DEMOCRATIC DEBATE IV: SHOOTING THE ARROWS IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION

The fourth debate of the 2020 Democratic presidential nominating contest looked somewhat like the three that preceded it – candidates behind brightly colored

Democratic Candidates of Dabate Four

PhotoCred: The Daily Dot

lecterns, well known media figures asking the questions, and a live audience made up mostly of Democratic true believers who knew the applause lines. At the end, the pundit class proclaimed several participants as big winners, but said the race wouldn’t change much as a result of the evening’s proceedings on an obscure college campus in Ohio.

Looks deceive sometimes. This debate was very different from the ones that took place earlier in Miami, Detroit, and Houston. The difference lay in who got hunted, which showed how much the race has changed, just in the month since the September debate in Houston.

In the earlier events, former Vice President Joe Biden

served as prey for the other candidates. California Senator Kamala Harris, for example, got a big polling boost (which faded) from taking on Biden about school busing and his record on racial issues during  his long career in the United States Senate. Former Housing Secretary Julian Castro tackled Biden’s immigration record while serving in the Obama administration. Others also took shots at Biden during those first three debates.

All About Warren

Moving up in the polls and becoming a front runner

- maybe THE front runner – comes with a price. Elizabeth Warren paid that price in the fourth debate. When the Massachusetts senator took a narrow lead in some national polls and several polls in early primary states, it became clear she’d receive incoming fire on the debate stage. Her competitors didn’t disappoint.

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar challenged Warren on her support for Medicare for all. Buttigieg said Warren should support “Medicare for all who want it,” warning of the political danger in forcing millions of Americans off private health insurance plans they like. Klobuchar essentially accused Warren of being untruthful about how she'd pay for her health  care plan when Klobuchar praised Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for "being honest here"  about "where we're going to send the invoice."  Warren stuck to her guns, not budging on her plan.

Harris went after Warren for refusing to join her demand that Twitter deactivate President Trump’s account for alleged violations of its terms of service guidelines. Other candidates challenged Warren on foreign policy. Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke accused Warren of being punitive toward people on whom she wants to impose higher taxes. The hits just kept on coming.

How’d She Hold Up?

Warren had to get used to the attacks. It’s probably not fair to say she was thrown off her game, but her first responses indicated some discomfort in her new role. As the debate went on, however, Warren rebounded, taking the criticism in stride. To her credit, she never attacked her attackers in anything even suggesting a personal rebuke.

Warren will have to get used to being the hunted if she holds her spot in the polls as the race moves toward the first primaries early next year. The criteria for the next debate will likely exclude some of the 12 candidates who appeared on the stage in Ohio. If that’s the case, those remaining must find ways of distinguishing themselves from the three leaders –Warren, Sanders, and Biden. Generally, political candidates don’t knock votes off another candidate without some kind of attack. As long as Warren stays at the front of the pack, she will take hits.

What’s the Long-Term Plan?

Some political observers have suggested Warren’s end game involves a calculated move toward the center if she gets nominated. These observers say, for example, she won’t give all the details of how she plans on paying for her health care plan because she wants “wiggle room” for the general election campaign. Perhaps, this analysis goes, she’ll suggest she’s open to something less than a single payer health care system that gets rid of all private insurance, maybe a public option that builds on the Affordable Care Act. That might keep her from alienating, in particular, union members who’ve bargained for health insurance they’d hate giving up.

In post-debate spin room interviews Warren, predictably, denied having a “wiggle room” strategy. She contended she’s espousing sincerely held positions she believes serve the nation’s best interests. She can’t say anything else right now, of course, but if she gets nominated, plenty of the powers that be in the Democratic party will start pulling at her about her boldest (some would say radical) proposals. She and her team will have some hard choices if she prevails in the nomination fight and takes the stage next summer in Milwaukee as the party’s standard bearer.

Voting hasn’t even started yet, so we’d get way ahead of ourselves in anointing Warren now as the likely nominee. The flavor of the latest debate proved, however, her rivals take the possibility seriously. In going after her they showed they believe they needed to nip the possibility in the bud. It’s game on!

THE LATEST DEMOCRATIC DEBATE: STABILITY AND SELF-REVELATION

Democratic Debate III went into the books September 12 in Houston. We saw nothing that fundamentally changed the race. Indeed, stability rates as a major take-a-way for the evening. As we’ll get to, stability doesn’t mean set in concrete. As we’ll also get to, the debate moderators from ABC gave us one thing we hadn’t seen in these events before --- a chance at understanding the candidates as people. The voters should be grateful.

Not Much Changed

The debate began with three clear leaders in the race – former Vice President Joe Biden as the front runner, pursued by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. California Senator Kamala Harris was in striking distance of the top three in most polls. All the others, to some degree, were hanging on, just happy they made the stage under the more stringent Democratic Party criteria for qualifying for this debate.

              

Polls taken over the coming days shouldn’t change much from that lineup. That said, nearly every candidate had moments they could brag about. Only former Housing Secretary Julian Castro apparently hurt himself with his too-strident attack on Biden, suggesting the 76-year old candidate couldn’t remember what he had said just moments earlier (the pundits agreed Biden didn’t say what Castro claimed he did).

No candidate landed a knockout punch and nobody (other than perhaps Castro) suffered a debilitating gaffe. The race should remain about the same, at least until Debate IV on October 15.

A Short History Lesson

As we suggested, stable doesn’t mean permanent. In 2004, before the voters started going to the polls and caucus rooms, John Kerry languished in third place in the polls. Kerry won Iowa, however, and front runner Howard Dean crashed after his infamous post-caucus scream. Kerry captured the nomination and narrowly lost the general election to George W. Bush.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton held a significant lead before Iowa, but Barack Obama won there. The Illinois senator rocketed up the polls, grabbed the lead after the early primaries, and rolled on to the nomination and the White House. 

We note this history because the current leaders could slip. With three debates done (and 10 or 11 candidates who didn’t qualify for Debate III), we can’t really say it’s still “early.”  We can say the race remains far from decided and it is too early for declaring this a two-person or three-person contest. 

Some Welcome Self-revelation

The moderators of the Miami debate on NBC deservedly got panned for asking hold-up-your-hand questions and other silly inquiries. The CNN inquisitors in Detroit weren’t a lot better in the second debate. If those moderators  deserved the  roasting they  got,

fairness demands giving the ABC moderators  credit  for their enlightened performance, especially the last question. Instead of asking for plain vanilla closing statements, George Stephanopoulous asked that each candidate describe how   

he or she had overcome a professional obstacle. The question produced refreshing self-disclosure that showed more than competing health care plans and immigration positions.

·      Biden – the former Vice President turned his answer personal, relating the impact of the deaths of his wife and daughter in an auto accident right after his election to the Senate in 1972 and the loss to cancer of his son, Beau, in 2015. By doing so, Biden widened the scope of the question and invited personal responses from the others.

·      Warren – she became emotional in talking about dropping out of college after an early marriage and children, then navigating single motherhood, a waitressing job, law school, and turning to teaching law.

·      Harris – she revealed many people thought she couldn’t, as a black woman, win her races for San Francisco district attorney and California Attorney General, but her mother taught her she, not others, should define what she could and couldn’t do.

·      Pete Buttigieg – he talked frankly about being gay, knowing it, and deciding he should come out while involved in politics in Mike Pence’s Indiana.

·      Castro – he told the story of giving up his lucrative law firm job so he could cast a principled vote on a land deal as a city council member in San Antonio.

·      Sanders – he described losing political race after political race, often getting a minuscule vote, but sticking with his principles until the public caught up with him, so he could win house and senate races.

·      Cory Booker – his story involved overcoming opposition to his plans early in his tenure as mayor of Newark, New Jersey and living in a tough, inner city neighborhood.

·      Amy Klobuchar -- she vividly described how having an insurance company kick her out of the hospital right after her sick daughter’s birth inspired her to petition Minnesota legislators for a law giving mothers more hospital time with their newborns.

·      Beto O’Rourke – he detailed his anguish over the mass shooting in August in his hometown of El Paso, Texas and the inspiration the victims of that shooting have given him through their courage.

·      Andrew Yang – he related the history of his entrepreneurial efforts in light of how he and his parents grew up.

The debates had revealed a deeper Democratic bench than initially thought.  While the odds are the nominee will emerge from those at the top of the current polls, the compelling stories the candidates revealed indicate the quality of the field and suggest someone might catch fire and turn the race on its head.  It has happened before.  Let the debates continue, making the voters the ultimate winners.