The First Night of the Democratic Debate

The first night of the first Democratic debate is complete. The night featured Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Julian Castro, Tim Ryan, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert Francis O'Rourke, John Delaney,  Bill de Blasio, Amy Klobuchar and Jay Inslee (who?). My initial reaction to the debate was that after three years after Donald Trump's stunning election victory, Democrats have still not learned their lesson. 

You heard the common phrases like "a women's right to choose", "transgender abortions" and "death by climate change", yet rarely did you hear the candidates take up the issues that matter to middle class, blue collared voters. Trump won in 2016 because he was able to resonate with these voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. While democrats continue to argue the best way to kill a baby and tax the wealthy 70%, middle class voters are pondering a second term for Mr. Trump. While I'm sure Democrats understand this predicament they're in, they also realize that a heavy progressive wing of the party is emerging and could very well determine who will be standing on the debate stage with Donald Trump in 2020. Therefore, while democrats take a progressive stance in the primaries, look for most of them to make a move towards the center when the general election comes around. 

There were two winners from last night's debate. The first winner, and the one with the best chance to get the nomination going into the night, was Elizabeth Warren. Warren has had a bump in the polls recently and is looking to overtake Bernie as the progressive option for voters. She did not need to do anything special to keep the momentum going but a blunder on-stage could have been costly. She coasted her way along, getting a solid amount of speaking time and finishing with a decently strong closing. She avoided getting involved with the identity politics aspect of the debate which seemed to dominate at some points. She set herself apart by advocating for abolishing the private health insurance industry in which most democrats refuse to commit. Overall, Warren got the short end of the stick by drawing the first night and being the only one on stage polling above 10%, yet was able to make the most of it. 

The second winner of the debate was Julian Castro. While Castro is fairly unknown in politics, he does have a background of HUD secretary under Obama and the mayor of San Antonio. Castro's primary issue is immigration. Having roots that trace back to south of the border, Castro made radical proposals like making crossing the border not a criminal offense. Castro brought in a specific article within immigration law that he claims that President Trump is using in order to detain illegal crossers. While Democrats in the House are likely to refuse funding the crisis at the border, Castro simply suggested that we no longer detain those who illegally crossed the border. He even went as far to "challenge" everyone on the debate stage to support abolishing the provision in the law.   More moderate candidates,like Klobuchar declined to do such citing the fact that it would prevent US officials from prosecuting drug dealers and human traffickers who attempted to enter the country, a very fair point. Castro shot back by saying there were other provisions that would allow prosecution of these individuals, yet declined to say what exactly those provisions were. However, at the end of the night, Castro did what he needed to do. He made his name known to the Democratic base and put himself in a position to raise some money and start some serious campaigning. 

The biggest loser of the night was Robert Francis. "Beto", as he is known, did not get too into policy, yet made it very clear that he could speak Spanish, to the demise of Cory Booker. Beto was not assertive during the debate and even faced tough scrutiny from Julian Castro on the issue of immigration, with Castro going as far to suggest that Beto was not educated on the issue of illegal immigration. When asked about a progressive tax policy, Beto spoke in two different languages, both in which he did not answer the question. During the 2018 midterms Beto was portrayed as the second coming of JFK, maybe even Abraham Lincoln. After Texas voters came to their senses and reelected Ted Cruz, the media abandoned Beto and left him out for the sharks that existed in the Democratic party. Now Beto is left with no assertiveness, no media portrayed charm, close to zero policy and a very low number of supporters (polling at 3%). If Beto were smart, he'd realize that he has absolutely no chance to win this primary and would be best as a vice presidential candidate that could potentially make Texas a battle-ground in the general election. 

One topic that was brought up was the issue of the Senate and what would happen if the Republicans keep it, which is more than likely going to happen. Two names consistently brought up throughout this discussion were Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, more specifically their plans to get them out of office. If Democrats implementing their agenda means that Mitch and Lindsay need to go, the dems have already lost. Not only are these two likely to be reelected in 2020, but it shows the democrats lack of being able to work in a bipartisan manner. Mitch McConnell isn't the one who refuses to fund the crisis at the border, that would be Nancy Pelosi. Mitch McConnell, however, was the one to let Obama have two supreme court appointees. It was the democrats who refused to vote for Juges Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, not Mitch McConnell.

Overall, there was little debate in the first debate. The candidates had small policy differences here and there, especially with issues such as healthcare, however, the debate felt like an echo chamber of progressive leaning ideas that appeal to the elites of the democratic party. The one pretentious moment of the debate was between Tim Ryan and Tulsi Gabbard, in which Gabbard came after Ryan after Ryan made a statement about the Taliban being involved in 9/11. At the end of the day, however, a lot of the same ideas were echoed throughout the debate. One candidate whose campaign was founded on the working class was Tim Ryan. Besides his blunder with Tulsi, from a conservative standpoint, Ryan had a decent night. He made arguments that appealed to working class voters. However, after the debate, after going on the abyss of humanity known as Twitter, many users made the claim that Ryan meant white voters when bringing up the middle class. This is the key friction that exists in the party right now. There is a clear disconnect between progressive, social justice warrior democrats and blue collared workers in the rust belt who have been loyal to democrats such as Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama, but switched to the likes of Donald Trump in 2016. If this tension can't be resolved and the Democrats put up a progressive who refuses to talk about unions or even the Constitution, look for those voters to stick with Trump in 2020.