Impressions from the 10/16/19 Democratic Debate
Mayor Pete, Amy Klobuchar and Corey Booker impressed me the most. Bernie Sanders was excellent as well.
Amy Klobuchar finally had a terrific debate performance; she was strong, clear, and persuasive. I thought her comments to Senator Warren to the effect that “you’re not the only one with good ideas here and some of yours are pipedreams” were the most effective of the evening. She was effective on taxes and health care, and I hope she makes it into the next round. She is the most logical inheritor of Joe Biden’s moderate supporters if he continues to decline in voter’s eyes.
Mayor Pete had a very strong performance as well. He was at his most effective in contrasting his “Medicare For All Who Want It” with Warren’s “Medicare for All”. He did an excellent job explaining the financial and political differences from the Sanders/Warren plan. Essentially his plan costs far less, covers nearly everyone (but not the undocumented workers), and let’s those people who prefer Medicare style coverage to choose it and those who prefer private insurance to retain it. It’s very much the same plan as initially introduced by Joe Biden, but is much more ably explained and encapsulated by Mayor Pete. He also was effective on the issues of gun violence and gun safety and our military involvement in the Middle East. Unlike Biden, he explains eloquently the loss of manufacturing jobs and the nation’s need to rebuild Midwestern industrial prowess. This leaves him as a potential inheritor of Joe Biden’s support from working class voters.
For me, Biden had his strongest debate performance yet, other than a persisting tendency to verbally wander during his answers. His answer in rebutting the age issue was very strong to the effect “I have developed the judgment, and wisdom through years of on the job training and hardened experience with the critical issues of our times”. He does not articulate the economic responses to the challenges of Midwestern manufacturing nearly as well as Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Yang do.
Senator Sanders’ strong performance throughout the debate rebutted any concerns about his health and age. For the first time, I thought he was far more effective in presenting their common agendas than Senator Warren was, and he was yelling a lot less. For example, he readily acknowledged that middle class taxes would have to be increased to pay for Medicare for All.
Warren is now the frontrunner; as such, she was being attacked all night by everyone but Bernie Sanders. She defended her positions ably except for her steadfast inability to acknowledge that you have to raise taxes on the middle class to help pay for Medicare for All. Her statements that over all health costs will go down for the middle class may be correct for most, but the middle class will be taxed to help pay for Medicare for All, and she should stop being so evasive about it. Likewise she does a beautiful job explaining and advocating for her wealth tax. She needs to stop dismissing others on the stage who have alternative approaches to generating revenues from the very wealthy and from those corporations who are not contributing a fair share towards the nation’s needs. She has shot to the front, but now she needs to pivot and start thinking and talking more about her unifying themes for the general election as opposed to sharply differentiating the issues for prospective primary voters.
I thought Corey Booker was the most eloquent of all last night. His message of the need and opportunity to address and to rally citizens from across the political spectrum was similar to Buttigieg and Klobuchar, but he was not throwing sharp elbows at the progressives on the platform. All three are making the same point that on most of the issues that divide the two parties, the American people side with the Democrats. But he makes the point most eloquently of the need to unify the party in contrast with the resentments between Clinton and Sanders supporters that festered and reduced Democratic voter turn out in 2016. I do not understand why his campaign continues to languish.
Lucien Wulsin
10/16/19