Debate Night Part 1

Ready or not, here they are — the Democratic presidential debates on NBC at 9pm ET. Live thread open now.

Tonight’s debate will feature: Cory Booker, senator from New Jersey •Julian Castro, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development •Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York City •John Delaney, former representative from Maryland •Tulsi Gabbard, representative from Hawaii •Jay Inslee, governor of Washington •Amy Klobuchar, senator from Minnesota •Beto O’Rourke, former representative from Texas •Tim Ryan, representative from Ohio •Elizabeth Warren, senator from Massachusetts

Thursday night’s debate will feature: Michael Bennet, senator from Colorado •Joe Biden, former vice-president •Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana •Kirsten Gillibrand, senator from New York •Kamala Harris, senator from California •John Hickenlooper, former governor of Colorado •Bernie Sanders, senator from Vermont •Eric Swalwell, representative from California •Marianne Williamson, activist •Andrew Yang, tech entrepreneur

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Author: craigcrawford

Trail Mix Host. Lapsed journalist, author & retired pundit happily promoting nothing but the truth for Social Security checks.

68 thoughts on “Debate Night Part 1”

  2. Warren is on the rise – she has momentum 
    She isn’t going to be taking nuanced positions and she has a plan for that

  5. Poobah, Yippee!!! Back on through the phone. (Followed the “trusted site” advice you gave me).
    So absent a crazy good 12 minutes for the sub 5%ers we could be seeing the swan song for 6-8 candidates in your estimation?

  7. I have fingers crossed there will be couple standouts tonight and tomorrow night.  Lest we lose all hope.

  11. craig, glad you said something about the server problem.  I’ve not been able to connect with the trail since my last comment (which by the way never posted – it was a cartoon of the probable dem firing squad and a question whether the meet-up will be a mind meld or a massacre).  have gotten use to glitches occurring whenever I post something Russia/trump, but never before about the dems.

     

    thanks to all for the kind words and for putting up with my temp work on the threads.   as I said before the truly hardest part were sundays – kept hoping against hope jace would be there.

  14. Sorry Pat, I worked hard today with our server company to sort things out. Many updates and upgrades I had neglected over the past months. Hopeful we got er done.

  25. The Beto Spanish response was odd… considering that Julian Castro is up there.  

  26. I had to have a bit of a telephone conversation with Mrs. P while part of this is going on, but my impression thus far is that of the 10 candidates up there, Elizabeth Warren has knocked it out of the park. The others are doing OK, but there’s Elizabeth Warren and then there’s the rest of them.

  27. I agree with so many points, but now they are trying to get airtime and they all have the same position. 
    Please, Jose- English if you don’t mind. I agree that Spanish is a significant language in the US, but I don’t understand it and don’t know what your question was. 

  40. I tend to agree. Of them all I would say the most capable of going head to head with Trump is either Tulsi or DeBlasio. 

  50. I hope that someone rips up trump tomorrow night. But the campaign should also be about healthcare coverage, global warming, the Supreme Court, polluting industries maiming and killing children in utero, penal reform & the failed war on drugs and tariffs (hidden taxes),
    trump licking putin’s boots and ibn salman’s sandals, and government corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse are certainly in the mix, but there has to be more to the campaign than just being opposed to the rapist gangster. 
     

  51. Anywhat, I believe that New York will indict him for bank and tax fraud. 
    Maybe there’s money to be made selling PENCE in 2020 bumper stickers.

    omewhere in Louisiana there’s a warehouse full of Vote For The Crook bumper stickers and lawn signs that should be recycled.

  53. and now for the recaps from the media to tell you what you saw even if you didn’t. 

    from wapo’s aaron blake:  Winners and losers from the Democratic presidential debate’s first night

    The first night of the first debate of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary is over, with the first 10 candidates jousting Wednesday night in Miami.

     

    Below are our winners and losers.

     

    [Highlights of night one of the Democratic debate]

     

    Winners

     

    Elizabeth Warren: The Massachusetts senator went into the debate with the biggest target on her back as the highest-polling candidate onstage. But she largely skated. Other candidates didn’t seem to have the appetite to put her on the spot.  [more]

    Julián Castro: For someone on the periphery of much of the 2020 debate, he made a splash. He made a strong statement about the father and daughter who drowned earlier this week in the Rio Grande, saying everyone should be “pissed off” about it. Later, after a joust with O’Rourke on immigration, other candidates emphasized their agreement with Castro. It’s a great sign when other candidates are straining to show they agree with you.

     

    Bill de Blasio: Since making a late entry into the 2020 field, the New York mayor has been the butt of more than a few jokes in D.C. and New York media. He’s also by far the most unpopular candidate in the field. But he was on his game: He cut in to get more time. [more]

    […]

    Klobuchar’s one-liners: The overall picture wasn’t a resounding success for her, but a couple of lines landed well: one well-improvised and one clearly planned. When Washington Gov. Jay Inslee talked about being the only candidate to sign into law a reproductive rights bill, Klobuchar shot back, “I just want to say that there are three women here who have fought pretty hard for a woman’s right to choose.” The audience erupted in applause. Then later, while talking about Iran, Klouchar had maybe the line of the night on Trump: “I don’t think we should conduct foreign policy in our bathrobe at 5 o’clock in the morning.”

     

    Former vice president Joe Biden: Did you know he is the leading Democratic candidate? You wouldn’t from this debate. There was some worry that he might be attacked in absentia and not have a chance to respond immediately, but it didn’t really happen.

     

    Spanish: It was probably inevitable that some candidates would speak it on the stage, and O’Rourke was quick to do so, followed by Booker. Even Castro, whose lack of fluency in Spanish as the only Latino candidate has been much-discussed, offered a brief bit of bilingualism. “I need to learn Spanish by tomorrow night at 9,” tweeted Marianne Williamson, who will debate Thursday night. “My Spanish is terrible,” her fellow Thursday-nighter Andrew Yang admitted in his own tweet.

    [losers started off with beto and tulsi. continued on stuff not covered]

     

  54. and here’s ny times: Democrats Diverge on Economy and Immigration in First Debate  

    MIAMI — Democratic presidential candidates leveled a stark critique of President Trump’s immigration policies and the condition of the American working class in the first primary debate on Wednesday, but split in unmistakable terms over just how aggressively the next president should seek to transform the country along more liberal lines.

    The strength of the party’s progressive wing was on vivid display in South Florida, starting in the first minutes of the debate when Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts branded the federal government as thoroughly corrupt. Ms. Warren, the highest-polling candidate onstage, called for the government to bring to heel oil companies and pharmaceutical companies, and embraced the replacement of private health insurance with single-payer care.

    “We need to make structural change in our government, in our economy and in our country,” Ms. Warren said, setting the tone for the handful of populists in the debate.

    Joining Ms. Warren in driving hard from the left were two lesser known candidates — Julián Castro, the former housing secretary, and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York — who sought to jump-start their campaigns by confronting rivals who hesitated to match their progressive demands on immigration, health care and national security policy.

     

    The debate, the first of two featuring 10 candidates each, underscored just how sharply Democrats have veered in a liberal direction since Mr. Trump’s election. On issues ranging from immigration and health care to gun control and foreign policy, they demonstrated that they were far more uneasy about being perceived as insufficiently progressive by primary voters than about inviting Republican attacks in the general election.

    But there were also several avowed pragmatists who voiced hesitation or outright disagreement over some of their party’s most ambitious policy demands. Most prominent among them was Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota,…

    [continues with blow by blow]

  55. and the guardian:  

    Democratic 2020 candidates clash on healthcare, immigration and economy in first debate

     

    Ten candidates took the stage for the first of back-to-back debates, and cast themselves in sharp contrast with Trump

    […]

    One NBC debate moderator, Chuck Todd, launched into a string of questions about the climate crisis, beginning an exchange lasting around seven minutes – more than the entire time spent on climate in the 2016 general election debates.

     

    Miami is seen as one of the US cities most under threat from the effects of climate change. Asked if his plan could “save Miami,” Inslee – who has made the environment the central plank of his campaign – touted efforts he has lead as a governor.

     

    Trump loomed large over the debate – tweeting his thoughts intermittently – but he was not a focus. A quarter of an hour passed before his name was mentioned, by Klobuchar.

     

    As the candidates debated healthcare and discussed immigration, Trump, watching the debate aboard Air Force One on his way to attend the G20 summit in Japan, tweeted simply: “BORING”.

    [continues]

  60. business insider:  Trump told reporters it’s ‘none of your business’ what he and Putin speak about at the G20 summit

    President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he hopes for a “very good conversation” with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the upcoming G20 summit in Osaka, but that specifics of the conversation are “none of your business.”

    President Trump was answering questions from reporters at the White House before his departure to the two-day international forum, which brings together the world’s largest economies.

    Trump was asked by a reporter whether he planned to confront Putin at the summit about meddling in the 2020 election.

    “I’ll have a very good conversation with him,” he replied to the reporter. “What I say to him is none of your business.”

    […]

    Trump told NBC News in an interview this week that he “may” discuss 2020 election meddling with Putin at the summit, though he has not officially confirmed an agenda for their meeting.

    [continues]

  61. What I learnt from last night is just how unwieldy it really is to have so many candidates on the stage.  I suspect tonight won’t be any different regarding that.  IMO, it will get more interesting when the field is whittled down to 6-7 candidates.  Probably more than a few debates to go before we see it.
     
    My biggest surprise was how well Castro did.  My biggest disappointment was how poorly Beto did.  I agree they need to contrast themselves with trump more.  But methinks that will come with a smaller field and more time to answer questions.

  62. Dinner in Australia.  I may have discovered the problem in global government.  

  63. Hoorah – back in bidness on both favored devices.  Thanks for the assistance Poobah.

  65. WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin’s take on the winners in the debate:
     

    Winners: NBC moderators (who covered a huge amount of ground and wasted no time on silly queries); Booker and Klobuchar. The Democratic Party as a whole, showing off many solid contenders with a command of the issues.
     
    Losers: NBC technical staff (an audio problem interrupted the debate and forced a commercial break); de Blasio, Gabbard, Ryan and O’Rourke.

    But she made a good point in the paragraph before those.

    In one respect, all the participants face a similar predicament: The first debate’s news chatter and video clips likely will get cut off as soon as coverage of the second one kicks in sometime Thursday. With more top candidates participating in Thursday’s event, including former vice president Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), there’s a good chance that coverage of the first debate will get eclipsed in about 12 hours or so. For those who did well, that’s a shame; for those who did not, it may be a blessing.

    She is not as dumb as some of the commenters who weigh in on her daily would like to think.

  66. I’m just going to post this as a link, and I hope you can access it – it’s the NYT preview of tonight’s debate.  It’s kinda fun to scroll through.

    OOps – forgot the link. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/27/us/politics/democratic-debate-night-2.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

    XR, I’m betting that tonight goes something like this – Joe explains his candidacy by contrasting it with SFB, Bernie! does his by contrasting with Biden, and I can’t say what the others will do.  I saw an interview between Casey Hunt and Bernie! done recently – he’s going to fuck it up again.

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