All those who care about finding the strongest Democratic nominee to defeat a grossly unfit president can breathe a sigh of relief that the two-night free-for-all clusterfests of candidates are finally over.
Many of us who were eager to start winnowing down nearly two dozen candidates—strong alternatives as well as remote possibilities with overactive imaginations—were unpleasantly surprised at how quickly the opening debates deteriorated into unattractive squabbling. It was probably that dramatic moment in the first June debates when California Sen. Kamala Harris personally challenged former Vice President Joe Biden on his opposition to busing for school integration that set the confrontational tone for the second round of debates in July.
With such a large field, everyone else was desperate to find a similar way to emerge from the crowd and gain days alone in the spotlight in just a few allotted minutes. Feeding into that was the tendency of media moderators to promote televised conflict like kids eager to hold the coats while others fight on the playground.
Don’t Take the Bait
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg rose above that in a positive way by pointedly refusing to take the bait and attack other Democrats. Warren was openly invited to distance herself from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and instead simply continued explaining how her own progressive policies would level the economic playing field for working Americans.
Buttigieg, the youngest candidate at 37 who looks even younger, was asked a leading question that basically came down to whether Biden and Sanders (at 76 and 77) were too old to be running. “I don’t care how old you are,” Buttigieg responded, “I care about your vision.” Then he pivoted, as skilled debaters should, to turn the question against his party’s real opponents: Republican enablers of Donald Trump’s “naked racism.”
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Speaking directly to the camera, Buttigieg told congressional Republicans to “consider the fact that, when the sun sets on your career and they are writing your story of all the good and bad things you did in your life, the thing you will be remembered for is whether in this moment, with this president, you found the courage to stand up to him or continue to put party over country.”
Too many of the other debaters got so lost trying to aggressively outscore each other they never got around to mentioning the horrific, historic moment of deadly racial violence we are living through as our president intentionally fans the flames with his vicious, dehumanizing rhetoric.
Best Health Care Plan?
One of the uglier, most confusing arguments for viewers was the extended debate over which candidate has the best health care plan. Here’s the simple answer: All Democratic candidates do. Medicare-for-all proposed by Sanders, Warren and other progressives, and Biden’s more moderate expansion of former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) to include a public option, all lead to the same place: the Democratic Party’s holy grail of universal national health coverage for all Americans. But Maryland Congressman John Delaney and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock boosted Republican opponents by accusing progressive supporters of Medicare-for-all of plotting to destroy private health insurance for millions of Americans who want it.
Let’s be clear. No Democrats are proposing to destroy health care for anyone; they want to continue expanding affordable, subsidized health care until everyone is covered. Republicans are the ones who have repeatedly voted to destroy affordable health care for 20 million Americans without any replacement. They’re currently pursuing a federal lawsuit to destroy all ACA benefits, including coverage of pre-existing conditions and government subsidies reducing costs.
Delaney and Bullock are unlikely to gain enough popular support in four legitimate polls, or financial support from enough donors, to qualify for September’s ABC-TV Democratic debate at Texas Southern University, a historic black university in Houston. So far, only eight candidates have qualified: Biden, Warren, Harris, Sanders, Buttigieg, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke. The Democratic National Committee went out of its way to give every candidate some attention.
Clear Away the Clutter
But now, it’s time to clear away the clutter of so many candidates with less than a blip of support and give the most serious possibilities more opportunity to present their most compelling national messages. The sooner the leading candidates stop splitting hairs over minor differences and make it clear they’re all heading in the same positive direction for our country, the better.
Along the way, Democratic candidates will have to keep answering tough questions about whether they’re moving too far to the left by proposing humane policies on immigration, health care as a right, removing assault rifles from our city streets and shifting more taxes from working Americans to the wealthy instead of the other way around. Somehow, Republicans never seem to get asked whether they’re moving too far to the right by becoming the party of racial hatred and human cruelty.
