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Tuesday was the final Democratic primary debate before the Iowa caucuses. Read the full transcript here. Des Moines Register
The left doesn’t believe the debate will have a large impact on the polls and focuses on foreign policy.
“In 2008, Barack Obama won the Democratic presidential nomination arguably based on a single policy position that distinguished him from his chief rival: his opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq from its outset. Twelve years later, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont could conceivably capture the party’s nomination because of that same stance on that same war. At tonight’s Democratic debate, in Iowa, Sanders had his best chance yet to remind progressive primary voters that on the most consequential foreign-policy decision of the 21st century, he stood alone among the six candidates onstage in clearly opposing the Iraq War…
“In 2016, Trump took (dubious) credit for having opposed the Iraq War, using it as a cudgel against both his Republican-primary opponents and Hillary Clinton in the general election. The U.S. has now elected two presidents in a row who were, or claimed to be, against the war. Sanders is hoping voters decide to pick a third.”
Russell Berman, The Atlantic
“With tensions with Iran and controversy over President Trump’s decision to kill Qasem Soleimani big in the news, Democrats had a chance to define their party on the issue. And the debate began on that subject, with the candidates talking at some length. What we got instead was a lot of general talk about taking out combat troops but leaving in other troops who would be tasked with other missions…
“[Meanwhile] Medicare-for-all has come up so much in these debates that bringing it up often elicits groans from people who cover these things… But Klobuchar carved out her niche on it Tuesday night. [She pointed out that most Senate Democrats don’t support the plan endorsed by Sanders and Warren]… Klobuchar then went a step further, pointing to concrete things she’s done and would do, including on drug importation and a bipartisan bill on lowering drug prices… she made a strong play for the substantial-alternative [to Medicare-for-all] mantle over which she, Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden have been fighting.”
Aaron Blake, Washington Post
“Once again, the candidates in second, third, fourth, and fifth place seemed largely content to argue among themselves rather than make the case against the frontrunner… Biden did back Bush on Iraq. He backed Social Security cuts. He backed a bad bankruptcy bill in 2005. And he lauded a bad budget deal with Republican Mitch McConnell as an example of sound bipartisan policymaking…
“This pattern of behavior raises, to me, a real worry about a potential Biden presidency. Not that his talk of a post-election Republican Party ‘epiphany’ is unrealistic — every candidate in the field is offering unrealistic plans for change — but that he has a taste for signing on to bad bargains. There’s potential for a critique of Biden that isn’t just about nitpicking the past or arguing about how ambitious Democrats should be in their legislative proposals, but about whether Biden would adequately hold the line when going toe-to-toe with congressional Republicans… [But] Biden walked onto another Democratic debate stage Tuesday night as the frontrunner and once against walked off the winner by default.”
Matthew Yglesias, Vox
Regarding Warren and Sanders, some note that “Only two participants were in that room, there are no recordings of the meeting, and the two participants have starkly different recollections of the conversation… Here, though, is how the question was raised to Sanders. ‘CNN reported yesterday, and Senator Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018, you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election,’ CNN moderator Abby Phillip said…
“[After Sanders denied the allegation], Phillip asked Warren about it: ‘What did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?’ Sanders chuckled along with the audience. Warren seemed almost surprised, at first, that she hadn’t been asked to litigate the essential truth of the claim, as CNN had granted her the assumption that her version was correct… There was no particular candidate on stage earning most of the scorn and scrutiny from their fellow candidates… The moderators, however, had a clear focus, and it was Sanders.”
Jim Newell, Slate
The right is critical of the candidates’ foreign policy views and accuses CNN of pro-Warren bias.
The right is critical of the candidates’ foreign policy views and accuses CNN of pro-Warren bias.
“In Tuesday night's Democratic debate, Joe Biden claimed a vast array of foreign policy accomplishments in an attempt to make the case that his foreign policy experience made him the best prepared candidate to be commander in chief. But all he did was remind viewers that he has an extensive history of getting it wrong…
“This is the man who once tried to dissuade Obama from his operation against terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden; who supported the Iraq War and said in 2003, ‘I voted to go into Iraq, and I’d vote to do it again;’ and who vocally opposed President Ronald Reagan's military buildup and the Strategic Defense Initiative, which helped bring down the Soviet Union. In Tuesday night's debate, Biden claimed he had atoned for his Iraq War vote by spearheading President Obama's 2011-2012 withdrawal from Iraq. But that withdrawal was a disaster and it led to the rise of ISIS.”
Editorial Board, Washington Examiner
The candidates “were tripping over themselves to condemn Trump’s strike on Iran’s military chief before declaring their intention either to pull all our troops from the Middle East or almost all of our troops from the Middle East. Combat troops aren’t the answer, they said. They were prepared to be commander in chief because they care about health care for veterans or education for veterans, which is lovely but really doesn’t address the question of how they would confront threats to the United States of the sort posed by the Tehran regime.”
John Podhoretz, New York Post
Regarding the moderators, “CNN has two candidates calling each other plain liars about a factual matter on a story that CNN broke. Yet they didn’t follow up by pressing the candidates to get to the bottom of who was lying on their stage. And they didn’t follow up on what is now a clear pattern for Elizabeth Warren. But then again, why would they? Debate moderators have been covering for Warren for the entire cycle. Warren’s single biggest liability in a general election matchup with Trump is her ‘Pocahontas problem.’ She has not yet been asked about that in a debate…
“Neither has she been pressed on her claim to have been fired for being pregnant. Which is, at best, factually disputed. And now, at a critical moment in the campaign, here she is claiming that a rival candidate once told her that a woman couldn’t win the presidency—a claim he denies. Are you sensing a pattern? It sure looks as if Warren has a habit of making up claims of victimhood to advance her interests. And no debate moderator has pushed her on it.”
Jonathan V. Last, The Bulwark
“We had 48 hours of buildup to the Great Progressive Presidential Candidate Duel, and then both contenders threw away their shots. About 30 minutes into tonight’s debate, we finally got the long-awaited Bernie Sanders–Elizabeth Warren showdown… but clearly, both candidates lost their nerve and didn’t see much benefit from a sustained head-on confrontation…
“Watching Joe Biden tonight, I realized why his not-so-great debate performances over the past year haven’t damaged his standing in the polls much. Everybody already knows what they think of Biden, Democrats by and large like him, and it would take something really dramatic to get them to change their mind about him. Their opinion about Biden was written in cement that dried sometime in Obama’s first term. Month after month, he turns in debate performances that are shaky here and there, but overall okay or good enough, and surprisingly, few others on the stage take big swings at him.”
Jim Geraghty, National Review
“Buttigeg, tonight, said that the Dow Jones was up but people still felt down. Biden said that everyone but the rich is getting clobbered. And they’re the two leading candidates in the ‘moderate lane.’ These remarks don’t reflect the actual economic statistics, and they don’t reflect the public’s assessment of the economy either. The economy’s condition is helping President Trump’s campaign. Democrats can’t do a lot about that fact, but denying reality seems like a good way to compound the problem.”
Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review
