{"id":37642,"date":"2019-09-13T13:47:16","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T20:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=37642"},"modified":"2019-09-13T13:47:16","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T20:47:16","slug":"the-latest-democratic-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2019\/09\/13\/the-latest-democratic-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"The Latest Democratic Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night I watched the Democratic Debate.  I’ll include my own opinions later, but to start, I have part of an excellent analysis and the complete video clip, so you can watch it, if you haven’t already, judge for yourselves.  Vote Blue No Matter Who<\/strong>!<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"0913Debate\"<\/h4>\n

Elizabeth Warren 7.5<\/strong>\/10<\/h4>\n

Gail Collins<\/strong> (9\/10) \u2014 Great at bringing things back to the corruption issue and talking about being a public school teacher.<\/p>\n

Ross Douthat<\/strong> (6\/10) \u2014 Another solid performance overall, but she lost the opening exchange on health care and disappeared entirely for the first hour. <\/p>\n

Maureen Dowd<\/strong> (6\/10) \u2014 More free stuff and Aunt Bee! Warren\u2019s expertise is appealing in the age of Trump, though, like President Obama, she tends to lecture. <\/p>\n

Michelle Goldberg<\/strong> (7\/10) \u2014 She\u2019s so good at this, but still hasn\u2019t figured out how to address the anxieties a lot of people have about Medicare for All. And it was disappointing that she didn\u2019t get to engage more with Biden, especially on issues like the 2005 bankruptcy bill. <\/p>\n

David Leonhardt<\/strong> (8\/10) \u2014 No Democratic politician today, on that stage or not, is better at communicating economic ideas. She makes them personal and political. Still she\u2019s vulnerable on Medicare for All. <\/p>\n

Miriam Pawel<\/strong> (9\/10) \u2014 Consistently strong across a range of issues, unruffled by Biden\u2019s attacks on health care, she got stronger as the debate went on \u2014 with points for fortitude and versatility. <\/p>\n

Melanye Price<\/strong> (9\/10) \u2014 She feels more emotionally authentic and accessible than any other candidate. She gets to the heart of things about educational costs and what it feels like to claw for opportunities when the odds seem stacked against you. While most of the candidates tonight seemed battle weary, she came off as roaring to fight more. <\/p>\n

Mimi Swartz<\/strong> (7\/10) \u2014 She did fine, and maybe that\u2019s all she had to do. <\/p>\n

Pete Wehner<\/strong> (5\/10) \u2014 She was highly evasive on her health care plan and overall she was completely forgettable. Invoking Jay Inslee as a trailblazer mean you\u2019ve by definition had a subpar night. After several good debate performances, she lost altitude in Houston. <\/p>\n

Will Wilkinson<\/strong> (8\/10) \u2014 She excelled in her allotment with a typical blend of folksy charm, masterful lucidity and passionate corporation bashing. <\/p>\n

Tanzina Vega<\/strong> (8\/10) \u2014 Warren may have a plan for everything but she continued to skirt the question about how much her health care plan would raise taxes on American families. But she is consistent, and at a certain point maybe Democratic voters will also agree that she \u201cknows what\u2019s broken\u201d and \u201chow to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/font><\/p>\n

In their graphic (interactive there), the further to the right the candidate is The better they did.  So according to these journalists, on average,  Warren won going away, Harris was second, Booker was third, Buttikieg was fourth, O’Rourke was fifth, Biden was sixth, Sanders was 7th, all tightly spaced, Klobuchar was 8th, Castro was 9th and Yang was a joke.  I shared only the commentary on Warren.  Click through for the other nine candidates and to play with the interactive article.<\/font><\/p>\n

I would have put Beto in third and Sanders in fourth.<\/font><\/p>\n

Here is the full debate<\/a>. It’s 2 hrs. 31 min. long.<\/font><\/p>\n