The doc for "cmd" at
http://docs.python.org/dev/library/cmd.html#module-cmd says:

"Instances of Cmd subclasses have some public instance variables:
.
.
.
Cmd.use_rawinput¶
    A flag, defaulting to true. If true, cmdloop() uses raw_input() to
display a prompt and read the next command; if false, sys.stdout.write()
and sys.stdin.readline() are used. (This means that by importing
readline, on systems that support it, the interpreter will automatically
support Emacs-like line editing and command-history keystrokes.)"

So it is for the user to modify use_rawinput as required. This flag has
been introduced in #405952. BTW, this one and other similar variables
are at class level and are not instance variables. Isn't it?