will be an interesting dynamic to watch. he'll try to play it differently. he'll come across as the guy actually saying whatever comes into his mind. >> then he lowered expectations saying i'm not reading a book and go with the flow. i think he's well-prepared. he knows what he wants to tell the american people. >> not on this kind of a stage, more from the debate hall after this short break. we'll be right back. you tuck here... you tuck there. if you're a toe tucker... because of toenail fungus, ask your doctor now about prescription kerydin. used daily, kerydin drops may kill the fungus

at the site of infection and get to the root of your toe tucking. kerydin may cause irritation at the treated site. most common side effects include skin peeling... ...ingrown toenail, redness, itching, and swelling. tell your doctor if you have any side effect that bothers you or does not go away. stop toe tucking... and get the drop on toenail fungus. ask your doctor today about kerydin.

choose, choose, choose. but at bedtime? ...why settle for this? enter sleep number. don't miss the columbus day sale. sleepiq technology tells you how well you slept and what adjustments you can make. you like the bed soft. he's more hardcore. so your sleep goes from good to great to wow! only at a sleep number store. right now save $600 on the #1 rated bed, plus 24-month financing. hurry, ends tuesday! know better sleep with sleep number.

we're just minutes away from tonight's democratic presidential debate here in las vegas. a linchpin state with an early primary, large number of union

voters. a key democratic constituency. i'll be moderating the debate tonight. you can hear the anticipation at the wynn hotel. joining me is david axelrod, also cnn political reporter, anchor of inside politics and gloria borger. david, i have to start with you. you were critical of the campaign in 2008. also a cnn contributor, published an internal document from the 2008 campaign. essentially pointing out the strategy that then senator obama used to defeat hillary clinton and a strategy of basically pointing out raising questions about her -- about trust, about her convictions, whether she actually has a political -- a soul of strong political convictions. >> as you point out, the memo isn't very revel torrey. because the strategy followed. we recognize that she had

significant political assets. she's smart, she's tough, she's experienced and we'll see some of that, i think, tonight. >> does she still face the same and she's just arriving we're told any minute here at the hall. does she still face some of those questions about obviously about trust, about her political convictions? sniemts although she faces them more among independent and republican voters than among democrats. who give her high ratings on those characteristics. with whom she's very popular. i think the other candidates have to tread lightly in raising those issues at this debate. >> lest they incur the ire of the crowd? >> not just the crowd but democrats in the country. these are questions that will be raise ds, no question about it. she has to overcome that. i don't think they're a huge impediment in the democratic primary. >> gloria, you've been reporting on bernie sanders' debate strategy. he says from what your reporting and others is that they're not going to go after hillary

clinton, which is something he's said all along, unless he's attacked. >> right. i don't think she's going to attack bernie sanders either. they make the case they're not going to attack her frontally but kind of a back door which is to say i've been consistent on these issues for the last three decades. where have you been? i've been a consistent progressive, where have you been? everybody is going to try and lean more and more to the left in this debate. bernie sanders has said i was there before you were, hillary clinton. so that's the kind of debate you're going to see. it's not going to be a frontal attack on her e-mail or on her likability or on her trustworthiness. >> where do you see secretary clinton's vulnerability. >> to the memo from 2007 to today, she called the trans pacific trade partnership, now she's against it. she's moved on the minimum wage, moved on arctic drilling. moved to the right on some things. no fly zone, not in syria. could you see the candidates say

consistency is a character issue, it's possible. if you're governor o'malley, chafee, webb, you're on the fringe, looking for a breakthrough. if you take a gratuitous shot at hillary clinton and don't connect the two dots and don't make it about why you're better, it's a huge risk. including senator sanders, but for the breakthrough candidates, they need relevance, they will be tougher maybe than anyone else. but to david's point, he's popular among democrats. they may have doubts about her but a gratuitous shot is a huge risk. >> i agree with it. to see what the undercard candidates do, lincoln chafee, jim webb and martin o'malley, whether or not they think going after hillary clinton is worth it or if they feel like going after sanders who sort of stands in the way of them get to go a one-on-one with hillary clinton. whether or not they go after

sanders. talking to liberal economists, there's a certain amount of skepticism about bernie sanders' agenda. price tag could be -- so is there someone on stage that ee america merges as the realist. >> david wrote a piece about bernie sanders and he has the opportunity you said tonight to present a more, i guess, how would you -- >> i think bernie sanders is a guy who speaks about class, who speaks in broad terms. he rarely invokes people. there's a certain element of humanity that's lacking in his presentation. that would be good to inject to a broad audience like this. show your connection with actual human, not just with a class of people. >> it's going to be a fascinating night. a lot to watch for. as we said, i'll be moderating. we are -- >> got some work to do. >> i do. everybody stick around after the break my colleague wolf blitzer will take over.

i have to get ahead to the debate floor. stay with us. we're minutes away from the first democratic presidential debate. big day? ah, the usual. moved some new cars. hauled a bunch of steel. kept the supermarket shelves stocked. made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. what's up for the next shift? ah, nothing much. just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac. see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern.

it took joel silverman years to become a master dog trainer. but only a few commands to master depositing checks at chase atms. technology designed for you. so you can easily master the way you bank. i'm a senior field technician for pg&e here in san jose. pg&e is using new technology to improve our system, replacing pipelines throughout the city of san jose, to provide safe and reliable services. raising a family here in the city of san jose has been a wonderful experience. my oldest son now works for pg&e.

when i do get a chance, an opportunity to work with him, it's always a pleasure. i love my job and i care about the work i do. i know how hard our crews work for our customers. i want them to know that they do have a safe and reliable system. together, we're building a better california. i'm wolf blitzer, the first democratic debate is only a few minutes away. the festivities here are beginning. the excitement is clearly building. we're back with our panel, the former obama adviser and cnn political commentator, david axelrod our chief national correspondent, the host of inside politics, john king and our chief political analyst, gloria borger. hillary clinton, she has a huge challenge ahead of her. if you were giving her strategy advise, david, tonight, what would be the most important thing to whisper in her ear?

>> you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. she's have the facts and the arguments. she needs to insert a little poetry and give person a reason to believe. i think that's her prime mission tonight. >> how does she do that? >> i think by invoking, giving a sense of her connection to the issues that she's advocating and making them feel less tactical, which has been one of the problems going up to this point. >> how does bernie sanders, gloria, really introduce himself to a large chunk of the democratic base who may be watching tonight? >> that's his job this evening. one thing bernie sanders hates is talking about himself. he doesn't like answering personal questions when reporters ask him. he's got a lifetime in civil rights. he's got a lifetime in politics. he needs to share a little bit more of who he is with democratic voters. and also let them know why somebody who is a democratic socialist can actually be

elected president of the united states. he has to look presidential and lift the veil a little bit on who he is. >> martin o'malley, jim webb, lincoln chafee, the other three candidates who will be on the stage, they've got a tough assignment tonight. >> they do. because they see the recent example of carly fiorina on the republican side. it was in an undercard debate. they saw somebody low on the polls can make themselves for relevant in the race. she's still in the middle of the pack, but she went from nowhere to the middle of the pack. they're thinking what's my breakthrough, how do i make a connection? the question is, do i go after hillary clinton because there's a risk in doing that if you're overly personal and slashing in your attacks. despite the questions about her, she remains popular among democrats or do they think i want to be the alternative and take down bernie sanders. they need a breakthrough to be relevant. how they get there is risky. they start from a low position. >> i assume all five candidates at some point either directly, indirectly will refer to the republican presidential front-runner, donald trump.

>> that's right. we've seen that already. he said that he's going to be live tweeting, i think he said it will be a hugely boring debate, he'll be live tweeting. hillary clinton tweeted back it will be a huge election. yes, i expect they'll bring him up because he's a big target. democrats do not like donald trump. even for the undercard guys, if you want to sort of be in the news cycle come tomorrow, it might be a funny one liner to -- >> democrats and broadcasters, donald trump is the gift that keeps on giving. >> right. he's going to tweet that right now. >> that's right. >> look, we're in the state of nevada. the latino vote is critical. it used to go back and forth. now it leans blue. new mexico is the same way. back and forth between bush and gore because of the latino vote. you can expect, whether talking about his views on mexican immigrants, building the wall, democrats, that's tee ball at this stage.

>> trump will be the punching bag here. these people are not going to punch at each other. they're going to punch at republicans. >> i assume some of these democratic candidates, david, they'll go after hillary clinton for flipflopping and changing her mind on domestic and national issues. >> i agree with john. they'll do it in a subtle way and talk about their own consistency and they need to be consistent an the question of whether you can trust them to act on what they say they'll do based on what they've done before. i don't think there will be a direct assault on her for the reasons discussed earlier. i think she's a popular figure among democrats and they don't want a frontal assault on a fellow democrat, particularly the front-runner. >> if they did that to hillary clinton, it would probably benefit her. i bet she's prepared. i bet she has ready answers for every attack she would get if she got attacked. so, there's no benefit in it for any of these candidates to go after her. >> the scenario that is we've discussed, she's been through several times in a run through.

>> exactly. >> she knows how to deal with them. i don't think she'll fire unless fired upon. but she's fire back if she is. i can tell from you experience, worked for a candidate who debated her a couple of dozen times, she's pretty good at it. >> you do have to make the case, when they come after her consistency, the challenge is, is it an he have laugs or a flipflop? not because of changing polls, it's because of changing times. >> doesn't want to distance herself from barack obama on the sensitive issues because she needs the obama base to get herself a nomination and be elected president. >> she's doing pretty good with the obama base. if you look at polls in south carolina and out of nevada. she's got high numbers among african-americans and latinoss. but she has put distance particularly in tpp. but she might have -- she gained union support too. >> remember the obama base is pretty large. he's the most popular democrat. he's around 80%.

there's not a big benefit in kicking him around too much in this debate. >> but she did on the tpp, the trans-pacific partnership. that trade deal she worked on as secretary of state. she's now said it's a bad deal. >> as i've said before, the theory here is if you flipflop, flop on to the most popular front. >> guys, president obama as you know, he's at the white house tonight. we are told he will probably watch part, if not all of tonight's democratic presidential debate which begins in just a few minutes from now. we're here at the wynn hotel in las vegas. you know what i want to do, i want to go to debbie wasserman schultz. she's chair of the democratic national committee. she's about to introduce a taped message to the people from president obama. let's listen in. >> thank you so much. >> eight years ago i was one of the many candidates sharing my vision for our country's future. after a hard fought primary, we came together and built a historic grassroots campaign to bring change to america. together we enacted wall street reform to protect consumers and

prevent another crisis. together we changed the way we use energy. together we reformed our health care system and another 16 million americans now know the peace of mind of health insurance. together we've stood up for justice and equality and the freedom to marry is now open to all. >> we have to fight just as hard in this election as we did in the last two. no matter who is on the ballot next november, that's the choice we're going to face and that's why i'm still fired up and still ready to go. i'm not just asking you to work as hard for our party as you did in 2008 or 2012. i'm asking you to work even harder. knock on more doors, talk to more of your friends. give more than you thought you could give. if we do that, then i know that democrats won't just win the white house and congress, and elections all the way down the ticket, we'll keep building on the extraordinary progress the past several years. we'll leave our kids and america better than ever. thanks