This was easily the best debate so far. Not just because it was a single night with everyone, but the content was great. It was a substantive debate where the moderators managed to keep them on track while staying in the background. Kudos to both ABC and the candidates.
The Winners
Beto O'Rourke really stood out. Partially because of his talking directly & honestly on gun control. But on other topics too. It's not enough to move him up to the mid tier, but it should bounce him up a bit.
The Democratic Party. It was a really good debate where the candidates disagreed without tearing each other down (except Castro at one point). And they had substantive discussions on the issues.
The Losers
Joe Biden throughout the night was tentative, forgetful, and had trouble expressing himself oftentimes. He's clearly past his prime. On the flip side, a lot of people judge him on a curve and so by the measure of he didn't fuck up too bad - say he did fine.
The economy got little mention, mostly around trade with China. Granted if it did get appropriate time, some other critical subject would then have no time. But in the next debate they need to spend time of the structure of our economic system, who it favors, will it work going forward, and how to handle the upcoming recession. And that will be a great discussion, not only for Warren & Sanders, but Yang has some really good insights there. And the rest can then argue for not changing it significantly.
Some Thoughts
Corey Booker - why isn't he doing better in the polls? By any measure he should at least be at the top of the 2nd tier. But he's not. I do think he's the likely Vice President for anyone except Kamela Harris (no one will try an all African American ticket).
Andrew Yang - for someone who keeps saying he's the opposite of Donald Trump, starting off with a game show give-away was trite and diminished him.
Kamala Harris - I think she remains the compromise candidate if we go in to the convention with it being Warren vs. Biden and neither can get 50%+1. And she did well for this position by spending most of her time taking on Trump.
Biden is not in the lead - Yes Biden is the front runner. But Warren & Sanders combined poll numbers beat Biden handily. And while a lot has been said about their voters being pretty distinct demographics, if one of them drops out and endorses the other - that moves the remaining one ahead of Biden.
I like this system a lot better than Iowa and New Hampshire get to pick the final 2 or 3. The debates, the polls, the fundraising - between all three we are getting a good picture of the candidates and if they can be competitive. It is very small d democratic in that it is being decided by those that are taking an interest at this time. Granted that's a small subset of the voters, but so are the primary voters in Iowa & New Hampshire. And this approach is open to everyone.
