# Observations of the 3rd Democratic Debate **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 13, 2019, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136 "2019-09-13T00:14:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/101 "2019-09-14T04:57:24Z")
Looks like Biden’s comments during the debate is sparking some anger: > **[Biden sparks outrage after suggesting black people don't know how to raise...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-sparks-outrage-suggesting-black-135346526.html)** > > Taking several turns and going down multiple tangents, Joe Biden could not seem to answer a simple question about the legacy of slavery during the third Democratic debates.The former vice president mentioned record players, discussed education and... ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/102 "2019-09-14T05:44:00Z")
That’s quite the morass for Democratic politicians. Spending more money on social workers to help black families is clearly not a _conservative_ priority, but it still makes some black people defensive and angry as this story illustrates. ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/103 "2019-09-14T10:28:13Z")
On one hand lots of the top rated comments under that article agree with him. On the other Yahoo News political comments are quite right wing. That won’t help him win a democratic primary. I understand the jist of what he said but other candidates explain it better. His answer was a formulated mess. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/104 "2019-09-14T10:38:47Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Looks like Biden’s comments during the debate is sparking some anger: > > [Biden sparks outrage after suggesting black people don't know how to raise children: 'Put the record player on at night'](https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-sparks-outrage-suggesting-black-135346526.html) The way he jumps from one unfinished sentence to another might be more frightening than the content! Not as bad as Trump’s speaking, of course; and Trump just jumps from one narcissistic non sequitur to another, while Biden may have real insights into issues, but his mouth can’t keep up with his brain. Other than the obvious two — Trump and Sarah Palin — are there other public speakers with speech as confused as Biden’s here? I don’t think the poor speech patterns necessary reflect badly on Biden as an intellect or policy-maker, but they certainly make me wonder about his ability to campaign effectively. ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/105 "2019-09-14T10:45:37Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > The way he jumps from one unfinished sentence to another might be more frightening than the content! Not as bad as Trump’s speaking, of course; and Trump just jumps from one narcissistic non sequitur to another, while Biden may have real insights into issues, but his mouth can’t keep up with his brain. > > Other than the obvious two — Trump and Sarah Palin — are there other public speakers with speech as confused as Biden’s here? I don’t think the poor speech patterns necessary reflect badly on Biden as an intellect or policy-maker, but they certainly make me wonder about his ability to campaign effectively. The 43rd President of the United States [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/JhmdEq3JhoY/maxresdefault.jpg "George W. Bush - The Best Bushisms - www.NBCUniversalArchives.com") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhmdEq3JhoY) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/106 "2019-09-14T12:14:09Z")
Whatever his faults, I think GWB had an almost-endearing folksy style. I myself have a severe aphasia when I type quickly — my posts would be utter gibberish if I didn’t proofread them — so I don’t treat verbal gaffes as a sign of flawed intelligence. 😛 > [@Boycott](#): > > The 43rd President of the United States > > [https://youtu.be/JhmdEq3JhoY](https://youtu.be/JhmdEq3JhoY) “And you’re working hard to put food on your family.” This was by far the worst gaffe in the 75 seconds I watched. These Bushisms have a _very_ different character than the gibberish that comes out of Trump or Palin’s mouth. If I were to completely ignore their policies and just listen to speech patterns, I think I would vote for Bush-43 over Biden. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/107 "2019-09-14T13:33:05Z")
> [@Boycott](#): > > On one hand lots of the top rated comments under that article agree with him. On the other Yahoo News political comments are quite right wing. … and on the extra hand is that comments made to a news feed don’t reflect shit of reality in any way. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/108 "2019-09-14T16:21:51Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I strongly disagree with you guys. Most Americans favor stricter gun control. We need to nominate a candidate who’ll actually tackle this issue. Beto’s response earned him a lot of respect in my book. Yes, they do, but what they favor is quite mild, such as better background checks. Radical gun control is quite strongly opposed. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/109 "2019-09-14T17:04:37Z")
For a long time now the dominant gun control narrative has been “don’t worry, nobody’s coming to take your guns away, we just want [background checks/waiting periods/increased ownership requirements/some form of liability insurance]” - i.e., measures that, while the most hardcore 2nd Amendment absolutists will inevitably oppose anyway, still have a shot at earning some support for moderates. Now to have O’Rourke coming out and saying “hell yes we are coming to take your guns away”, undermines the whole concept of “common sense gun reform”. There is nothing common sense about a compulsory buyback of the estimated 5 to 10 _million_ AR-15 type rifles currently in private possession in this country. Maybe something like that can work in Australia. I don’t think it could work in America, but even totally leaving aside the question of its actual feasibility - having the Democratic presidential nominee propose it will generate a firestorm of fundraising, activism, lobbying, and propaganda by the NRA the likes of which have _never_ been seen. And so this brings us back to the original topic, which is not gun control, but the Democratic primary and the optics of the various candidates. O’Rourke may indeed take the issue of gun violence very personally because of what happened in El Paso, but what he said during that debate proves to me that he does not have a shot at beating Trump. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/110 "2019-09-14T17:11:35Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > … > Now to have O’Rourke coming out and saying “hell yes we are coming to take your guns away”, undermines the whole concept of “common sense gun reform”. There is nothing common sense about a compulsory buyback of the estimated 5 to 10 _million_ AR-15 type rifles currently in private possession in this country. Maybe something like that can work in Australia… And it’s debated on whether or not it worked in Australia. But yes, this is _damn_ silly and that one liner may cause trump to win. 70 million gun owners. More than voted for trump or Hillary. ---
**Author:** ![snowmaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@snowmaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowmaster)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/111 "2019-09-14T17:26:15Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > For a long time now the dominant gun control narrative has been “don’t worry, nobody’s coming to take your guns away, we just want [background checks/waiting periods/increased ownership requirements/some form of liability insurance]” - i.e., measures that, while the most hardcore 2nd Amendment absolutists will inevitably oppose anyway, still have a shot at earning some support… Sarah Brady has, at unguarded moments, also been pretty explicit about her and her organization’s desire to confiscate handguns… all of them. This is why gun owners have been so resistant to registration, licensure, background checks to have their children inhieret their firearms: we’re one election away from people being in charge who will find that information very useful with their confiscation plan. It’s always gonna be a slippery slope, especially with the increasing tempo of criminals committing awful crimes. I’m all for honesty, but letting the cat out of the bag seems like political suicide… Even today. I see the mass appeal of a candidate who says they can solve a problem, obstacles be damned, but I personally respect a candidate who’s honest about what can and cannot be done constitutionally. A candidate for President shouldn’t be making proposals so clearly repugnant to a bill of right amendment. Anyway, I think anybody who watched is going to start having serious doubts about how well put together Biden and Sanders are. They’re just not getting their ideas across. Maybe Warren is now the one to beat and we’ll see a couple of the second tier candidates gaining in popularity as the alternative. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/112 "2019-09-14T17:37:21Z")
And most will at most roll their eyes at grandstanding but stupid gun control. Doing “something” is sometimes a bad choice if it distracts from getting something more effective actually accomplished. Gun violence is a real public health problem. As such the headline tragedies are attention grabbing and make people feel less safe, but are in fact not where the big risks are. “Regardless of the definition being used, fatalities in mass shooting incidents in the U.S. account for a small fraction of all gun murders that occur nationwide each year.” Gun availability increases the chance that suicidal ideation is acted upon and if acted upon is successful. The majority of deaths from guns in America are suicide deaths.People aren’t mostly using semiautomatics to kill themselves. ([Source for figures and quote above - Pew](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/)) I don’t argue for military weapon availability but having their elimination be THE flag to wave is a mostly ineffective feel good signifier. [Here’s another way to parse it:](https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/02/gun-violence-children-actually-experience/582964/) > [@](#): > > … Seldom do those fatalities happen on school campuses at all, in fact. While comprehensive data are limited, a 2017 study found that the majority—85 percent—of children 12 or younger who were shot to death from 2003 to 2013 were killed in a home. Roughly four in 10 kids aged 13 to 17 who were killed with a gun also died in a home; another four in 10 were killed in the streets. Meanwhile, nearly two in three of the country’s gun deaths (of all ages) are the result of suicide, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis of federal data. The remaining third are homicides, the analysis notes, and public mass shootings make up less than 1 percent of firearm fatalities, according to separate reporting by The New York Times. > > Research published late last February by James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University professor who has studied mass murders since the 1980s, underscores the rarity of Parkland-like incidents of gun violence. In his analysis, co-written by the doctoral student Emma Fridel, Fox rejects the characterization of mass school shootings as a national “epidemic.” Focusing on data spanning roughly the past two decades, the researchers found that of the 20 to 30 mass murders that occur on average each year, about one of them takes place at a school. (A mass shooting is defined as one with four or more fatalities.) The shooting incidents involving students, they show, have grown less frequent than they were in the 1990s, when the number of children killed in schools was four times what it is today. > > Taken collectively, the data indicate that children who are the victims of gun violence are far more likely to experience it in incidents smaller in scope and greater in frequency than public mass shootings—incidents like those that took the lives of Courtlin and Lashonda and Izzy, from drive-by shootings to murder-suicides to preventable accidents. … Framing the conversation as confiscation is dumb even if it is met with applause by some of the activist class. It’s the action that would do the least good and that galvanizes opposition the most. Requiring background checks, having a national red flag law, requiring licensing before purchase of a gun, OTOH[all have fairly bipartisan support](http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/NPR_PBS-NewsHour_Marist-Poll-USA-NOS-and-Tables_1909091400.pdf#page=3), _including among most gun owners_. Having a high-capacity magazine ammunition ban even gets almost half of owners on board. If you want nothing to be done frame it how Beto did. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/113 "2019-09-14T17:38:34Z")
He didn’t say he wants to take away your guns - all of them. He said he wants to take away military grade weapons and ammunition, the types designed to shred you on the inside so that you bleed to death without being able to shoot back at the American troops who shot you. Except that now, the shooter is a nerdy white kid, and the target is a bunch of elementary school children. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/114 "2019-09-14T18:34:40Z")
You’re missing the point. If effecting such a ban is your goal, openly declaring it with an enthusiastic “hell yes” is not the way to accomplish it. All it does is put the NRA on the offensive, pumping a million free gallons into the fuel tank of their 12-cylinder propaganda engine. That indicates that O’Rourke is a shitty politician because he telegraphs his plans, showing all his cards like that. THAT indicates that he does not have the savvy to run a winning political campaign against Trump. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/115 "2019-09-14T18:46:08Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > He didn’t say he wants to take away your guns - all of them. He said he wants to take away military grade weapons and ammunition, the types designed to shred you on the inside so that you bleed to death without being able to shoot back at the American troops who shot you. Except that now, the shooter is a nerdy white kid, and the target is a bunch of elementary school children. The AR-15 is used for hunting, from prairie dogs to deer. I didn’t realize the cartridge was large enough to kill a deer, but it is and is used for that. His line very well may have given the election to Trump as pointed out above. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/116 "2019-09-14T18:49:57Z")
> [@Boycott](#): > > On one hand lots of the top rated comments under that article agree with him. On the other Yahoo News political comments are quite right wing. That won’t help him win a democratic primary. > > I understand the jist of what he said but other candidates explain it better. His answer was a formulated mess. He can only get away with this for so long. “Put the record player on” lol. Fuck that was hard to listen to. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/117 "2019-09-14T18:54:29Z")
Quick comment to add that I saw only clips of the debate but was impressed by some of Klobuchar’s responses. Not only was she witty, but she delivered a combination of epistemic and emotional substance. It’s too bad she probably won’t be around much longer, but I’d like to see her get more airtime. I think the only one who really lost the debate was Castro. And it’s probably good for Biden that Castro failed so miserably in his take-down attempt because we’d otherwise be spending a lot more time talking about some of Uncle Joe’s speaking gaffes. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/118 "2019-09-14T18:54:42Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > You’re missing the point. If effecting such a ban is your goal, openly declaring it with an enthusiastic “hell yes” is not the way to accomplish it. All it does is put the NRA on the offensive, pumping a million free gallons into the fuel tank of their 12-cylinder propaganda engine. That indicates that O’Rourke is a shitty politician because he telegraphs his plans, showing all his cards like that. THAT indicates that he does not have the savvy to run a winning political campaign against Trump. I’m not sure it matters. The NRA is going to have all of its efforts behind defeating whoever is the Democratic nominee, even if the nominee has an A rating from them. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/119 "2019-09-14T19:01:44Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I’m not sure it matters. The NRA is going to have all of its efforts behind defeating whoever is the Democratic nominee, even if the nominee has an A rating from them. I imagine it changed the vote of some who voted for Trump, but are unhappy with him. And, the Chinese are buying soybeans again. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136/120 "2019-09-14T19:25:32Z")
If our country would doom itself to 4 more years of Trump to protect AR15s, we deserve Trump and all the damage he’s inflicting on us. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/observations-of-the-3rd-democratic-debate/840136.md?page=7)