Actually I think everyone did well tonight. Biggest change in Biden showing more of what he’s got. Others hitting their notes as they have mostly but pretty well done.
Might slow Biden’s bleed some.
Pete won the night with his defense of Biden and his son.
I doubt it.
The debates don’t matter much, but to the extent that they do, I think Tom Steyer landed a pretty hard blow to Biden who seemed at a loss for words on how to deal with his surrogate problem in his firewall state.
Klobuchar had the best night. Bernie and Pete avoided disaster.
Biden was solid meaning no gaffes. I’m not sure it was good for him to concede NH.
Everyone spouting their normal points. Mostly a draw. Most analysts saying Klobuchar won. She drilled Pete on a couple of things and was the only candidate to denounce socialism.
Pete flubbed the “Why were blacks 7 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana when you were mayor” and was obviously bullshitting on his position regarding decriminalizing hard drugs.
They need to get Yang and Steyer out of there. All they do is try to interrupt and show how tough they are and when they speak they are just taking time away from candidates who have a chance of winning.
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Buttigieg had no real response to the moderator question on the increase of disproportionality in Black drug arrests in his town during his tenure. Not a question that was unexpected. Warren’s simple “no” after that landed. The states after these two very white ones will be hard for him.
Biden’s response that he has spoken with that surrogate and that the person knows he was wrong was adequate. His setting up a low expectation is smart.
It may have done enough to keep Biden in third not fourth Tuesday, and the two are of very different impacts.
Klobuchar has had other good debates. They’ve never translated into bounces before. It was a bit annoying for her to close with the same story she used Iowa caucus night, told in the same cadences. I do like what she is selling but I don’t see her having any breakout here.
I want to like Klobuchar. I really do. But this bothers me:
Biden should have hit harder on the campaign staffer. This is what the staffer said:
To see racism in that requires an extra level of woke.
I’m not sure I agree with Biden’s strategy of lowering expectations. There are quite a few politicians in the dustbin of presidential political history by writing off early primaries to wait for “their” state. By the time SC comes around, people may have switched candidates.
Plus, by conceding NH and talking about SC most of the night, Biden may have pissed off NH voters and do worse than he otherwise might have.
Buttigieg was pretty wishy-washy in general, and rarely answered the questions. I don’t think this was a good debate for him. And I didn’t think Biden fared very well, either. He looked older than Sanders, and I think he would have done better to say why black people support him than just to assert that they do.
And, no one made a horrible flub. It’s a debate on a Friday night after a huge political week. My guess is that the Iowa mess, Trump acquittal, and the Chinese flu dominate the weekend news shows.
Buttigieg looked nervous about the question about drug arrests in South Bend, and didn’t have a good response to it.
Granted, anti-gang efforts will arrest dangerous criminals for simple weed possession if its a way to get them off the streets. So if thats what was happening then I could understand it.
Nonetheless, Bernie coming out early in the debate and saying everyone will support the nominee was good.
I am hoping Bloomberg is in the next debate, just because there are a lot of hard questions he should have to answer.
There’s a possibility that the question wasn’t accurate but I’ll wait until tomorrow to see if there’s a definite cite. I think all the candidates are exhausted and Pete especially has been on a marathon schedule. I doubt any candidate had much time for debate prep.
Bloomberg should make the next one. The DNC changed the qualifying to get Yang and Steyer out of there and get Bloomberg up there since his money is starting to move him up in polls. Not sure if we will get any more drop outs. Amy seems to have been raising a lot of money since tonight so perhaps she stays in.
Amy owned Pete again about experience but won’t get a bump. Sigh. The center-left has her as the midway between a small town mayor and near 80 year old.
Remember how four years ago all those Republicans refused to bow out early? That is how we got Donald Trump. This is like that. Here the role of President Trump, the outsider populist hated by the party elites is played by Bernie Sanders.
But this time, a populist who isn’t evil.
I would be proud to have anyone on this stage as POTUS. They are a talented group.
But it comes down to: Can anyone defeat the current administration? And if so, Who?
Before I move on to my responses, I want to note two things: (1) I’m an early-to bed girl, so from 8-10 I was lying on the couch actively listening to the debate, but for the most part not watching it, so I missed any visual cues of nervousness or confidence. (2) At 10, I was tired enough that I turned the TV off, so if anything significant happened at the end I completely missed it.
I agree about Yang, but not Steyer. When Steyer spoke up saying he was hearing the same thing in every debate, I wanted to kiss him. I am so, so sick of hearing the same argument about health care in every debate. Nothing new has been said for MONTHS. Steyer was attempting to steer the debate conversation in a different direction, and every single time, I agreed. I’m sick of feeling like watching a debate is like watching a rerun on television.
Biden looked unusually pale last night. I’m a bit concerned about his health. As for Buttigieg, Buttigieg was targeted with tough questions as the presumed front-runner. And when you compare his performance to the times other candidates were targeted as the presumed front-runner (Biden, Warren, Kamala), I think Buttigieg did well. Compared to performances where no one asked him tough questions and all he had to do was recite speeches, I don’t think he did quite as well, but you could say the same for any candidate who was ever the primary focus of a debate. I don’t think he said anything bad enough to make people change their minds about him.
Totally agree. For every other candidate in this race, being kept out of a debate has been a bad thing. But Bloomberg is picking up momentum, and unlike every other candidate who’s picked up momentum, he’s never been put on the spot to answer tough questions about past remarks and decisions in front of a large audience. Strangely, I think Bloomberg’s absence from this debate is kind of helping him.
Are you saying this under the presumption that an increase in donors could lead to an increase in actual support in polls? Because I thought the next debate requirements were purely about performance in polls, and your number of donors stopped being considered.
Yes, I’m concerned about this as well. Everything I’ve read has said that the top quality Democrats are looking for in a candidate is the ability to beat Trump. And Democrats probably want someone different from Trump in every conceivable way, but independents and moderates (the people you’d need to win an election) aren’t looking for that, I don’t think. A moderate/independent is more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate if the Democratic candidate is not starkly different from Trump ideologically, but comes across as less divisive and, you know, less likely to mock disabled people and stuff like that. A candidate who professes a wish to completely upend the economic system in America and drastically redistribute wealth and the way things like healthcare and education are run in this country is certainly a tougher sell.
Klobuchar should be in already because she picked up a delegate in Iowa. Will her polling go up? Perhaps. I do think it’s a good thing for her that she got impressive donations on a Friday night, a lousy time for a debate. Perhaps Amy is picking up some support from Warren voters who really want a woman and Biden supporters jumping ship.
Yes, but remember that there are no winner take all or winner take most primaries for the Democrats. Trump was able to scoop up delegates by winning small pluralities with the divided field until he became unstoppable.
All in all it is time for people to drop out. I am not monitoring it closely, but I think nobody has in the last week or so.