Yes, Joe Biden was stronger last night than in
the first debate, but not enough. With Biden’s second uneven performance, a
mediocre showing by Harris, and strong outings by Booker, Warren, Castro, and
Mayor Pete, this race is opening, not closing.
You have to say this for the Trumpublican Party: they are aligned.
They may have initially sold out to Donald Trump, but now they have
completely bought in. They speak as one, albeit largely in divisive,
hateful, racist, misogynist, xenophobic tweets. They may have sold their soul
to the devil, but there is no seller’s remorse. Trump is the only voice that
matters in the Republican Party, trumping and trampling on all others.
Ah, and then we have the Democratic Party, our wondrously
broad spectrum capable of embracing all colors, cultures, creeds, and even Marianne
Williamson. The Democrats are a big tent, indeed, although it is beginning to
resemble one with three rings, replete with jesters, jugglers, high wire
balancing acts, and the occasional elephant. It is, at the early stages of the
2020 campaign, a bit of a circus, a party that is unsure of who it really is,
dancing between the practical and principle, expedience and idealism, and incrementalism
and revolution.
We see the internecine cracks in the battle about to handle impeachment, in the raging debate about how to provide health
insurance to all citizens, in the question of how to attack income and wealth
inequality, and in how the candidates talk about inherent societal racial bias,
historic inequities, and corrective action.
In two consecutive nights in Detroit, the multiple cracks
in the Democratic Party became ever more visible, and ever more emotionally
charged.
After two debates, we only know this much: Joe Biden is not
holding up well under the merciless incoming raining down on the reigning
front runner. He was more assertive last night than in the prior debate, but
there were too many instances in which he was halting, uncertain, or simply
unable to find the words to counter effective charges. Biden was, at best,
uneven, and that makes twice in a row. Were this trend to continue, it would be
unsustainable.
The good news for Biden? No single, strong, voice has
emerged that shows the muscle to screw a rudder on the stern and steer a firm
course through choppy seas. Kamala Harris faltered after her strong first
debate. Cory Booker finally emerged as a powerful force, which could trigger
his ascent into the top tier.
Elizabeth Warren was roundly celebrated for a strong
showing in the Wednesday night debate, but that entire evening placed the issue
of radical vs. incremental change in stark relief. As strong as Warren was, she
simply emerged as the champion of a radical strategy that may be inherently
flawed in a party that simply and only wants a candidate who can beat Donald
Trump.
Pete Buttigieg turned in his usual solid performance, and
is so well funded that his future in the race is solid. Julian Castro had a
another strong performance. Amy Klobuchar seemed tougher and more involved in
the second debate, but it is questionable whether she really punched through
the din. Beto O’Rourke continues to
fade, unable to break through decisively on any single issue.
In general, the “one percent” candidates seemed stronger
and sharper than in the first debate, but the field is simply too big, and
it is hard to say that any one of these low-polling candidates made a such a
decisive showing that they salvaged their candidacies. Tulsi Gabbard
was extremely effective in attacking Kamala Harris, and she could be the one
one-percenter who truly elevated her candidacy. John Delaney raised his profile
with lots of screen time, as he led the attack on the radicalism of Warren and
Sanders, but this made him their punching bag. Steve Bullock made a strong
showing in his first debate appearance, but – hard to believe as this may sound
with the election a full 15 months away – his late start may have cost him
serious consideration. The race may already be too far along for him to catch up.
Tuesday night was Evolution vs. Revolution Night, as the
luck of the debate draw put the party’s two most radical change agents front
and center, where they took incoming all night from an array of candidates who
plastered them with accusations of election toxicity. Wonkfest 2019 centered on healthcare,
income inequality, corporate power and greed, and ineffectual government. To
watch this debate in isolation – with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren
commanding the center podiums symbolizing polling leadership – you might have concluded
that the Democratic Party was on the verge of nominating radical change agents Cheech
and Che Guevara, and that all the aging white men on the stage were
fanatically committed to stopping the train wreck of McGovern 2.0.
Both Warren and Sanders were passionate and effective
advocates for radical change, but in their very effectiveness they may have
finally shown the party how dangerous their candidacies could be in a general
election. One by one, Delaney, Hickenlooper, Bullock, and Ryan ripped into their
plan to dismantle the private healthcare industry, branding the concept of
“taking something away” as radioactive
policy that could hand the election to Trump. Moderate viewers had to have been
deeply concerned as strong voices in the Democratic Party condemned the
political risk of radical revolution.
Wednesday night was different. It was the Old Guard vs. the
New Democratic Rainbow of Diversity. It was an evening in which an aging white
guy was pushed to the wall by charismatic and eloquent African-Americans, a
Latino, an Asian American, and three women.
The topics of oppression, historical inequity and disenfranchisement,
inherent societal and government bias smoldered throughout. Joe Biden needed to
appear tough and battle ready after his tepid prior debate performance, and
most definitely improved from that. But he spent the night on his heels under
withering assault from a wide array of smart, informed, persuasive, vibrant
candidates. Booker, Harris, Castro, and de Blasio were most aggressive in challenging
Biden, and each scored major hits. Biden fought, but at points looked
surprised, puzzled, hurt, and dazed by the amount of blunt force trauma coming
at him.
In Biden’s defense, many of these attacks were based on
statements or positions Biden had taken a half-century before. But precisely
because these attacks were about such old news, Biden should have been
thoroughly prepared to crisply dispatch each and every one. If Biden was not
expecting this level and type of attack, shame on him. It was his own failure to
anticipate such criticism and his lack of preparation to deal with it that
caused him to appear weak once again. Moreover, Biden’s many of his responses were
milquetoast… he would attempt to simply brush them off as positions from long
ago, and even attempted at one point to exploit Barack Obama’s selection of him as his VP as
a sort of universal exoneration for all prior misdeeds. It was not compelling.
Interestingly, Kamala Harris also seemed pushed off her
game by the amount of criticism leveled at her. Such is the price to rising to
the top tier: Harris was targeted by others – most acutely by Tulsi Gabbard,
who accused Harris of withholding evidence in a death row case. -- and Harris’s
facial expressions signaled surprise, disappointment, and even indignation at the
allegations being hurled her way. Harris did not dominate as she had in the
first debate, but she seemed to recover a bit with a rousing closing statement. Still
and all, she had the chance to emerge from this debate as the lead challenger
to Biden, and she did not succeed.
While Harris receded, it was Cory Booker’s turn to take a
big step forward. The New Jersey Senator was confident, genial, and seemed to
be rather enjoying himself. He aggressively took Biden on, and delivered some
razor-sharp zingers that actually appeared spontaneous rather than
pre-programmed, making them all the more effective. Booker challenged Biden on
his role on his role in advocating a series of anti-crime bills that are now
seen to have had lasting negative impact on the African-American community. Booker
goaded Biden into responding to his challenges, and mocked him
openly when he did.
”Mr.
Vice President, there's a saying in my community, you're dipping into the
Kool-Aid and you don't even know the flavor.”
“We
have a system right now that's broken. And if you want to compare records --
and, frankly, I'm shocked that you do...”
When Bill de Blasio skewered Biden on the issue of whether the
Vice President disagreed with the Obama Administration’s large number of
deportations, it was Booker who delivered the line that cleaned Biden’s clock:
“Mr. Vice President, you can't have it both
ways. You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign. You can't
do it when it's convenient and then dodge it when it's not.”
But Booker was not the only candidate taking sharp aim at
Biden. Julian Castro went hard at Biden during the discussion of immigration policy, at one point issuing a blunt
direct insult to the party’s eminence grise.
“Yeah,
first of all, Mr. Vice President, it looks like one of us has learned the
lessons of the past and one of us hasn't.”
Castro once again took a step forward, with his calm,
articulate, and plain-spoken manner, and willingness to mix it up to make a point.
On Wednesday night, Warren and Sanders may have won the rhetorician’s
prizes for devastating zingers and for their passionate advocacy of revolutionary change, but the truth of it is that both may have absorbed a hit for
their extremism. Nobody likes the nerdy, officious John Delaney, but he teed up
the issue that dominated much of the debate: that Sanders and Warren’s plan to
abolish private health insurance would make the Democratic Party DOA in 2020:
“Folks, we have a choice. We can go down the road that Senator Sanders and
Senator Warren want to take us, which is with bad policies like Medicare for
all, free everything and impossible promises that will turn off independent
voters and get Trump re-elected. That's what happened with McGovern. That's
what happened with Mondale. That's what happened with Dukakis.”
In rapid
sequence, newcomer Steve Bullock echoed Delaney, and was joined by John
Hickenlooper and Tim Ryan, who each condemned the single-payer plan of Sanders
and Warren. Warren and Sanders clearly relished their roles as radical change
agents, and came to the table with devastating one liners. Warren popped the
applause-o-meter when she crisped Delaney as an ineffectual, low-vision wimp:
“I
don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for President
of the United States to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight
for.”
But the truth was that many mainstream Democrats tuning
into the race for the first time may have felt more in Delaney’s camp on the
substance of the matter. The simple fact is that most Democrats are looking for
the candidate with the best chance of beating Trump, period. The four aging
white guys on the stage pounded Sanders and Warren on the point. Once again,
Delaney landed a hard punch: “The Democratic Party should not be the party of taking
something away from people.”
Many scored Wednesday as a big night for Elizabeth Warren
and as a strong recovery for Bernie Sanders. But the centrists may have succeeded in
painting their uncompromising revolutionary positions as radioactive in an
election in which the only goal is finding the person who can beat Trump.
The slugging match on Wednesday night was intense and
tough, and the truth is that everyone on the stage brought their A game. Even the celestial Marianne Williamson had her moments. But there was a bit of the circular firing
squad in action. Everybody on Wednesday was strong, but everyone was taking
incoming as well.
Other than Warren and Sanders, the two candidates who did the best for themselves
on Wednesday were debate newcomer Montana Governor Steve Bullock and the eternally poised
Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Bullock conveyed a maverick, Big Sky charm, constantly
invoking his ability to win in a heavily Trump states as evidence that he is
truly plugged into the mindset of the electorate. Mayor Pete manages to avoid
being lumped in with anybody, determined to set himself apart in his every
answer.
In the end, it was a very lively and spirited four hours of
debate, and it seemed to raise more questions than it answered. But the bottom
line is simple: Biden did not shut down his many critics in anywhere near the
decisive manner needed to preserve his stature as presumptive nominee. Kamala
Harris did not build on her momentum, and Cory Booker announced his arrival.
In short, it’s now more open than it was three months ago.
Here’s how we score it:
Clear Winners:
Booker
Castro
Warren
Generally
positive, but not a big impact on their overall standing:
Buttigieg
Klobuchar
Sanders
Better
than expected, but not enough to make a difference in the long run:
Gabbard
Gillibrand
de
Blasio
Yang
Williamson
Bullock
Ryan
Neutral:
Harris
Weakened:
Biden
On
their way out:
Hickenlooper
Delaney
O’Rourke
Inslee
Bennet
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