Democratic Presidential Primary Debate: A Report on Night One
Ten Democrats took the stage in Miami on Wednesday night. Nine of them --whose combined polling didn’t equal Elizabeth Warren’s-- sought to make themselves noticed.
For purposes of this essay, I’ll call all ten of them winners, simply because they largely defied predictions about President Donald Trump and presumed front-runner Joe Biden being used as piñatas.
I do have opinions about how each candidate --at what some pundits called the junior varsity debate-- performed, but in terms of who won or lost, I think the American people won and Trump lost.
Throughout the night the presumptions underlying the right’s view of this country were (mostly) banished. The disagreements, when they were obvious, were about policy and process. And the President indicated his displeasure at the lack of attention on his precious little ego by proclaiming the debate to be “boring.”
Here’s an A+ response.
https://twitter.com/JackeeHarry/status/1144060385210712064
Watching ten people and five moderators wasn’t easy, and I imagine the circumstances of these events made “tuning out” the path of least resistance for many less politically engaged viewers. The instances where candidates talked over each other, hoping to get attention, were distracting, even though I knew that’s what was deemed necessary for low polling participants to raise their profile.
I loathe Chuck Todd and consider him arrogant. I say send the man somewhere with a reality different than the DC cocktail circuit for a week so maybe --just maybe-- he’ll realize the access to power he prizes is less important than the challenges, pain, and suffering too many people are living through.
Having said my piece on Todd, I’ll give the moderators a nod for their efforts to keep things on track. Savannah Guthrie in particular made an effort to call out non-answer answers.
I’m not about to waste time complaining about the questions asked and the format. It was what is was. I tried my best to listen to what was being said and left the rest of the noise out of my mind.
Ken Stone at Times of San Diego attended one of the many debate watch parties for Democrats, and grabbed a comment on the potential for local voters to have an impact from D9 City Council member Georgette Gomez:
“Other [California] regions have more representation, but I think we carry enough to maybe tip it over,” said the District 9 council member. “So San Diego cannot be ignored.”
One reason: the border.
She said candidates would be foolish not to take advantage of San Diego’s place as “a national standing platform — I mean it’s our back yard. So I think for that purpose — to raise more of the issue — I think we matter.”
I used a modified version of the Invisible concept for tracking the candidates, writing the ten names down the left side of a spreadsheet, listing the issues across the top, and assigning (my very subjective) assessment on responses as the evening progressed.
I didn’t look at any social media until after the debate and after I’d made my evaluation.
Here’s how I rated the participant’s performances. Once again, my overall assessment of who “won” and who “lost” didn’t include any of the names of those appearing on the stage. (Excuse the typo)
https://twitter.com/dougporter506/status/1144081968616706050
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Once I read through the rehashes of debate #1, it was clear that Elizabeth Warren impressed a lot of people. Cory Booker and Julian Castro got positive mentions. Beto O’Rourke was dissed frequently. (I thought his performance was awkward)
As the candidate with the highest profile both coming in and going out of the debate, Elizabeth Warren drew lots of commentary. It’s interesting to me, and perhaps an acknowledgement of the coming “Red Scare” rhetoric from the Trumpanistas, that so much of the left chose this tack.
https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1144090276052389888
https://twitter.com/JewishWorker/status/1144085546723155968
Jeff Greenfield, writing at Politico, predicted doom and gloom for Senator Warren for daring to think Medicare for All shouldn’t include private insurers for primary care.
And a year from now—an eternity in campaign time, but not too long to keep the issue warm in a big oppo file—it wouldn’t be hard at all for Donald Trump, on Twitter and in ads and on a debate stage, to point out that a member of Warren’s own party, sharing the same stage, implied that her health care ideas would be dangerous for America. (The same applies in spades for self-identified socialist Sanders.)
Republicans have spent most of the past 100 years leveling Democratic social programs as “socialist” or “dangerous." As a general proposition, those attacks have fallen on barren ground. But in suggesting that a major plank of two potential nominees could wreak havoc on the system, John Delaney may have left a ticking time bomb on his party’s hopes for the White House.
Real Clear Politics looked at Warren’s performance through the lens of her impact on the second debate and the road ahead:
Biden will make his case Thursday, but in many ways, the stage has already been shifted ever farther left before he steps onto it. The former vice president will share the spotlight with Bernie Sanders – the third member of the top-running triumvirate – while competing for the nomination of a party that has evolved past, and even eclipsed, the policies of his old running mate, Barack Obama.
Biden and Warren are sure to cross paths during one of the other 11 scheduled debates. Without interference from either of her top competitors, though, Warren was able to solidify her standing. She detailed her policies and, after disappearing in the melee for a bit during the second half of the debate, closed the night on a personal note.
“I am in this fight because I believe that we can make our government, we can make our economy, we can make our country work not just for those at the top. We can make it work for everyone,” she said.
“And I promise you this: I will fight for you as hard as I fight for my own family.”
The most unusual take on Debate # 1 came via right wing portal The Drudge Report, where what I’ll presume were trolls with the Internet Research Agency gamed an instant poll:
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1144216323519635456
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s performance wasn’t a disaster, but you’d have to be chugging a lot of cheap vodka to believe she “won.”
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See TokyoSands’ preview of Debate #2 at this link.
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Good news, maybe?
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1144275417400057862
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