No audience, no shaking hands: The coronavirus dictated the first debate held solely between Vice President Biden and Bernie Sanders.

Bernie’s Slide to Second Place

Only three weeks ago, Sanders had still been the front runner of the Democratic candidate field, while Biden seemed destined to end his campaign soon due to continued failures and lack of success in the early primaries.

Everything turned out differently. After a series of landslide victories, Biden has not only become the new front runner but has quasi-ended the race in his favor already, and with it turned Sanders from being the chosen one into a candidate with only theoretical chances. The starting position of the candidates was thus evident: Biden needed to manage the debate and appear as the right choice, Sanders had to win across the board.

However, Sanders being Sanders, he did not offer any new ideas nor angles. Instead, he produced exactly the same visions and allegations that brought down his campaign in the first place.

What Were the Candidates’ Positions on Responding to Coronavirus?

Naturally, the topic of the coronavirus could not have been avoided during the debate. Biden and Sanders were standing next to each other, and instead of the debate taking place in Phoenix, in front of an audience, Sanders and Biden found themselves in Washington D.C. — in splendid isolation.

Once the coronavirus was addressed as a topic, Sanders stated the crisis was a valid argument in favor of his ​​Medicare for All plan. Under his plan, everyone would be treated during a pandemic.

Joe Biden did not concur. He also plans for all Americans to be insured, but ultimately under an expansion of the Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as Obamacare. As Biden stated correctly, people want results and help now. Both cannot be delivered via a Sanders revolution.

Biden’s Plans are Realistic, Bernie’s Aren’t

Moreover, Biden’s plans are feasible as he — unlike Sanders — has had a history of obtaining majorities in Congress. It was crucial to ensure that people received their salary during the crisis, that they received medical care, that they did not suffer under the economic crisis associated with the virus. The message is clear: Biden would be able to help immediately, Sanders would not. Revolutions take time.

Biden’s performance at this stage is presidential, and it insinuates precisely what he aimed for: appearing as a crisis manager. Sanders, on the other hand, utilizes the coronavirus as an opportunity to promote his socialist revolutionary ideas and appeared overly ideological.

Biden Showed He is Willing to Bring the Different Elements of the Democratic Party Together

For Biden’s presidential approach, it is also fitting that he has made offers to the progressives within his party. Just before the debate, Biden stated he was willing to adopt parts of Elizabeth Warren’s program that seeks to make it easier for citizens to apply for personal bankruptcy.

Moreover, Biden seeks to ensure that students from families with an annual income of less than $125,000 do not have to pay tuition fees at public universities – not quite as extreme as Sanders’ plan but far from a moderate position. It once again displays that Biden is not an ideologue, but a pragmatist.

When CNN moderator Jake Tapper steered away from the current situation, Sanders and Biden quickly returned to the old habits of attacking each other’s previous voting records. Sanders accused Biden of having repeatedly called for social security cuts during his congressional career, which Biden denied. Biden, in turn, criticized Sanders for his earlier positions on gun law.

Despite all Sanders’ attacks, both still maintain respect for each other. The promise not to run the election campaign below the belt-line is still being kept, and both reiterated on their promise to support the respective winner — after all, the main agenda continues to be to beat President Trump.

During the debate, Biden also made it clear that he would make a woman his running mate and thus vice president. Already in August 2019, InsideOver commented that Biden was well served to pick Kamala Harris, who remains the most plausible choice. Sanders, meanwhile, did not want to commit himself yet.

Finally, it has to be attested that, as expected, Sanders could not bring about a change in the debate. Biden, meanwhile, offered a first impression of how he would conduct himself as Commander-in-Chief.

L'articolo Democratic Debate: Biden Remains a Pragmatist, Sanders an Ideologue proviene da InsideOver.

The eleventh Democratic debate will take place this Sunday. Compared to the previous ten editions during this election circle, however, circumstances are going to be rather different.

Debate Eleven: a Whole New Ballgame

For one, there is the most obvious reason: the Corona pandemic, which has made its mark on the Democratic campaign trail also. The debate was initially scheduled to take place in Phoenix, Arizona, a coherent location considering that the delegate-rich Arizona primary will be conducted on March 17. On Thursday, however, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced that the debate would now take place in Washington, D.C. instead, for precautionary reasons and to reduce cross country travel. The debate will also take place without an audience for the same reasons.

The debate stage in its entirety is also going to look different. What used to be a field too crowed to put all candidates on the stage at once has within the previous two weeks, turned into a two-person race. No Amy Klobuchar, no Elizabeth Warren, no Pete Buttigieg nor Mike Bloomberg are going to square off.

Biden vs. Bernie

The two last men standing, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders will share the spotlight, which means little to no time to digress questions or being shouted down by an opponent. It also offers increased opportunities to expose Sanders’ ill-advised stance on particular issues.

During the tenth debate on February 25, Sanders had still been the favorite and, for the first time, was being treated as such. Meanwhile, Biden had been a political corpse with the majority of pundits and the public arguing his exit was only a matter of time.

Two and a half weeks later, Biden will enter today’s stage not only as the race’s leader (887 delegates to Sanders’ 731) but as the future Democratic nominee. Sanders, despite all his despondent rhetoric of these last days, and the attempts to appear as the nation’s coronavirus crisis manager while continuously claiming that he could still win, remains a closed case. And unlike Biden, whose political near-death experience ended via the reanimation efforts of the Southern states, in particular, Sanders he is highly unlikely to recover from his downward slide.

Biden is Winning Because He’s Not Bernie

The reasons for Biden’s resurgence are self-evident. The comeback of Joe Biden has provided him with immense momentum and a lead in national polls at 53.4 to 36 percent. However, it would be false to praise Biden for this turnaround solely. In fact, Joe Biden has been an imperfect candidate. However, compared to Sanders’ socialist message and apocalyptic ideology that has failed to work, Biden appears as the second coming of John F. Kennedy since Super Tuesday.

As such, Biden is likely to utilize today’s stage as his chance to address the whole nation and act as presidential as possible, a unifying candidate, and the party’s next nominee. Sanders, on the other hand, will throw the kitchen sink at Biden.

To say Sanders has nothing to lose at this stage, is an understatement, however. It thus begs the question of what Sanders can produce to affect the polling and the upcoming primaries, where Biden leads Sanders decisively in all upcoming four states of Arizona, Florida, Ohio, and Illinois – all of which are delegate-rich.

Advantage: Biden

Even more fortuitous for the Biden camp is that Sanders, so far, has shown limited to no creativity in terms of adjusting his message. Thus Sanders is going to give it his best shot to illustrate the contrasts between him and Biden, particularly in terms of social security. What will be interesting to see, however, is whether Sanders’ desperation forces him to attack Joe Biden’s credibility, his persona, or his son Hunter during the debate.

In the past, debate performances had the potential to impact upcoming primaries; today’s debate is unlikely to be one of these. Throughout the whole race, Sanders’ campaign has been facing one issue: Bernie himself. Even if Joe Biden started doing jumping jacks live on stage, and crumbled in front of a full-on Sanders onslaught this would not open a path for a miracle comeback, nor a way for Sanders to win any meaningful upcoming primary. Sanders’ race is run, and today should be considered his goodbye tour – with dignity, one would hope.

L'articolo The Eleventh Democratic Debate: The Comeback Kid versus Burned-Out Bernie proviene da InsideOver.

It was only a matter of time before the favorites Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders would break their truce. A memo has surfaced a few weeks before the already critical Iowa caucus that officially starts the 2020 presidential nominee contest. In it, the Sanders’ volunteers were asked to criticize Warren during their door to door duties in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, Warren countered and has officially opened the fight for the hard left.

It is an inevitable development, despite the close “friendship” the two presented to the public during the 2019 trail. After all, both Warren and Sanders are targeting the same group of voters. How deep this friendship goes will be seen for the first time tonight during the Democratic debate. Up to this point, both had focused their attacks on Pete Buttigieg and co-favorite Joe Biden by forming a united front. Mutual attacks? Nonexistent.

The reason for the internal struggle? A script has surfaced in which Sanders’ team lists its volunteer workers’ arguments to utilize against Sanders’ opponent. In addition to Warren, the script also lists arguments against other democratic candidates, such as the aforementioned Biden or Buttigieg. It could all be summed up as political campaigning if only there had not been the previous non-aggression pact by Warren and Sanders, which now appears to be officially broken.

“I like Elizabeth Warren,” the script states. “In fact, she is my second choice. But here is my concern about her: people who support her are highly-educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what”. Warren was thus “not bringing new bases into the Democratic Party,” the script continues.

Warren‘s response did not take long. She was “disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me,” Warren told reporters in Iowa. “Bernie knows me and has known me for a long time. He knows who I am, where I come from, what I have worked on and fought for, and the coalition and grassroots movement we are trying to build.”

It is uncertain whether the order to “trash” Warren actually came from Sanders himself and was not based on one of his campaign worker’s ideas. However, to make sure, Sanders stressed on Sunday that he had never expressed a negative opinion about his inner-party rival. Instead, he attempted to shift the blame onto the campaign team.

However, Warren went one step further and promptly accused Sanders of something he supposedly said in 2018, namely that a woman could not beat Donald Trump. The latter was, of course, contested by Sanders and dismissed as absolutely preposterous.

Nonetheless, Warren’s campaign manager Roger Lau uttered his displeasure and warned that the Democrats should not repeat the mistake of fighting amongst each other as in 2016 when it cost the party the presidency.

These development display that the Democrats face an intriguing conflict, in which the gloves are about to come off. After all, Warren has accused Sanders of something that could undoubtedly be interpreted as demeaning towards women in the current climate and thus detrimental regarding women voters. However, Warren has little choice. In a recent poll for Iowa, Warren is at 15% not only three points behind Sanders, but nine points behind Biden, who leads the entire field.

Warren, as well as Sanders, are cognizant that one of them has to win and beat Biden in Iowa, as a Biden win here, will make it already hard for the rest of the field to catch him, according to forecasts.

How much despair and pressure Warren and Sanders are willing to apply to counteract this, will be seen on stage this evening – though one should not expect any low blows.

Nonetheless, Biden will enjoy the socialist bidding war that is about to transpire between the two, as it will likely deter the last remaining moderates willing to vote for either Sanders or Warren. The first shot was taken by Warren earlier today when she pledged to wipe out federal student debt loans – if necessary, without Congress. One can thus expect Sanders to up the ante reasonably soon.

L'articolo Warren And Sanders Have Ceased Their Truce proviene da InsideOver.

The Democrats held their fourth debate this past Tuesday night, with limited interest considering the party – and many of their voters – are more focused on impeaching President Trump. Everyone on the crowded twelve-strong stage at Otterbein University in Ohio supports impeachment, which Senator Elizabeth Warren said is “bigger than politics,” somewhat ironic considering even strong opponents of Trump cannot help but notice the decidedly political nature of the impeachment crusade which Senator Tulsi Gabbard noted has the potential to become “hyperpartisan.” Each candidate tried to distinguish themselves during the debate with some success, although newcomer to the debate stage, billionaire anti-billionaire Tom Steyer struggled to nab a few minutes of speaking time where he could without much success. Nonetheless, Steyer did point out that he supported impeachment before it was cool by launching his Need to Impeach campaign several years ago.

Converging on opposition to Trump, the seriousness of the ongoing opioid crisis and pulling US troops out of Syria, the candidates sometimes sounded as if they were reciting a progressive liturgy as they detailed the need for gun control, abortion access, fighting climate change and all of their other oft-repeated positions. Health care emerged as a point of major disagreement, although the three hours seemed to cover more substantive issues of past Democratic debate, although it still managed to avoid ongoing issues like the Hong Kong protests or religious liberty which was recently attacked by bottom-tier candidate Beto O’Rourke who said he would defund religious institutions that do not support same-sex marriage.

Even though Warren had a relatively strong performance and enumeration of her platform, the clear winner of the debate was Senator Bernie Sanders, who had a heart attack two weeks ago. Displaying remarkably good humor and positivity about his health setbacks, 78-year-old Sanders owned the stage in terms of policy and performance. Despite trailing Joe Biden and Warren and lagging behind in New Hampshire and Iowa polling, Sanders had a great night. Describing the American medical insurance system as “cruel,” Sanders rallied in defense of the “87 million uninsured” and went on to make his outrage clear about the “30,000 people dying every year. 500,000 people going bankrupt. For one reason: They came down with cancer.” Although there are more reasons than just cancer, Sanders’ punch landed.

With Warren tangling with Senator Kamala Harris, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Gabbard and Amy Klobuchar, she took a lot of the heat during the debate, but Sanders still emerged as the real winner. While Cory Booker returned to his theme of not allowing disunity and squabbling within the party because he believes it benefits Trump, Sanders was clear about his belief that standing up to donor interests will win the next election more so than party loyalty or a team mindset. While Warren talked about her desire for taxing the rich more but put in the lame caveat “I don’t have a beef with billionaires,” Sanders was straightforward about his socialistic beliefs and stuck to his greatest hits. While Gabbard referred to the “despicable” media smears of her as a Russian asset and Assadist, Sanders avoided paraphrasing the media’s many attacks on him (CNN was even recently accused of stooping so low as to doctor the color saturation in a video of Sanders speaking after his heart attack to make his face look bright red) and stuck to criticizing Trump, saying he has wrecked America’s ability to effectively do foreign policy or be trusted.

For his part, entrepreneur Andrew Yang also picked up some support for his universal basic income proposal from Julian Castro and Gabbard. Biden’s debate performance was underwhelming, as usual with a failure to really put to rest the disquieting gossip around the work his son Hunter did in Ukraine, possibly profiting from Biden Sr’s connections. It is not a surprise that Biden has fallen behind Warren in some polls.

Overall, however, Sanders consistently outshone the other candidates, landing solid hits on Trump (“the most corrupt president in the history of this country”), climate change (“existential threat”), problems with the health care industry (“the issue is whether the Democratic Party has the guts to stand up to the health care industry, which made $100 billion in profit, whether we have the guts to stand up to the corrupt, price-fixing pharmaceutical industry”) and the struggle of working families (“half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck”). Although it remains to be seen how the Sanders campaign will fare heading into next year, Tuesday’s debate was a standout performance that should lead to some increased momentum for Team Sanders.

L'articolo Who Won The Fourth Democratic Debate? proviene da InsideOver.

The third debate is in the books. While neither the audience or the viewers witnessed new ground-breaking policy ideas, the race has begun to take shape.

Assessing winners of losers remains subjective. Depending on the news outlet and polling data, conclusions varied widely. With the race being decimated from more than twenty candidates to now ten, each of them saw an increased amount of screen time.  It turned an already uneven playing field into a battleground of desperation on the one side and an exhibition of potential on the other.

The three frontrunners, namely Biden, Warren and Sanders, are almost solely judged on whether or not they lose a debate, while the rest enjoys the liberty of no expectations. But on the latter, Andrew Yang used the forum to announce a project that will provide ten families with $1000 a month. Not out of the goodness of his heart, but to promote his idea of universal income, or the “Freedom Dividend” as Yang has coined it. An idea that evidentially resonated particularly with under thirty-five-year-old voters. Here, Yang has become the third most popular candidate.

Julián Castro utilised a less subtle approach by insinuating Joe Biden was lacking the cerebral capability to even recall his own words. However, the use of this tactic to elevate his abysmal polling of 1.2 per cent turned out to be a mistake. Most mainstream Democrats criticised Castro for his move. Not because he attacked Biden personally, but due to adding to the Trump team’s Biden “highlight reel”. The message: Even your party believe you’re completely incompetent, why should anyone vote for you?

Beto O’Rourke committed the same mistake. When asked whether or not he would seek to confiscate weapons, his passionate response was: “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15’s,” playing right into Trump message of “angry Democrats” who seek to deprive law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights.

One of the most notable themes of the night was the paradigm shift on President Obama. He was put back on the Democratic pedestal. The same one, he got kicked off from during the first two debates, when all candidates not named Biden, attacked Obama and his track record, particularly on deportation. But it turned out that attacking the most popular Democratic president in modern history is not a winning strategy. Lesson learned.

Besides the course reversal on President Obama, the debate offered three additional takeaways.

First, the anti-Trump dogma all candidates continue to run on continued. Including the default position of responding to questions with: “I will do it differently than Donald Trump!”. It was such a repetitive occurrence that Trump appeared to be more present than some of the candidates on stage – despite being 1400 miles away. Given the resentment amongst Democratic voters, it might well be a winning strategy. Nonetheless, the lack of coherent political vision on many topics must have felt egregious to voters who are still undecided.

Second, the absurdity the hard-left in running on remains omnipresent. For the third time, Joe Biden had to defend Barack Obama’s immigration policies and millions of deportations of illegal aliens that were conducted during that time. What sounds like a horrendous crime against humanity to some is essentially the enforcement of the law. Moderates watching these scenes must rightfully wonder how much further to the left the party will drift if even the rule of law can be ignored whenever it suits a certain narrative.

Third, O’Rourke, Castro and Corey Booker were not able to use the third debate to their advantages. Instead, their mundane ineptness was brutally exposed during the three-hour-long broadcast, either through incoherent statements or ill-advised attacks.

The latest debate did not elevate an underdog, nor did it damage one of the favourites. What remains obvious is the ideological rift on stage. Those who are polling low will likely continue to attack Joe Biden in the next debate. They do not have anything to lose. The party, however, does.  The harder Biden is attacked, the more damage it does for a potential run in 2020. For Republicans, the fourth debate is, therefore, must-see TV.

L'articolo The Democratic Race: Unity Against Trump, Division Amongst Each Other proviene da InsideOver.

There’s no nice way to say it – the Democratic Party as a whole is in disarray, and their message to voters is wildly incoherent. While some candidates try to steer a middle course, most are attempting to capitalize on the activist base where the party’s energy is focused. Although this may be a decent strategy during the primaries, the current field of Democrats are largely coming across as unhinged and unsure about what they want other than to beat President Donald Trump.

While disagreement is healthy and necessary during a primary, the Democrats have exposed the lack of a real, workable governing philosophy at the heart of their party. This incoherence is a problem when it comes to picking up swing voters and independents, not to mention politically passive Democrats who dislike Trump but are not very impressed with the Democrats either. Nonetheless, despite these criticisms, the second set of Democratic debates in Detroit on July 30 and 31 were an improvement over the embarrassing spectacle of the first set of debates in Miami earlier in the month. At least this time, the candidates marked clear ground on several issues of contention, and did not try to speak garbled Spanish.

Who Caught Voters’ Attention?

The standard horse-race analysis has it that former VP Joe Biden had an especially bad night, as did Mayor Bill de Blasio, while Cory Booker and Julian Castro did a surprisingly good job (the bar is low). Elizabeth Warren put in a solid performance, as did Marianne Williamson, with her denunciation of the Democratic party’s self-defeating and self-righteous approach to beating Trump.

In terms of speaking time, night one belonged to Warren, who got over 18 minutes, and Bernie Sanders, at over 17, while Marianne Williamson and John Hickenlooper clocked in at the bottom with just over eight; on night two, Joe Biden was gifted upwards of 21 minutes and Kamala Harris got over 17 (because, as she put it in a post-debate brag, she is one of the “top-tier” candidates). Andrew Yang and Bill de Blasio both spoke for around 9 minutes, with Beto O’Rourke somewhere in the same region of time with a forgettable showing, and Tulsi Gabbard also somewhere pretty close to being ignored. The rest of the candidates’ speaking time fell somewhere in the middle.

Despite already very high name recognition and a solid activist base, Bernie Sanders boosted himself even more with his strong performance. He came out swinging, and absolutely bulldozed several individuals onstage, such as Tim Ryan, who challenged Sanders about whether the Vermont Senator’s proposed Medicare For All bill would actually cover prescriptions, eyeglasses, hearing aids and dental care.

“You don’t know that,” Ryan quipped.

“I do know—I wrote the damn bill,” Sanders fired back.

Another punch-in-the-face moment came when Gabbard absolutely demolished Kamala Harris’ record on criminal justice, leaving the California Senator sputtering like a fish out of water.

Democrats Need To Get Their Heads in the Game

Booker’s bizarre statement that the debates were dividing Democrats too much against each other – which amounted to asking why people need to debate in a debate – was a good symbol of the woolliness of the party’s current mentality. As breakout star and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson put it, “political insider games” and “wonkiness” won’t win elections, and if Democrats keep hiding from their own complicity in the corruption and donor-run system affecting the current economic and foreign policy situation, “those who vote for Trump will continue to vote for Trump, and those who might not like Donald Trump will continue to stay home.” Williamson, who is attracting more and more positive and negative media attention alike, has a good point.

What’s Next?

The next debate is September 12th (and 13th if enough candidates qualify) at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. It is going to be much more difficult for candidates to qualify, so they will all be trying to make the absolute most of the opportunity if they do get a place onstage. The Democratic National Committee has announced that the third debate will be in September, but candidates will require at least two percent in four polls and 130,000 donors, with a minimum of 400 donors in at least 20 states, to get onstage. Although many lower-tier candidates polling at 0.5 and 1 percent will be shown the exit by September, it is quite possible that Gabbard, Yang and Williamson could make it by continuing to ride media controversy and attracting attention and support. Either way, the field in September will be much smaller, and the jabs will be much harder. If a Democrat really wants to beat President Trump, they will need to start clearly advancing a vision that can unify the party and attract voters, instead of pandering only to certain parts of the base or floating their own “woke” credentials at the expense of real policy.

L'articolo The Second US Democratic Debate Had Big Surprises proviene da InsideOver.