Joe Biden won this debate … it is clearly a win as the moderates were able to show that the Democratic Party is more than what the headlines and the "Breaking News" keep flashing at people!
1
Biden always does better in debates when he's not there.
1
Ross:
Please change your descriptions of 'moderates' to 'liberals' and 'progressives' to 'left-wing extremists'.
Thanks in advance.
Why does a republican propagandist get to pick the winner of a democratic debate? Has Ross voted for a democrat for president, senate or congress in the last 20 years?
3
Almost everyone on this thread thinks that the number one issue is beating Trump. We differ greatly on how to do that. To quote another commenter, “I will vote for a box of cheezits over Trump.”
If we all agree to do that, whoever the nominee, we’ve got it in the bag.
1
Tendentious. Boy, can I see how Ross Douthat feels threatened by the other leading moderate in the race, Pete Buttigieg. His empowering, optimistic religious affiliation goes to the core of everything Douthat holds sacred.
Centrists.....yes!!! Progressives......4 more years of Trump. Neither far left or right knows compromise and they are both brittle in their stances. That's a recipe for getting nothing done for the country and intensifying the war of Dem's vs. Pub's. We must find a way to work together......as long as we're in the majority, and Moscow Mitch is the minority leader or voted out of office. Historically, that is when America moves forward. When idealism meets reality, it often does not work. See George McGovern.
1
BUT, can he win tonight's debate? Last night was the losers under card; tonight is the real deal with Round 2 of Biden-Harris. Then again, that just may be the winning ticket!
If Biden won last night's debate the Democratic Party was a big loser. Today's comments certainly reveal there are a large number of "Never Biden" out there.
There is an American school of philosophy founded by John Dewey and that school is known by its pragmatism.
Joe Biden belongs to the fantasy school where Douthat resides and believes you can step into the same stream of water more than once.
1
For what it's worth there is a book in the bible far more approppo than the book of Revelations to this point in American history. It is the Book of Jonah and the hero is no Joe Biden he is the King of Nineveh. The king is no moderate. When Nineveh is doomed to destruction by God, the King of Nineveh does not just modify the Kingdom's behaviour he changes the behaviour and the values of his kingdom.
1
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both hit it out of the park last night. The hand-wringing so-called 'centrism' of the Times' opinion page is really getting old. You guys are light years behind the People.
1
One of RD's best and wisest columns ever.
Here's mirror image Ross Douthat, circa 1980:
"Ignoring Reagan's extreme right wing rhetoric, moderate John Anderson won last night's Republican debate!"
Counterpunch against de Blasio? Just ask him how can he run the country if he can't run the City. He's a delusional laughingstock.
.Okay, Joe Biden is on. But, is there no one else, no one who might be just a shade more knowledgeable, more intense, more carpe diem type than Joe?
trumpo has amassed a considerable pile of dough in his fight to be re-elected. And let'sface it; he has some talent for his quest for the holy grail of the Presidency. He has spent sometiime on TV and is comfortable in front of a mic.
Ah Well. life is short and time marches on, no?
"Qui sera, sera."
Yeah, sure. This type of bold thinking is exactly what got Mike Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Al Gore, Hillary, Hubert Humphrey, and George McGovern elected to the presidency.
1
Mr. Douthat,
How can I take you seriously when you call yourself a Christian and admit you've only read the picture book version of the bible, the one for grade schoolers? Surely a NYT columnist is better versed in their religion than an elementary education.
Onto your column, of course you like Biden. He makes your heart feel good because he's more of a moderate Republican than a moderate Democrat.
2
Classic Douthat column filler with almost every supposition being wrong. It’s actually insulting to readers of these pages. Biden is way out of his depth intellectually and as a debater vs Warren, Buttigieg, Harris and Sanders......like he was when he ran previously. And Trump will handle him easily. Time for someone who can point to a better and progressive future and above all, win.
1
I have to ask how do you win a debate?
how do you keep score?
1
do this do that, wrong again.
1
Lifelong right-wing writer Ross Douthat has no business telling another political party which candidate is best for them to rally around. With his type of "Catholic conservative" thinking, we would not have Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, women couldn't vote not have access to birth control and gays couldn't marry, but the rich (white) folks would be even richer because they deserve it, right Ross?
1
So Douthat is voting for Biden? Figures.
1
“Joe Biden Won Last Night’s Democratic Debate”. Biden mighta “won” the debate he wasn’t in last night. But he is getting murdered in the debate he is actually in tonight.
1
Ross clearly want to give Biden a last boost before he is eviscerated, all hail Harris.
Mr. Douthat, you are now officially the equivalent of a Russian troll, always on hand to lob some crank comment out into the Democrat's election-cycle blogosphere, then standing back to watch everyone freak out. I sincerely doubt you really believe Joe Biden won anything at a Democratic debate he didn't attend. I do believe you understand that most Democrats wouldn't bother to look at your column unless its title included a controversial Democratic theme. Please go back to writing about your familiar conservative tropes so that we Democrats can continue to ignore you.
1
This isn't punditry nor analysis, it's just Douthat's position. The same position he had before the debate. Sorry I wasted my time reading it.
Well, I tend to find attractive the idea of Biden becoming the Democratic nominee. Not only he will lose to the malignant narcissist in the WH but he will trigger the implosion and final collapse of this boring center right party that has posed for so long as representing the working class. When the broken pieces of the party are picked up, a new party, a real party of the working people should emerge. Then we will have a true two-party system.
1
Much as I like Warren, the commenters here need to get a grip and realize that winning 10 more percentage points in Massachusetts or California will not change the electoral college results. I wonder if they have ever met a Obama defector from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, or Michigan.
2
Biden is standing on the debate stage acting like a Republican.
Sorry. He is not a Democrat for this era.
3
I love it when conservatives tell Democrats who won the debate. Thanks, Ross!
1
An astute analysis of the race. If I had a dollar for every article published in the media (including these pages) about Biden’s demise and the ascendancy of Kamala Harris I’d be rich like Sanders. Turns out us moderates are a lot less flaky than our socialist friends hope...
1
The catastrophe that is the former Republican Party and is now the Cult of Trump needs your focus, Ross, not the Democrats whose party of diversity and vigorous debate you reject.
2
Touchy feely, segregationist, favorite of the banks and health insurance companies? No, thanks.
2
It always worries me when a Conservative Republican tells us who won the Democratic debate.
2
Corrected-No matter who won, the real winner is president Trump. The progressive agenda is a far-left socialistic agenda that very few Americans want, and GRANPA Biden lives in the PAST with Obama's ghost guiding him. Trump essentially doesn't have to lift a finger the demo candidates do the job for him.
I don't agree with all the praise for Biden. He is an old white guy with views unsurprising for his age - i.e. slightly too touchy-feely with women, too slow to change views on race/ gender/ equality, doesn't really viscerally understand what discrimination feels like, etc. He's your typical upper-middle class white grandpa who doesn't really understand what the women, black and brown people, and young folk are up to today. He doesn't excite me at all and he isn't the change that anyone is looking for now. He isn't even relevant and worth writing about, much less speculating that he won anything. I would argue that Bernie also falls somewhat in Biden's category, although Bernie is passionate and genuine in his beliefs, which is rare for a guy his age. So, leave Biden alone. I feel sad for Biden that he's running. He was a good VP and he should enjoy his much-deserved retirement.
Let's talk more about Harris, Warren, Pete, and other candidates worthy of our attention.
8
@Liliana
And once again I say, let each individual voter decide for themselves, and that requires the ability to have a DIALOGUE.
Also beware of that "old white guy" way of framing things because in the end, it will only obfuscate the goal any sane American, which namely is to get Donald Trump and his enablers out of the White House.
Why is it a problem that he's White and old? That sounds like racism and ageism.
All fine except that Biden is in fact attacking the left with ads and talking points prepared by the health insurance industry.
5
Personalities aside, the fight against Trump next year will probably come down to healthcare. If the Democrats campaign to fix Obamacare, not scrap it, they can beat Trump. The only high profile candidate offering that is Biden I believe.
4
Might Biden's candidacy benefitted last evening by being not present on stage &, conversely, might his prospects suffer this evening because he will have difficulties dealing with many competitors on both his left & right on many issues?
Arguably, Biden has benefited to date because of superior name recognition & the absence of a strong competitor on the centrist wing of the Party. Could that advantage be eroding, not only because of positions he has taken in the past but also because he has difficulty matching the policy debating skills of many of his competitors, all of whom are becoming better known at his expense?
The real test for Biden will be in the September round of debates when he must go face to face with both Sanders & Warren.
BTW, I'm sure that I'm not the only foreign observer to find it strange that the US media labels one batch of Democratic contenders "moderates" (implying stability, maturity & electability) & the others as "socialists", "radicals", or "liberals" (implying impractical, fanciful, & unelectable). Isn't this stacking the deck before the members of the latter group have each had an opportunity to present their cases (cases that on most issues in many cases mirror reforms in place successfully for over half a century in most advanced western democracies)?
5
Moderates will not win against Trump. Populism is the key to the 2020 election as it was in 2016. The only candidate who has a populist punch that beats trump is Bernie Sanders. Anyone else and you can start buying your new 2020 MAGA hats for the inauguration.
8
Toms correct . Polling in last presidential election had given Bernie a much bigger chance of winning over trump than Hillary before she was put in the ticket.
3
I don’t often agree with Ross Douthat but I thought this column was insightful.
The Left has a great message — but not for the audience they need to persuade: swing state voters who are socially moderate and suspicious of policy ideas they consider too radical. I’m sorry but that's the reality as confirmed by the polls.
Kamala Harris is way too California for such folks. Liz Waren’s policy ideas are admirable but they need to be presented to swing state voters in ways that allow them to seem pragmatic and doable. And declaring oneself for open borders and free schooling for Illegal immigrants is simply suicide with swing state voters.
Biden is in a strong position for many reasons, not least because he is a known quantity. Swing state voters, I suspect, have had enough of “Washington outsiders.” But Biden’s ace in the hole is he doesn’t need the Left to win. If they sit home on Election Day, Biden believes he can make up their numbers from independents and Republican moderates. Then the Left will truly have no place to go. The big question is whether the Left can sublimate for one election in the interest of ousting Trump or whether they will be complicit in the dismantling of American democracy that is sure to occur in a Trump second term.
10
Biden may not be "quick or supple enough for onstage combat anymore," but I doubt he'll need those skills to debate Trump in the general election. All he needs to do is stand next to Trump and look and talk like a decent human being.
I know, I know. That's what they said about Hillary. But in 2016 they were still saying Trump might "change" after he became president. Now we know better.
2
@Htb
New Yorkers tried to warn the rest of America about Donald Trump in 2016.
But they didn't listen.
Sorry for saying this again, but Biden for Ohio - and Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Add Indiana and Florida to that. I also like Klobuchar (I spelled it right without looking). Klobuchar's intelligent, she's moderate, she's young - and the next President of the United States after Biden. A real politician with the patina of Theresa May (too bad about Brexit) and Angela Merkel. Vote for Biden - and get Klobuchar in the long run.
5
Funny how you see a lot of pundits and media swooning over Biden, but you don't really seem to find anyone truly exited about a Biden Presidency. You see plenty of people who have been browbeaten for their entire lives into thinking that the Democrats have to vote for the "safe" candidate. Newsflash... playing it safe has led Democrats to lose 1000 State and House seats over the center of the country. Playing it safe led the Democratic party to give up trying to compete in half the country. Warren and Sanders both have focused on building huge grassroots movements in all 50 states of motivated people who are actually excited about them. They also have a track record of fighting for the kind of change that young people and the collapsing middle class are desperate to see right now. Given that, I think they are both in a position do better than Biden in red and purple states.
11
Smart analysis, but you missed the fact that Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a moderate. I like him more every time I hear him speak. He did well in the debate.
7
@ A. Stanton. Ditto - their clones are also here in upstate NY
1
The progressive wing of the party are out of touch with the US electorate and that will haunt them if one of them gets the nomination. The "we know better" than the common person approach to policy is a disaster in waiting. Medicare for all isn't popular w/ a majority of the electorate; preserving the ACA is. And contrary to the story that progressives have been telling themselves, it's not just messaging and right wing propaganda that makes some of their positions unpopular. It's that people simply feel (key word) that these policies are too radical. Like it or not, many of the people that go to the polls and vote are relatively moderate.
Yes, Biden is safe, but in contrast to Trump, he's an enlightened politician who will do great things for the country. For those wishing for "real change" (i.e., a very progressive US), you're not going to see it in the US, even if your candidate gets the nomination and wins the election (very long shot in my view). Go with moderation and help preserve what good we do have in this country.
8
@Andrew N
I'm not excited about Biden but....he would get the US back into the Paris climate framework, stop the dismantling of our environmental laws, sign any tax increase on the wealthy Congress can offer him, stop provoking racial divisions, expand the ACA, and stop the inexorable movement toward war with Iraq. That all sounds pretty exciting to me.
marianne whatshername isn't wrong, but she isn't presidential material at this point in time. I do feel that she could be a serious and strong influencer in a very positive way if there was a president grounded enough to take her with a grain of salt but keep the bits that are both important and practical.
Every election we hear the refrain that the economy isn't working for the middle class and poor. We hear pledges from candidates who will help those who aren't reaping the rewards of a good economy and those who are struggling to afford healthcare. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."
Until the voters support a candidate who wants to try something bold and different, we will never have healthcare for all that is affordable. We'll just keep spending billions that go to the insurance industry and not medical care. Does being "conservative" or "moderate" mean being stingy with healthcare? I don't believe that this great country of innovators can't figure out a way to provide healthcare for all at an affordable cost. We just need the will to do it.
4
I understand the importance of electability as well as anyone, but no Democrat ever got elected president by trying to appeal to the likes of Russ Douthat, and there's no reason to give it one more whirl in 2020.
I think Joe Biden is a good guy, and lord knows that if he does end up winning the nomination, he'll have my vote. But I worry that his time may have passed. His heart's in the right place when he talks about bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle, but eight years as Obama's VP should have taught him that Mitch McConnell and the GOP care nothing for that kind of comity. There's no point in tacking moderate trying to please people like them, because they won't be happy unless you renounce the (D) next to your name and pledge fealty to Trump. You can try and scratch a stray dog behind his ears, but if all he wants to do is bite, all you're gonna get is bit.
Elizabeth Warren had a great quote last night: “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running to be the president of the United States to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.” That kind of message, and not Douthat's mealy-mouthed concern trolling, is the kind of thing I can get behind in 2020.
16
Ah yes, another conservative telling Democrats what to do. Lose.
9
I have to discount any candidate or commentor who uses the word "woke" in the context of "awakened." Such use is just plain lazy English to dumb things down for today's kids who weren't taught correctly or just don't care. I'm sorry if that eliminates half the candidates and commentary, but it sounds just as illiterate as Trump's rantings.
3
The language has always evolved and will continue to do so. Dismissing new phraseology as “dumb” is missing the boat.
1
You're right. Joe Biden wins every time he's out of sight and out of mind. Lets keep it that way!
4
@Nicolas
I have a better idea. Let the voters decide for themselves.
That's what DEMOCRACY is all about.
3
When Douthat is unhappy with where the Democrats are headed, it gives me hope that they're headed in the right direction.
13
True!
Why are all the conservative columnists like Ross Douthat and Frank Bruni pushing Joe Biden? Why are the old middle of the road Hillary supporters saying Joe Biden has the best chance of winning the swing states away from Donald Trump in 2020. Delusions of past accomplishments.
I think it must be faulty thinking (conservatives in general) and Russian Intelligence (there is no evidence whatever to show that Joe plays better with voters who sat at home in 2016 because Hillary was not exciting. Those are the folks we have to reach.
Joe is an arrogant male supremacist who wants to take women back to the 1950's. He opposes abortion. True, African Americans associate him with Barack Obama - so he brings in their votes. But will those black voters be sufficient to swing the critical midwest and Florida voters who sat out the 2016 election to elect Trump in the Electoral College?
I have seen no evidence of that.
When Joe first ran for president, I supported him until he made so many blunders that he was a sure laugh line for late night commedian jokes. Let's not got back to Bumbling Joe, plaigerizing his speeches and his book. Let's nominate someone to fire up the Demcoratic base and the Independents with intelligence, programs to help African Americans get an equal break they deserve, and proven campaigners with solid victories. I will support almost any Democratic candidate but I will be so depressed if Joe is the nominee, I may not survive to vote in November 2020!
What else would be said by one who mainly wants the Democrats to field the weakest candidates possible. Remember that Ross Douthat is a Republican.
10
Bernie won. Not Biden.
3
I want to someday be paid for my whims that have no value beyond myself.
1
The debate format, which did not allow Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren to debate, but to put people on the stage who will be irrelevant to the outcome of the presidential election, is precisely what every leader in the Party wants to do to the US Constitution. They want to revise the US Constitution and eliminate the Electoral College (and, of course, the Senate, because they are both founded on the principle of federalism) and rework the Supreme Court to be a legislative body, political in nature. Then, two years later, to change the rules and the Constitution because the change didn't work "right." These rules came out of the Climton-Sanders debacle last year, and they wanted to revise the rules to avoid that. The rules they changed had come out of a failed reform attempt four years before. This is what they want to do to the U.S. Constitution - continue to change it until they "get it right." This is madness. The country did not collapse because Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidential election. We don't need quadrennial revision of the U.S. Constitution or else we will look like France between 1789 and 1799.
@Francis Walsingham. Warren and Biden will be debating soon enough, don't worry about it.
Hillary’s loss was said to be because she was too cautious, too moderate, afraid to take a stand. So now the gaggle of candidates are listing far left but they are being criticized as being unrealistic. There’s still the unspoken hope that moderation might appeal to and sway some Trumpites. At this stage of our country’s history, we really deserve Marianne Williamson.
@Em: Hillary won the election in the vote. She would have won in the Electoral College If the leftist Democrats had voted for her instead of either not voting or voting 3rd party. It sounds to me from reading these comments that the Democrats that did not vote for Hillary are intent on doing the same thing if their candidate does not get the nomination. Trump is counting on it.
4
NOBODY is excited about Biden except sixty-something NYT's male op-ed writers. Just stop with the 'moderates are our best chance' angle. Biden is arguably not even moderate. He is right-leaning in terms of policy and an apologist for Republicans (and we already have plenty of those.) We want real change, not a 4 year stand-in until an even worse Republican takes the White House.
100
@Ned
I'm always taken aback by those who write in the pluralistic form of "we", because it gives the impression that one is speaking others instead of oneself.
Just for the record.
That doesn't make your opinion any more true -- or valid.
"We" may want real change, but it's up to every individual to decide for him/herself.
23
@Ned
That's what "we" said in 2016. Bernie lost then, he's losing badly now. Just a note: "we" left wing, we-want-change people are not in the majority in the Democratic Party. Maybe "we" should start our own.
6
@Ned
Right. Let's replace the present idolatrous personality cult with one of our own. The last thing we need is excitement. Let's why don't we focus for a change on demonstrated competence, relevant experience, pertinent knowledge, street smarts, book learning, real wisdom, etc.
There is no way I can vote for Biden or Trump...I guess I will be voting Green.
1
@Charlie
Then in the end you'll be voting for Trump.
Guess you didn't learn from last time.
@Charlie
Why not, voting Green instead of Democrat has worked out wonderfully in the past for the environment, right?
As a life-long "D", my understanding is that in spite of the squabbling and the moderators asking tricky (let's see if they mess up the answer) questions, everyone won. We are the "big tent" party, and the only way the country can move forward anymore. Let us work towards that goal as hard as we can, and ignore the "who won" ratings and polls. Speak from the heart, period. That is, if you care. We are in a tough spot (to say the least). The GOP is made up of the most SELFISH bunch of people I ever saw. They will succeed if we don't get in their way.
1
It was fascinating to watch CNN push Republican talking points last night, while it allowed non-candidate insurance companies to participate in the debate through contemporaneous advertising.
It is just as fascinating to watch the NYT print fantasy op-eds. What polls -- i.e. what facts, ma'm -- show that Biden won the debate? Douthat's claim is just an arbitrary facile rhetorical fiat. I could just as easily say "Karl Marx won last night's debate" .... as capitalism gasped and grasped frantically in its last stages of terminal wealth concentration.
The plain perceived and obvious fact is that Warren and Sanders won the sound bite show (aka "debate") with crushing one liners that left their protagonists staring clueless and helpless into the headlights.
2
Great news for Biden. Bad news for America. "simply isn’t quick or supple enough for onstage combat anymore" doesn't make a president.
1
It was Bullock, not Delaney, who best positioned himself to be the Plan B Safe White Guy in case Joe Biden implodes, which he is in danger of doing every time he opens his mouth. I’m confident that despite CNN’s best efforts to assign him the moderate gadfly mantle, Delaney will ride off into the sunset with Hickenlooper. Klobuchar and Ryan will go back to being mild-mannered (well Amy maybe not so much) Congresspeople, and if Beto is smart he’ll run for Senate. Sanders, Warren, and Buttigieg will live to fight another day, and Bullock and Williamson may survive as well. The latter made a persuasive case that we should answer the primal orange id running reckless through the White House with an equally primal message of compassion that goes to the heart of this wounded country. She won’t be the nominee but she’s no joke and is saying something that the nominee should heed.
As for tonight: since Biden’s record is fair game, Harris’s should be as well. As this paper has reported, her tenure as prosecutor and AG was every bit as troubling as Biden’s record in terms of its denial of justice to people of color and she should be made to answer for it. Even if you think it will play well with tough-on-crime types it won’t play well with those who despise hypocrisy.
We shouldn’t be so afraid of repeating 1972 that we repeat 2016. “Safe” candidates aren’t safe - just ask Romney or Kerry. No matter how much they hate the opposition, voters only elect those that inspire them.
5
You can wish that status quo won. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders won on ideas. However, we need some bold action. For the timid and frightened, anything other than status quo is difficult. FDR made Social security possible. When we look at what is possible, we have to work to achieve it. I am sure tax cuts have made all the wonders, but it still keeps circulating cycle after election cycle. It's time that we not only put out a proposal for a "new deal", discuss ideas and send the candidates who can boldly enact.
4
Not one vote has yet been cast. Report on the debate but do not assign winners and losers. Let the voters in the Primaries decide who is the winner.
3
@WATSON
One of the few comments that actually makes sense.
Thank you.
@woofer in Seattle: Ya’ took the words outta me mouth! Joe IS indeed his own worst enemy. So do we want another candidate, or heaven forbid president, like that? Do we want a candidate who steps in “it” and has to backtrack? This election is about our democracy. We must have a candidate who is razor sharp. Biden is not zip fire quick, and that’s what we need against Trump. With the greatest respect, Joe is showing the signs of aging. We cannot afford a guy who sticks his foot in his mouth, who has to be told he stands too close to women, who has a terrible background (Anita Hill), who often has a thin skin... We need a new face, new blood. We need someone who is 21st century keen and can do the “bull’s eye-gotcha”. Defeating Trump will require a whip sharp mind and that is just not Biden. Even if he does well this evening in this staged debate, he is not who we need.
2
Oh good old Joe, will have to deal with good old Warren and even older Sanders. The Democrats can only claim to be the party of the past, its really sad.
Blaming either party for what they are is wrongheaded. They are merely reflections of the electorate.
Sanders and Warren share the same progressive attitude of disdain for the people they hope to govern. Their "my way or the highway" approach is a real turn-off. Warren and Sanders act like a couple of overbearing nannies who are under the impression that only they know what's best for a nation of spoiled children who won't eat their vegetables.
Can anybody more radical than Trump? Democrat should nominate Warren that will energize the progressives. I believe the chances of winning back the White House are much better with your enthusiastic base than a moderate who will imp and fall closer we get to Nov 2020. Douthat, Brocks and Stephens know a radical will won but this time will be a progressive one.
2
It's Biden's to lose.
None of the other candidates have true cross country appeal required of largely moderate democrats in this country.Talk of revolution is quite absurd. Win the White House first !
The revolution can wait for now.
3
And Democrats trust your opinion for... well, nothing at all, Mr. Douthat.
If we want a suggestion on how to bring more religion back into schools, we'll give you a call. In the meantime, try fixing the fact that people don't acknowledge science in your party.
5
Biden is an old man with a lot of history none of us need to revisit. I don't think a moderate democrat (like Pelosi,) is good for our country or that sad worthless party that seems to be the lesser of two absolute evils. Instead of 20 democratic candidates, I'd prefer 20 different political parties. I'm tired of playing survivor on election day.
6
I like Joe, and would prefer to see candidates take pride in Obamacare as an emblem of what democrats can accomplish (we passed it, we saved it, we'll improve it), rather suggest a new plan that implicitly bashes obama's greatest accomplishment, unsettles great swathes of the electorate who now like Obamacare, and makes a great cudgel for republicans.
2
If the Democrats nominate an excellent debater (Harris, Warren, Sanders) Trump will likely decline to debate at all.
But I suspect he would feel he could take on Joe Biden.
2
Why is Biden at 30%? I'll tell you why, it's because he's the only moderate with any name recognition and the other 70% are split between tons of other candidates. That 70% will all get behind the Biden alternative when the time comes and his lead will evaporate. The 70% do not want a moderate, they want inspiration.
4
I agree. I also think the polls are generated using outdated technology and skew older and whiter. This population might just pick Biden because of his association with a more stable, saner time. Much of the younger and more diverse voters are not represented and they want inspiration not status quo. And glad to see you are in Louisville. help us get rid of Mitch McConnell!
1
If you happen to be an old guy like I am, and take a walk in the park on days that aren’t too hot or cold, the chances are good that you will run into a lot of Trump believers as I have in the past two years.
Here’s what I can tell you about the roughly ten of them I know fairly well.
All of them are old guys, widowed or divorced and living alone on small incomes and barely making it.
They are frequently attached to fundamentalist churches. Three of the guys I talk to utilize their sojourns in the park to pass out religious pamphlets to passersby.
They swear by Fox News.
To a man, they are conspiracy theorists ranging on all topics from the Kennedy assassination to Area 51/ UFOs to the Mueller Report.
Again to a man, they believe we are living in the end-time, Hillary is a she-Devil and Donald Trump is divinely-inspired.
Assuming my detailed scientific survey as reported here is accurate and extrapolating my findings to the general population, what we have here is a bunch of nice people who display all or most of the characteristics of religious cultists.
Which leads me to conclude that for any Democrat to get any of their votes won’t be difficult, it will be nigh-on impossible.
Just saying.
621
@A. Stanton
Spot on! It’s a cult, these people need help, and badly. Maybe this is the reason the GOP is so against Medicare for All. If people got the mental health care they needed they wouldn’t be so prone to cultists, and wouldn’t vote for one.
149
@A. Stanton
Spot on.
Best way to fight a cult is to provide an alternative that fulfills the same needs that the cult does.
The closer Democrats approach this to a psychologist deprogramming a brainwashed former cult member the better. Williamson and to a lesser extent Buttigieg seem to be the only ones who get this.
39
@A. Stanton: Correct; they’ve mailed it in. If the president shot someone on Fifth Avenue, recorded and all, irrefutable evidence of a homicide, his “people” would shrug and conclude that the deceased deserved it. “But it was murder!” Answer: “So?”
96
I'm a Democrat and will not vote for Biden under any circumstances, even in the general election. He's simply got nothing substantive to offer working-class Americans and my vote is to get money out of politics not necessarily to get rid of Trump.
I thought Sanders and Warren dominated last night and though I would vote for an uninspiring middle-of-the-road guy like Buttigieg, the former and Gabbard are the only candidates I would vote for enthusiastically and volunteer for.
Democrats need to be very concerned about Biden's elect-ability because the more Southern (especially black) voters learn about his record the more his polls will slide and young people will not turn out for him.
3
@D W
"I'm a Democrat and will not vote for Biden under any circumstances, even in the general election."
Not voting for Biden in the general is a vote for Trump. Keep that uppermost in your mind when the time comes.
I'm not fond of Biden, but if you think 4 more years of Trump is somehow better or even OK... well. I don't know how anyone takes that position anymore.
8
No, a vote for trump is a vote for trump. That's how this works.
People staying home because we field a candidate who offers nothing for us to get behind is so 2016. Let's do better
@D W
You don't have to worry about Black voters -- Southern or otherwise, because unlike yourself they're looking for a candidate who is not a racist like Donald Trump.
THAT is their bottom line.
And can you blame them???
I am 100% in favor of either Sanders or Warren as our next president. And a ticket with both their names would certainly make me very happy personally.
But I'm a little concerned here a lot of the comments in this thread, many of which are (most likely - I don't think there's too many Russian trolls in this forum) moderate Democrats that are plainly just a little bit to the left of middle, which is pretty far from Sanders and Warren. And I think we need their votes.
Here are my questions, and what I'm struggling with:
Which side of the Biden vs. Warren/Sanders party vote more loyally to the party? Essentially, what choice for candidate to oppose Trump will result in more net votes?
We know that some people who don't get Warren/Sanders will either sit out the election, vote independent, or (horrors) vote for Trump.
We also know that some people who don't get their cup of Joe will either site out the election, vote independent, or (horrors) vote from Trump.
But what's the net between the two. I know - no one really knows, but maybe there is some great data out there, or maybe nowadays some AI algorithm someone has written to help us here.
And failing the data, failing the AI robot ... what do you all think? Sorry to be so calculated and tactical, but we have to get this right next year.
4
First, the elephant in the room: Douthat ignores Pete Buttigieg in his analysis, for some inexplicable reason.
Second: Douthat's filtering this through his own preconceptions. As a conservative, he doesn't like the policies of Warren and Sanders, so he feels the attacks from the moderates were effective. They weren't, particularly.
A better argument would be that Warren and Sanders staked out hardline positions that are likely to alienate moderate voters, even if the moderate candidates were pretty terrible at elucidating this.
Mind you, I'm not arguing against the policies, since I'm (mostly) on board with Warren. I'm just aware that lots of people don't share that view. I strongly suspect that there's now an "anyone but Bernie or Warren" faction.
Biden's probably the primary beneficiary there, but he's not the only one.
Personally, I don't want to see Biden as the nominee. I'll vote for him in the general if he is, but I think his twitter exchanges with Trump show that he's not really much more mature than Trump is. He's far, far too prone to lashing out because he feels hurt and angry about something Trump said.
Buttigieg, in contrast, has an amazing ability to shrug that stuff off. Instead of getting ruffled he stays on topic.
I know Douthat and Bruni, along with many other Republicans, despise Trump. But Democrats shouldn't look to them for advice. Simply put, they both prefer traditional Republican ideology.
6
I'm not sure why the declaration of winner by a confirmed anti-Democrat matters to anyone. Mr. Douthat is bound to like the candidate who is most like a Republican or friendly to the Republican party, never mind that it's the Party of Obstruction.
8
There is good reason to ignore Twitter, but that does not mean that people who use it are necessarily wrong. Biden's in trouble. If he performs as he did last time, there is no argument he can make to justify his being the best nominee to take on Trump. His bump in the polls before this debate reflect people's willingness to assume that it was an abberation. However, he is now officially one slip-up-- in any of the remaining debates --away from losing his entire justification for running. One more shaky performance and he is done. People will give him one more chance, and are hoping he is not as shaky as last time, but to say that because some Twitter Democrats are obnoxious and bed reflections of the left--that the polar opposite of their arguments is necessarily true and that what they say is necessarily false---is similarly absolutist to those who are the target of your ire and makes your argument seem less logical and more petty than it needs to.
I hope we can eventually band together. Twitter Democrats need to stop it, but painting everyone who wants to do something about inequality as radical and a mean-spirited Twitter Democrat is similarly problematic.
1
Let’s face it, Sanders is only around because Clinton failed to easily purge Sanders from the 2016 primaries. That said far more about Clinton than Sanders.
2
Go right ahead media and keep propping up Joe Biden and see what happens. This flawed and old candidate is another Hillary Clinton in the making. No one under the age of 70 and of sound mind would choose him out of the great candidates we have in the field.
4
Does everyone realize that any Emergency Room cannot turn away anyone.It is a federal law.That is where undocumented people are getting their healthcare.Do you know how expensive a visit to the ER is, look at your Employer provided Health Insurance policy. RN here at a community hospital 30 plus years.Undocumented people are being seen in all of our ERs, getting needed surgeries,being hospitalized. Your state taxes, with federal subsidies are already paying for their care, but at a much higher cost. Ugh, Bernie and Warren are trying to help us all.Wish the debates were not sound bites, to drive ratings.Wish the big corporations were not out to decimate both of them. Please, do a little research people.This is about our kids and their kids.
6
Agreed there needs to be more of a meet the candidate in which a long conversation is held. Something that requires more then bullet points.
1
@Nora I don't know which hospital you go to because I need to find it. From my experience I couldn't even get a cast on my broken wrist. Every trip I've made to the emergency room ended with me being told to see a specialist.
I can't imagine anyone getting surgery in the ER unless their life depended on it, illegals included. If there's no money to be made they get you out the door asap.
1
@Billbo I live in New England. Hospitals cannot turn away patients...unless you have Private Health Insurance. There are a huge group of staff behind any ER doing insurance checks, most private insurance do denials from hospital ERs, so there are another large group the next day arguing for reimbursement for all denied of coverage.Usually the denial gets passed to the person with Employer Healthcare/Private Insurance,not Medicare patients or Medicaid patients, or "free care patients"., then up to them to fight the denials.If they don't follow through, then they start getting demand notices. Their credit rating suffers.
1
Sorry Ross:
But if Biden is the Democratic Nominee and not a Sanders/Warren ticket. This 71 year old boomer Independent will be voting for the Green party candidate regardless of the carping from the so called moderate corporatists in the Democratic Party.
Neither or the incumbent duopoly political parties have the loyalty of the social democrats and progressives and it is time midwest moderates and Urban Black Dems the get the message they can't win without the social democrats votes either.
3
@Richard From Massachusetts--The fact is Richard, your state is counted in the Dem. column for the electoral college and probably not relevant to the calculus of the states that are in play. Sorry, but dems are the facts.
When I filter out your usual biases, the piece does in fact read like a well-reasoned analysis of primary electoral dynamics. It's true that the front runner wants to stay above the fray and minimize risk. The progressives might have momentum, but moderates have inertia. All the progressive talent in the world can't shift that center of gravity if they have to fight the center AND the far right.
That's what I took from the debates, at least. You could see it in the way that CNN was roleplaying Fox News for the night so that the moderates could pretend to be voices of reason. The real winner isn't the center, but the right. If the center wins short-term, the right wins long term. It's a 'one step forward, two steps back' situation. And the really insidious part is that you do have to vote for the moderate if they win the nomination. There is no alternative in a two-party system.
2
At this point it's basically a winnowing process between the heavy weights - regardless of policy positions - and the lightweights who clearly don't have the necessary depth or appeal and will eventually be jettisoned off the stage. (BTW, Williamson is a lightweight. Given any more screen time she would overstay her welcome.)
Once the field is narrowed we can really begin to see which political philosophy will win the day.
My money is on Kamala Harris. She's a younger heavy weight, and if she continues to grow and command greater skill and adroitness in the campaign, she has a real shot.
The real disgrace is CNN and its game show approach to the debate. They want politicians to be their gladiators. Its the summer of 2019 and we are having debates. The entire election process in this country is ludicrous!
112
@JoOregon The real disgrace is that CNN allowed insurance companies to participate in the debate via contemporaneous advertising.
This is like those kind of "debates" in which the King is allowed to interrupt from time to time to make his point of view clear without being subjected to questioning or counter point.
I'm glad the progressive got a chance to deliver a few punch soundbites, but what the "debate" really showed is how the mainstream media is just brazen and shameless agency of corporate America.
If Americans had the guts of their colonial forebearers they would throw CNN into Boston harbor.
Better yet they should elect Sanders/Warren and stop insurance companies from racketeering on illness.
12
@JoOregon Could not agree with you more. We had to turn it off after 20 minutes, could not watch it any longer. And if I may add something, I don't want an angry old guy to be our President and a bit younger shouting woman too. The only "presidential material" on the stage was Pete. Detail discussion of any policy at this time is pointless, after the dust settles Congress will enact a healthcare or not, and the way they want it, not how the next President sees it. Media creates front-runners and expects everybody else to follow, which is confusing to say the least.
4
@JoOregon
Point taken. But the real problem isn't CNN -- it's Americans and their need for entertainment.
Why else would they have elected a Reality TV President?
5
Because we really need an aging segregationist who expediently put his finger to the wind and helped get us into Iraq 16 years ago -- we're still there -- causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.
3
couldn't get past the headline. I guess you had to write something ,Ross.
1
Ross is, like Kim Jong Un, in love with Trump.
1
Nice writeup but only an opinion, the length of the article is not relevant.
1
Writing this sort of superficial boxing match column lets Ross skate away from addressing the problems America is facing. Notice he doesn’t tackle any of the ideas the candidates are proposing. Truly pathetic column writing.
5
Looking forward to you walking this back as Biden gathers his entrails off of the stage after another exchange with Harris.
Oh, Ross, this was your silliest column in a long time!
3
I would vote for Biden before Trump.
I would vote for Elizabeth, Bernie, Marianne, and Kamala, before Biden.
Elizabeth and Bernie are setting the agenda for the dems - health care.
Trump is going to try his border scare tactic.
6
The moderates on stage last night made absolute fools of Sanders and Warren.
To critical voters Biden won last night's debate hands down, and will win tonight's debate much the same way.
4
You must have been watching a different debate.
Warning to Warren, Sanders and other left-tilted candidates: stop attacking moderates as cowardly and small-minded.
For one thing, there are plenty of good reasons to be skeptical about big bold progressive government projects. Two examples:
- CA's high-speed rail. A huge winner on paper - infrastructure improvement; jobs; environmentally farsighted; relief from killer traffic - but a failure in the end at a cost of billions. The small piece that got built sits out in the wasteland, unfinished and going nowhere.
- As for federal government management of our health care, look at the VA system mess. A bipartisan debacle, Dem and Rep administrations failing to solve its problems.
Second, in attacking moderate candidates you are attacking the voters who agree with them. I am one. A conservative who cannot look to the Republican Party for responsible fiscal (or moral) leadership, I am looking for a moderate Democrat to unseat Trump. I doubt I'm the only one.
4
It makes no sense any more to figure out where the center of the political road is. It is the equivalent of having one foot in boiling water and the other in ice and saying that it is an average temperature. The Republicans have gone so far to the far Right that what used to be the moderate Left is now the far Left.
What should be normal to Americans, in our traditions of fairness, of equal opportunity to succeed, to quality affordable education, for health care which is both affordable and available, all have become lightning rods to the Right, and anathema to the Right is and sense of equal impact of tax burden for preserving what ought to be American values.
Medicare for all will not fly as it seems an attack on what most feel is important to preserve; their own health care. Having Medicare as an OPTION where needed by individual choice makes sense, and the Dems ought to understand this.
Taxing the poor and unburdening the rich makes no sense, and it is NOT socialism. Period. Nor are these things Far left; they make sense. Make sense and get rid of the righteous financial rapists and liars club in the Senate and White House.
Good luck convincing the left that Americans are not enamored of its favored positions.
4
@AACNY
Good luck convincing moderates that American are no longer enamored with the safe, status quo middle.
2
@J.C.
That's why they voted for Trump -- for all his talk of "change", he's about as status quo as you can get.
Sanders and Warren crushed the moderates last night and will make Biden look like a fool defending corporate and insurance greed. It is about time the democrats run to the left instead of being led to the right by Republicans the way Joe Biden's generation of democrats have done for the past 40 years.
5
Why is the burden on the Democrats to be "moderate"? When has Douthat ever called on the Republicans to be "moderate"?
7
After the evil 1994 mass incarceration program, Biden has the temerity to use his vicious record in the candidate's forums as a step to the presidency -- what gall!
The Democrats have yet to make restitution to the victims of their 1994 policies that had such a detrimental effect on the African-American community. The racism inherent in their 1994 program should not be equated with verbal racism protected by the First Amendment. Strangely, Douthat omitted any mention of it in his article. Is that how he defends Biden -- by hiding his evil past?
When an African-American college friend was incarcerated, I saw the effect on the child of the parent's incarceration. Joe Biden's program warrants a four or eight year term in Sing Sing.
Or, with the Trump regime resuming federal death penalties, we can ask whether Biden and Bill Clinton will get their just deserts for their evil actions?
We should also note Biden's support of the Iraq War. Didn't he also hold, in Scott Ritter's words, "sham" hearings to justify this evil?
Biden is too evil for my ethical sensibilities -- but right enough for Douthat.
4
Look this "free healthcare for undocumented immigrants" is just misleading. What is proposed is free healthcare for EVERYBODY. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it is cheaper to cover everybody than to signal out particular groups to deny care to because of the added overhead and compliance costs. And it is better for public health.
Also many of these pay SS and Medicare taxes and get no benefits. In 2016, they paid $13 Billion to SS and $3Billion to Medicare. And they got zilch back.
3
Joe Biden's worst enemy is likely to be....Joe Biden. If he can look lively and alert, stay on topic and keep his foot out of his mouth, the nomination is in his pocket. And maybe just appearing lively and alert will suffice.
If Biden wins the nomination and presidency, the big question will then become whether he knows what to do with it. An ineffective Biden presidency will merely provide a temporary swing of the pendulum away from the populist right. And each successive swing back rightward will likely prove more vicious and intolerant than the one preceding. Merely ousting Trump will prove a pyrrhic victory if there is no cogent plan for fixing what is wrong.
46
@woofer If this election is about kitchen table issues jobs & uniting this country there's no way the Dems lose. If it's about reparations, immigration, & AOC there's no way we win. Democrats are moving to the far left & that's will be a huge problem in 2020. Progressives want to dismantle border enforcement agencies, eliminate criminal sanctions for illegal immigrants. This is the only issue that would compel independent swing voters to hold their nose & vote for Trump. As a moderate, I've had it with the leftist fanatics who keep trying to push the Democrats into a circular firing squad. Amazing that after losing to Trump by alienating working-class voters, we're scrounging for issues that will alienate them even more. Free healthcare for illegal immigrants? You're kidding? The more benefits we give, the more will try to get here. It's an impossible equation. The excessive amount of attention to this can backfire miserably, with Trump being reelected & it not being the result of Russian interference. If we lose this election blame it on leftist zealots pushing no-win issues like this. The biggest question implied but not answered in this article is can Democratic moderates & progressives co-exist in the same party. I would say absolutely not. The voters we need to win back the country have different values. There's no way to bridge the gap. If any of the far-left candidates are the nominees in 2020 we will lose decisively. We have to steer a course towards the center.
6
@Ed Davis
It's a relief to know there are actually people out there who see the BIG picture.
This isn't about "my way or the highway" like the left/progressives are basically saying.
After all, we have the Republicans doing that.
If Democrats don't get it together by getting together, Trump wins another term.
End of story.
6
Dems only appear leftist because the GOP has become so extreme right wing.
4
It is an interesting column and touches on the heart of the matter for all democrats--can a left of center candidate be competitive in the general election?
Or from a different perspective, is Joe the best the center can do?
The best thing the party can do at this point, is to get the party leadership to try to rebrand Harris and get behind her.
The only, real winner in last night's debacle was the most deserving one of all: the American people. Seeing explicitly the floundering, no-plan, no-direction panel of zealots all but affirms the path to the President's second term. What hasn't sealed that deal will happen tonight.
1
I don't see how Biden won the debate. Some of the moderates in this debate made a much more appealing case for their position than Biden did in his debate last time. So, we'll see how he does tonight. But I'm just remembering that his performance in the last debate scared me because if he couldn't be effective against Harris, how he is going to go toe to toe with Trump?
Biden can win all the debates male pundits like. For women who remember the past 30 years and his continuing inability to hear us, he loses.
Who votes most in America? Women. Older women.
Watch out for the backlash against men who just don't get it, who still just don't get it, who'll be damned if they are ever going to get it.
138
@s parson
A lot to agree with but if the Democrats don't win it will only get worse and will take you another 30 years to dig out of that hole. It should not be about electing a woman (which I would be fine with) or a gay (which I would also be fine with) but the person who can do some fence mending and get us back on track before we slip so far we won't know the way back.
21
@s parson: Would these same women that are outraged by Biden, author of the Violence Against Women Act, really prefer another four years of Trump?? When it comes to it, would they really want to stay home and help re-elect the female genital grabbing Trump? I would hope not.
21
@s parson
I mean no offense, but without intending to do so you are obscuring the lines between a Trump and Joe Biden. Please, please don't do that.
20
I don’t know what debate Ross watched last night but it wasn’t the one I watched, or maybe the voices in his head drowned out what the candidates were actually saying.
Elizabeth Warren won the debate, no contest! She spoke clearly, with a fighting spirit, and she has the policies and projections to back up her arguments. She’s the real deal. She’s the one.
5
@Dabney L--If she is the one, she is unelectable.
This is like when they make Doris Burke ask Steve Kerr what he saw last quarter that he liked. There's a playoffs going on here, Ross. And the playoffs - as they were in 2008 and 2016 - are about system politics or more of the same. America wants to upend a rigged system. Whether Biden took one on the chin for his record on busing is irrelevant. What matters is, here we are, coming up on the half of Game 1, and more than half the field is hoping to upend the system.
2
It is time for a centrist third party representing the mostly silent middle of the country, a party of reasonable people grounded and anchored in the middle that can cover a range of opinions and over time sway to the left and right over time as times and circumstances require. Better than the binary flip-flop between increasingly polarized, divided political parties and their relatively small but constantly present and every so loud, shrieking social media mobs, troll and bots. The Republican activists have move to unflattering and unacceptable right wing positions and the democrats are trying to do the same in the opposite direction.
The country finally needs to have another choice, a more pluralistic political system with another, a third, a reasonable party!
2
Biden lost, because this may have been Sen. Sanders' best debate performance ever--in contract to Biden, who in is last performance appeared old, not at the top of his game, and backwards-looking, Sanders responded to questions aggressively, commanding facts and details, and explaining the important part of his legislation, despite repeated attempts by CNN to stack the debate against him and boost CNN's own clear favorites. I voted for Sanders last time, but was leaning towards supporting someone younger this time. After this performance, where the benefits of Sanders' experience and vision shown through, I am seriously considering him again. Others on the debate stage couldn't hide their respect for him, and many are following his lead on multiple issues. Moreover, several of his positions are more moderate than those of Warren (who also performed well).
2
@Eccl3. What has Sanders accomplished during his decades in the Senate?
2
@Jackson
If his only accomplishment was moving the Democratic Party back off of the cliff and working for the people again, that's enough for me.
3
In his combined decades in the Senate and the the House, he's been RIGHT, instead of WRONG--Unlike Biden, he voted AGAINST the war in Iraq (and correctly predicted almost everything that happened in a speech attempting to get others to oppose the war), and he certainly didn't lead the proceedings that led to Justice Clarence Thomas's confirmation. A President needs to be RIGHT instead of WRONG, and Sanders has been ahead of his time on civil rights, women's rights, low income housing trusts, and a panoply of other issues. Moreover, the entire Democratic Party is now moving toward healthcare plans supported by (and in the case of Medicare for All, drafted by) Sen. Sanders. If President, he can lead, instead of being a Senator from a small state that isn't necessary for the coalition votes. Sanders is the one who has moved the entire Democratic platform into the 21st Century. Being a President is being a leader, and the skill of continuous pandering and compromise (especially on women's issues and civil rights issues), so greatly perfected by Biden in Congress, isn't what is required of the Chief Executive.
1
Agree that personality type is important, but so are actuarial tables and true executive experience. Unfortunately, Warren, Sanders exhibit similar self-righteous, bullying traits as the president, and in my view, belong where they are doing valuable service in the Senate. Prefer pres candidate with a moral compass on big issues - war/peace, climate, race, and inequities - but more inclined toward thoughtful analysis, balanced judgment, tying to unite rather than divide while moving forward, a true executive personality. "Moderation" is not weakness of purpose, but a sound strategy for achievement.
6
@Cemo
The moral compass on big issues is telling us we'd better get something done before it's too late. Calling for moderation is an indication that you don't know how serious our problems really are.
3
@J.C. I do, which is why a candidate is needed who can win the election and work with more than a simple majority in Congress to get things done. I spent enough years on the Hill to know that the shrillest and most divisive voices are not the best for action. To be immoderate is to consign this country to more years of bitter invective and unilateral executive actions easily overturned by the next president.
No Democrat will get anything done in Congress as long as Mitch McConnell is the Senate majority leader.
I may just post the following every day from here on out. The majority of democrats are in the range from Center-left to Center-right.There are not enough Left progressives to win the Democratic nomination, let alone a general Election. Everytime we went hard left in the past, we got trounced.
We are not really concerned about getting Trumpist zealots. We know that will not happen. the voters we want to get are the ones who went Blue in 2016 in the 40 Congressional Districts that flipped Red to Blue. That would be suburban women and main Street business types.
The only way we don't get those folks is if we go hard left.
6
@Lefthalfbach
Bernie Sanders had a following among those people in 2016. Running away from Democratic values in order to appease some small group of center-right voters is a recipe for a wave of stayathomeitis.
3
@J.C.
If a moderate Democrat is President, then the Left can get some of what it wants. If Trump is relected then the Left gets nothing.
Anyway, nobody you have can win the nomination. If Biden falters, we centrists will not move Left. We will coalesce behind another centrist.
Anyway, Joe cannot do much worse going forward than he did in Debate 1, can he? And yet, here we all are, still backing him. And there he is 15 points in the lead.
@Lefthalfbach
The history of candidates who are leading the polls 15 months before the election isn't great. Don't get too snooty about yourselves.
You centrists are proving to be the real "my way or the highway" group.
Biden will not be the nominee, it will be Elizabeth Warren. Enough Democratic primary voters will wake up to the fact that this is the time for bold prescriptions to what ails America. And it's not more of the same ole neoliberal policies of a Joe Biden, we've had 40 years of rightward drift in America and it's time to bring us back to center, by rebuilding the middle and working classes. A few nips and tucks here and there are not going to do it, college and health care costs are way too high, early child care out of reach for many, student debt is drowning an entire generation, economic disparity continues to worsen, and wages are not rising fast enough to make up for all the losses since Reagan. Meanwhile the effects of climate change will make all of this moot, unless we address it head on. We are in a crisis right now, and will continue to see demagogues elected president until we take the bold measures proposed by Warren and Sanders.
4
You're absolutely wrong, Ross Douthat—
It was Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's night.
They performed magnificently and articulately.
[Would that they could have PAIRED in 2016—there would have been no Blight of Trump upon us.]
By the way, Trump is finished, and even he knows it (witness him unbelievably talking about "if I am defeated" recently). Impeachment inquiry and articles and hearings will place the criminal and disastrous presidency of Trump front and center—energizing and uniting for real change and vision, Sanders and Warren.
5
@srwdm. They both spent the night yelling - a complete turnoff.
Candidates should be ready to address the idea that scientists "think" they can do geoengineering projects to cool earth's atmosphere -- INSTEAD of stopping use of carbon pollution.
WHY? Geoengineering CAN NOT BE CHANGED, ONCE IMPLEMENTED. IT IS UNCONTROLLABLE.
Yet, here, today, we have professionals trying to make their careers in this murderous pursuit
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07533-4
Nah, Old Joe didn't win because everybody lost including the ten candidates that weren't there. The public is coming around to the idea that this Democratic field is a mess. There may be a few diamonds buried in the rough, but the chances are they will never get much further in the campaign. I'm so disappointed with the way that these debates have unfolded that I'm almost ready to start a "Draft Andrew Cuomo for President" movement. At least Cuomo has the brains and the sharp elbows to go toe to toe with Trump. The rest of these candidates are cut from the same cloth as Adlai Stevenson, Mike Dukakis and George McGovern.
2
The 2020 election is going to boil down to this choice- are we willing to move forward as a country and embrace becoming a multi-racial and cultural country or move backward and become an apartheid state ruled by a minority of bigoted white people.
If we had a true democracy, the answer would be the former. However, thanks to the Electoral College, disproportionately giving power to all white rural welfare states, it will most likely be the later.
Trump has ripped the mask of the GOP and exposed the party for what it is- Southern and Midwestern Evangelical racists who have no interest in sharing power with people of color.
Trump has shown Republicans that open racism is still potent in this country. Every Republican that follows will be ten times worse than Trump when it comes to race.
I’m nearing 50 and fully expect to see Jim Crow return to this country in my lifetime. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some Southern Republicans agitate for slavery.
4
“On the evidence of his first debate performance, he might need an attack dog because he himself simply isn’t quick or supple enough for onstage combat anymore.”
Shouldn’t this been disqualifying? Or at least give people serious pause? If you can’t handle a debate, perhaps the demands of the job itself are beyond reach.
1
@Mike D.
Obama didn't do well in his first debate. Hadn't prepared. Didn't think he needed to. Should that have disqualified him?
1
Funny. Douthat thinks Sanders did a bit better than Warren. His colleague Bruni thinks Warren did much better than Sanders.
Me thinks the best Sanders could do is to go away. Even my adult children who thought he hung the moon back in 2015-16 are tired of him.
4
In the 2018 US election the theme was incumbent insiders who thought they had safe seats, especially old white men getting voted out in surprise upsets by fringe outsiders
In the 2016 US election the theme was the the incumbent insider who would obviously win getting voted out by the fringe outsider
In every European country the fringe parties keeps winning seats and the establishment keeps losing power to the baffling surprise of everyone
In the UK no one thought something as fringe as Brexit would happen nor would they have their own version of D. Trump
And yet you think Joe Biden, the moderate insider is going to get elected? You sound completely out of touch with the major political theme of our time.
Isn't is interesting? Disenfranchised Republicans, in the closet or openly not Trumpers, seek to work Svengaliesque magic on Democratic voters. Their urgent plea is, "Nominate someone that we and the people of America in the center can vote for besides the president Republicans voted into power. Once again the Democrats are expected to clean up yet another mess of the Republican's own making. What's the problem? Can't find it in your heart and mind to vote for the genius. 10,000 lies was your breaking point. It's good to have standards. 9,999 lies O.K. but 10,000 is too much to bear?
2
I want to vote for a candidate who will stop US military aggression, conduct a nation wide referendum on ending the capitalist system that requires destruction of the environment and causes poverty, and end our massive ineffective prison system. Would any of those ideas be possible in a functioning democracy?
1
it's very interesting to me to see that Douthat, too, has been drafted into the Times's campaign of assuring that a milquetoast "moderate" receives the Democratic nomination. i'm not sure what the paper wants here, because despite the fact that every single opinion writer and editorialist in these pages appears to disdain the current president, by advocating for the strategy that guided the Democrats in 2016, this paper is all but assuring that his will be a two-term presidency and i don't know if we can survive that.
5
@David Ford
Being a pundit is the only job in which you can be consistently wrong about everything and it doesn't hurt your career at all.
"...The real victor in the moderates-versus-progressives battle was the moderate who wasn’t there...
Might not show up tonight, either...
Metaphorically, not literally...
3
The America citizens will not benefit from a Democratic “moderate”. We need change, especially in healthcare financing. Ross, why are you and Leonhardt, and Krugman pedaling the fallacy that Americans don’t want Medicare for All, when polls show that is untrue. Are you all afraid of sharing your health care with other Americans?
3
@Timothy Shaw
Because when Americans are informed that it will incur higher taxes and elimination of private insurance, the support plummets.
Who can win Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin? Along with independents and moderates? Otherwise, we lose again.
6
@dba
This is a fallacy driven by conservatives and Republicans.
Countries with national healthcare systems pay one half less per capita for the same services. And no the waiting lists are not longer. I have colleagues in orthopedic surgery and dermatology who have 6 month waiting lists. Many Americans can’t get into see a primary care physician period. Most small towns in America don’t have a doctor to deliver your baby.
You already pay 2-4 times more for healthcare in private insurance taxes now.
2
@Timothy Shaw
Taxes in countries with government run health care are significantly higher than in the U.S. Europeans don't mind paying high taxes for such services, but Americans have been brainwashed to oppose taxes no matter their benefit. So, until democrats can reframe the issue, most Americans will not see the benefits of medicare for all they way you do.
Dear Ross, who often writes ridiculous opinions. Warren won the debate last night, hands down. Bernie got in a few good ones, as well. Let's keep in mind that the Democratic party is not "swinging left," it is simply getting back on center ground, addressing real issues that have been festering for years. I can almost hear FDR rolling in his grave.
5
As a lifelong Democrat who did not vote for Obama, Trump and most others recently, I think that John Delaney is the only real viable candidate. Bernie, Liz and the rest are slouching loudly to the Dems losing the next election.
4
@Ross: Are you suggesting that Joe Biden should be the candidate, hands down, for the Democratic party? If so, you"ve missed quite a lot of exciting debates (perhaps on purpose, just like #45"s people?) But really, this article is replete with suppositions that do not belong in a serious article about those Democratic debates last night. But nice try, for your "spoiler" interpretation.
Candidates spoke about climate change BUT NOT ONE talked about the Trump administration’s deregulation of EPA that means that air and water will be more polluted (damage to natural environment and wildlife and to human health) so big corporations can make more money. This is a very immediate problem.
4
Confused by the dismissal of Harris's confrontation with him as she received a pretty sizable bump in donations and in polling, both of which having been well-documented by this very publication. I don't think people expected the encounter to send him plummeting in the polls, but she was effective and I'm thoroughly curious to whether she'll capitalize on that tonight.
Interesting column, but I think you are placing WAY too much importance on the precise policy positioning of these candidates. None of that stuff really matters.
Moderate vs. liberal democrat is mostly irrelevant. Among Joe Biden supporters, the most common second choice is Bernie Sanders. Most people vote on personality. Good politicians will convince people to agree with any policy they honestly believe is right. That’s what it means to be a leader.
The press often views it in reverse, as if politicians represent some menu of precise policies and voters decide which policies will work best. The average voter could not even identify where most candidates fall on the political spectrum, and don't really have a strong preference on specific policies in any event. You can poll people on specific questions and they will tell you what they think sounds good, but they are mostly just guessing.
That's why we elect the people we trust best to represent us.
3
What CNN set up last night was not a debate but an attempt to try and make sparks fly for tv ratings. The whole audience live format needs to over with.
A debate should be an in depth fact finding conversation between the candidates not some Trump inspired food fight.
8
We democrats do need advice on who to nominate.
Last time we nominated a elect me president because I am not Trump, I am a woman, my anointment time has come, men are the problem in the country, I am a Neo con on trade, wars and Wall Street and an identity obsessed social engineer zealot on social issues.
Exactly 100% what Middle America did not need/want and why we have the ego maniac Trump in the WH now.
The way to counter that is to nominate a moderate progressive who is none of the above.
Right now it is Biden. It could have been anybody male, female, black, white, young, old but nobody else has come up to the plate.
4
Warren won last night's debate. The pundit class thinks the debaters should've mentioned Biden. Douthat here even thinks that means Biden 'won.' Seems to me these folks said the same thing after the first June debate--and they were dead wrong then, too.
3
I must have heard “should” or “should be” a thousand times last night. No ideas, just complaining and negativity. Trump.
1
Yes! Caging kids, trade wars, pathological lies, undermining institutions, flouting the rule of law, committing crimes when seeking and once in possession of elected office, alienating allies, courting dictators, desecrating the Constitution: now, those are IDEAS!
I mean, totalitarian ideas, but you know, since “ideas” are your only criterion.
By the way, there were a boatload of ideas last night. What you appear to mean by “ideas” is “rhetoric that is congenial to my prejudices.”
The sooner Trump leaves the White House, and the planet for that matter, the better. He was excited about Mars, right? Can we send him there along with McConnell?
5
Be skeptical of conservative pundits who refuse to engage with the ideas coming from Warren and Sanders and instead lift up the "moderate" the find more acceptable but who wasn't on the stage.
Rather than lifting up the person who wasn't there, perhaps Douthat could actually engage with the ideas and positions that clearly won the debate last night.
5
If the Democrats run Biden, they'll lose.
3
@cynicalskeptic
NO. If Democrats don't stand united, they'll lose.
And so will the country because four more years of Donald Trump will spell the end for us all.
2
Biden and Mueller should sit under a shade tree, drink some beer and play checkers.
They’re both half gone, I fear.
1
You can always wish. Bernie and Warren won last night. Joe is a nice guy, but this 62 year old baby boomer is supporting Bernie and Warren. So is everyone I know, so are my adult sons and all of their friends. Was at the grocery store early this am. The cashiers, the staff bagging, the Delhi and meat staff, all the customers upbeat and talking about Bernie and Warren. I highly respect all of the NYTs columnists, but you all need to get out more!
194
@Nora
What exactly did they win ? From my vantage point the seemed on the defensive side for the most part and clarified that they would give insurance to all including illegal immigrants.
What they never covered was how would they increase the thousands of Drs, nurses, labs and hospitals needed to handle 100 million more people who now have insurance and access to medical care. Clearly this increase needs to be considered up front but I don't hear it mentioned.
It's easy to promise the world but when you end up delivering a 'Baltimore' you cause more harm than good.
There are much saner weighs to provide medical care to all. These two have no viable plan to do so. Call it what it is and stop trying to declare a winner. You'll give us four more years of Trump.
11
@Nora Yeah, Bernie & Warren won, big-time, in your New England "clime." Please review the electoral map to understand, at this late juncture, where the winner will be decided, and note that it's nowhere near New England, and it's where voters don't resonate to Medicare for All et al.
16
@Nora
Sorry. But Sanders still doesn't have the majority of the African-American vote and these days, that matters.
10
Ross Douthat is part of the problem. Biden can run on his record:
1991 As Chairman, allowed fellow members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to attacked Anita Hill. (So we got Clarence Thomas.)
1994 Wrote the disastrous Crime Bill. (Hello prison industrial complex.)
1995 Wrote the Omnibus Counter-terrorism Act (became Patriot Act).
1996 Voted Against Gay Marriage. (Real leadership there.)
1999 Repealed Glass Steagall. (World financial crisis.)
2001 Voted for the Patriot Act. (Big Brother is watching you.)
2002 Voted for Iraq War. (Yeah but it's ok, cuz his son served.)
2005 Voted to end bankruptcy protection for students. (Endless debt builds character.)
2018 Presents G.W. Bush with Liberty Medal. (Finally gets the big stuff right.)
4
I like vanilla ice cream, plain oatmeal and dry toast just fine... it will statisfy my hunger but it won't satisfy my soul. That's Joe Biden and other moderates.
However, toss some hot fudge, maple syrup and butter added to each of the previously mentioned and now you're cooking. That's Bernie and Warren.
3
Thankfully, the GOP doesn't get to choose the Democratic candidate for President. You've already got your guy, Ross, his name is Donald Trump. If you don't like him, roll up your sleeves and get him primaried. Get your conservative hands off my candidate.
6
It's a contest to see who will lead us past the point of no return in our civilization's suicide, from our triggering destruction of conditions for human life on Earth.
Trump seeks to lead us to our suicide by marshaling the worst of us: our white male racists, most-selfish greediest, and most-ignorantly religious.
Bernie and Elizabeth seek to divert us from action to prevent our suicidal destruction of life on Earth, by leading us into stuck-in-the-the mud of arguments about Medicare for All, which arguments will continue until All of us are gone.
"Moderate" Dems propose we don't do much of anything at all as we pass the point of no return.
The New York Times reports on last night's exhibition of this irresponsible ignorance in a "recap" of over 1800 words, in 43 paragraphs, in which about our suicidal destruction of conditions for life on Earth there is NOT ONE WORD.
Which shall we choose to lead us to our suicide?
2
I am a more-liberal-than-moderate Democratic voter. And I can't stand Bernie Sanders. He won last night's debate? Only if you like being continually harangued with four-year-old arguments, snarls, and an attitude and body language that says, "I am right, and you are wrong and stupid if you don't agree with me." This man is not capable of winning the election because he is so unlikeable. (See Hillary Clinton.)
To top it off, his universal health care plan fails to convince of its affordability. The rates Medicare pays to doctors and hospitals cannot keep the health system healthy.
What will be best for the country? A Democrat in the White House. #1 priority of Dems should be - WIN. All else will follow. Go Biden!
2
Good point, but I think Senator Warren proved she was a warrrior and likeable last night and did really well. On a stage with VP Biden, she will be formidable, my guess after Detroit there will be three candidates with any chance at the nomination- Biden, Warren and Harris. I look forward to seeing them debate.
We need a smaller field very soon in order for a candidate to break through - other than just VP Biden.
1
Progressive Democratic candidates will not get elected. They are asking for the moon and the moon is full of cheese folks, not money. Tax and spend is not a phrase that many endorse but is GOP policy as well as Democratic. The GOP is more profligate than the Democrats. The GOP puts their dollars in corporate pockets while the Democrats put their money in government coffers, a much better result for the voters than Amazon not paying anywhere near their rightful amount due of taxes and taking it for income instead. Both sides of the political coin could be more responsible with funds.
3
In the last congressional elections the Democrats flipped 40 seats of those only 2 were progressives. Let's select a moderate to get rid of Trump. I believe that in the Midwest this is not the time to present a candidate proposing drastic changes.
3
One thing to remember....the Democrats need to cast a wide net. Trump is doing a good job in sending Latino and Afro-American voters our way but we need something else...we need disaffected Republicans. The sane ones who, like most of us, just want a government that works. Not every law and not every move a President or Congress may make may please us, but knowing that government is basically working to make our lives better goes a long way. There are many Republicans who are moderates who want just that but they will either sit out or vote for Trump if the Democrats put themselves up as the party of revenge for 4 years of Trump. We really must reach out and bring these people over the line with us so that we can hit the reset button and get back to something close to sanity. I like many of the candidates running on the Democratic ticket and share their values but I can tell you pushing too much too hard will not win this election. The ball is rolling backwards, it may take 4 years to stop that and maybe push it a little forward but, and I say this for all the people who want change now, would you rather have real and lasting change or no change at all because that is what is at stake here.
I want to see the poll that tells me how all these candidates are doing with Republican voters....that's where the election will be won.
1
In the words of Bernie Sanders, you're wrong.
Joe Biden might attract moderates with his status quo politics, but he's utterly uninspiring. He cannot rile up those who want to envision a hopeful future, and that's what gets people excited enough to show up to the polls. People want someone to root for, policies to be passionate about, but like Hillary, the best Biden has to offer is cautious incrementalism and 'anybody but Trump.'
The Republican Party currently has the monopoly on the politics of emotion. They consistently appeal to emotion and it's consistently effective! Like it or not, people get out to vote when they're impassioned, and they vote with their guts. Despite the vast numbers of left- and center-leaning absentee voters in 2016, democrats just cannot seem to get it into their heads that the policy-first, status quo offerings of old guard democrats are about as exciting as an old shoe. Voters don't care enough about old shoes to line up at a polling station after a long day's work.
Pandering to centrists, many of whom will vote against Trump anyway, is a losing strategy. Against all odds, Barack Obama, a black man with a muslim-sounding name, pushed past America's pernicious prejudices, and he did it by appealing to our hopes for real and meaningful change. Let's take that as a lesson that we need to win people's hearts to win over their minds.
Biden can't win a debate he didn't attend, and he can't win the hearts of the people. It's time for a shakeup.
5
Ross would like it if Biden were the candidate, since he really wants the Republicans to win even though he doesn't like Trump much. I agree with s parson that the debate is not the election and we'll see how the voters go.
1
We can do so much better. We have a very wise Warren and Sanders, young Buttigeig, et al. and many dozens of others that can and will do. They can, as an articulate team, make life-better-great-for-all. Across the divides collectively.
Not Biden. He is running on one cylinder on an empty tank of energy. He deserves our profound thanks for great past devotion and service, but no more.
The deep bad corporate-funded Republican sect is anti-social. It can/will never serve the larger US populations success well.
Shame on Fox Phews and conspiracy bent right-wing shock extremists for disdaining their audience. And undermining our/their audiences opportunities, US health and safety, fair trade and diplomatic progress just to get short shrift on faux news.
We can do better. Choose care-fully. Trump the international fool is so low we easily can do and will do better.
"Teamwork makes the dream work". -Natalya Neidhart
Trump has a dysfunctional transient collection of opportunists in the E-branch. Anti-social extremists.
They are not helping us. The Trump inexplicable tariff war may be worse and longer than the Bush wars. How do we undo that ugliness?
3
I beg to differ, Bernie Sanders is getting momentum
75
@Independent voter On top of that he has always had the highest floor. If Bernie gets hot, it's over.
4
Oh Ross, you are so out of touch.
You and your NYT colleagues need to do a much better job describing, as far as healthcare is concerned, how every other country is able to provide universal healthcare, and save a ton of money. Defending the status quo won’t help in any way solving the multitude of problems we face.
Only Biden’s name recognition is his advantage. His ideas are the same old, same old.
2
@Moses - all those other nations also are not the United States. Please try to keep in mind that all of the big waves of progressive legislation in the past came with Democrat majorities in House and Senate. McConnell is Senate Majority Leader because the Democrats don't have the majority there.
OK? It was a bitter struggle to get Obamacare passed, and the public, even in Red States, is slowly becoming appreciative of the benefits it gave by expanding access to coverage. Three conservative states recently voted to expand Medicare, and that's progress.
So if you think there's a glimmer of a chance that a Republican-led Senate and a slim Democrat majority in the House is enough to replace Obamacare with a bigger, more federal plan, you don't understand how Congress (and lobbying) works.
If you want a Democratic nominee to appeal to people who are not the small minority of voters who are progressive Democrats, then appeal to them by saying you want to expand the access to healthcare, help middle-class people who are not-quite-covered well enough, and how - just perhaps - a public option might be worth introducing. Option, not full replacement.
The Congress is very divided right now. Winning the White House is no guarantee anything sweeping can be enacted. That's life in 2019.
2
The mythical Joe Biden may have won last night's debate, the actual existing Joe Biden has to debate a lightweight ideologue without a stomach for conflict like Paul Ryan to ever win any debate.
Joe will stay in the race until events or perhaps ill health force him out deep into the primary season, but he is not going to be the Democratic nominee. The painful little truth that the Party elites are just figuring out is that their preferred nominees-in-reserve, Warren or Harris, have gone off the reservation because the moment demands it and they have no one to replace them.
Meanwhile Biden's so called continued "strength" after his first debate fiasco speaks more to Harris' utter political unreliability than anything else. Which is to say, your personal assessment is just that, and nothing more.
If Biden falters I would expect NY governor Andrew Cuomo to jump in. I think he would attract enough money to enter late. He has record on climate he could run on and signed many liberal bills this year.
1
@Bob
Voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio are not going to vote for an Andrew Cuomo.
1
Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio sounded just like a Republican. Worse than that, he sounded like a Trumpista. He actually praised Trump's foolish and economically-destructive tariff policy against China.
Off stage, after the debate was over, Ryan said, "Democrats will lose 48 states on a Medicare for All platform. And I'm having trouble trying to figure out which 2 states the Democrats might win."
First it's absolutely not true -- the hyperbole is way over the top. And it sounds like a talking point Trump and the Republicans could use.
Is he trying to run as a Democrat or hurt Democrats' chances at winning the presidency, taking over the US Senate, and holding onto their majority in the House?
Maybe Tim Ryan should do the Democrats a favor and leave the Democratic Party. Then he can run against Trump in the Republican primary.
6
What this column is about -- Ross Douthat wants a President Biden because then the country won't go too far 'left' per his distorted definition of left/right/center.
Ross may deplore Trump the Terrible, but he wants a so called 'moderate', really a conservative, to preserve corporate control of politics in the WH.
Biden is basically a conservative, that he tries to hide with his manipulative personality, and phony smiles--- he's just not a right wing radical extremist like the GOP. He looks great compared to Trump the Terrible, but what kind of a yardstick is that?
Whatever policies will give We the People the proper representation for our taxation that we deserve in a democracy---those are what Ross and similar pundits will call too progressive left wing radical socialist.
Thus, this is to be feared ---even if it does give us long delayed health care for all citizens, a norm in the rest of the modern world! Ross surely has excellent insurance he can well afford.
Ross and friends will try to scare naive voters into seeing a threat to us from Big Govt, when our govt tries to work for us.
But what Ross is really afraid of is any challenge to the legalized corporate dominance of our politics and economy---all whitewashed by money defined as 'Free Speech' by the supreme court, in it's supreme distortion..
Now let Ross discuss Gov Bullock's campaign to get money out of politics, "which he argues is a prerequisite for fixing other problems." NYT.
3
@Meredith spending other people’s money does not reflect “We the People” proper representation. And by the way Ross is an op ed columnist; it’s his job to have an opinion; that’s the point of an opinion piece. It’s not like you’re decoding anything for the rest of us.
1
I won't vote for a moderate like Biden or Harris. You have no chance of getting my vote. Why do you think you ended up with Trump when you put up a moderate like Hillary. No. No. No.
2
@FrankM
Our system of democracy isn't purity chest thumping. It's compromise, negotiation, horse trading, skepticism, pragmatism.
4
@FrankM
People who Do Not vote for the Democratic candidate, whomever she/he is, will be the reason Trump gets re-elected. Is that you?
7
@Robert
Politics might work as you describe, but, as evidenced by the vast number of absentee voters in 2016, that's not how you get people to the polls.
Republicans win with their appeals to emotion, mostly fear and anger, they get people riled up, and that's how they consistently win.
No one gets emotional about compromise, negotiation, horse trading, skepticism, or pragmatism. That was what Hillary promised, and despite the importance of that election, people didn't care enough about her to stand in line at the polls.
2
I see a replay of 2016.
A gaffe prone 'name brand' moderate edges out an uber progressive/socialist only to lose again to DJT.
3
When the Democrats all raised their hands saying that they would give free healthcare to all illegal immigrants there went the election. They don't even know how many are here and how much it would cost.
3
Jake Tapper just seemed like he was trying to start a fight, or trying to ask "gotcha" questions. And why is it that simply being obstreperous results in the pundits calling you the winner?
1
@Madeline Conant Heaven forbid a moderator challenges a candidate for president with a tough question. The softballs were thrown by Don Lemon.
Someone on the moderator panel has to ask a tough question.
2
Clearly, Sanders & Warren going tag team in the debate, are preparing for the clincher; a shared ticket, potus & veep, against the front runner, to be declared in Sept. Watch for it.
Biden would have picked Harris, but hitting back if she resumes the attack to show his grit could hurt him just as much as assuming the deer in headlights purity angle in the last debate. Not going to be easy for Biden.
I can't help but chuckle at this continuing narrative that the only hope for a totally divided Party is choosing a centrist. First of all, the divisions are overblown. As Warren put it, all of the candidates want to expand health care. None want to rip it away like the Republicans have consistently tried to do. The moderators last night clearly wanted to hammer at the differences from the side of the moderates, even the Republicans (as Warren and Sanders observed).
The Democratic Party is diverse and can send reinforcements to whatever the front is in the election. There is a case that women's horror at Trump's actions and policies which became obvious immediately after the election will continue to lead the electorate and make the election about a great deal more than partisan divide. The same for the power of minorities. And the young. There is unity in diversity.
1
We don't need another establishment Democrat, they are just the tail-end of the Republicans. Who needs them?
We need people with conviction like Elizabeth and Bernie, young people with the energy and courage to speak up, new thinking, open windows and lots of fresh air so we can breathe again. Our one-party culture is stifling and the Trump administration just stinks. Times have changed and the old guard still sees a socialist or communist under every bed. They wear blinders and walk in lockstep.
1
@ARL
What in the world do you think Senate majority leader Moscow McConnell is going to do with any legislation proposed by Warren or Saunders? It’s possible the Senate may not vote on a single piece of legislation.
4
You’re right, but he might not allow a Senate vote on ANY Democratic president’s legislative projects (can’t let the enemy have any victories). Which is to say, you’re right about McConnell but wrong to hitch his obstructionism solely to more progressive candidates.
Terrifying fact: for any good to come out of the evils of the present moment, Dems need to beat Trump with an authentic progressive AND retake the Senate AND hold the House. Anything else is failure—4-8 years of Merrick Garlanding the country while the Trump SCOTUS vitiates our rights one by one. The American nightmare is upon us.
2
What do people want the Democrats to say and do on foreign policy. That is what the President has most control over. Are they going to say no more wars? Are they going to say cut the Defense budget? Are the going to say build a Navy that can maintain China? Do they want universal service? Who do you think has the experience for that? Biden and who else? If someone else gets nominated who should (s)he pick as VP What is s good immigration policy that recognizes that most Americans are concerned about porous borders. I want to hear something solid about how to support Latin America.
And by "moderate" you mean do nothing.
Douthat's goal is to find a Democrat who won't do anything contradictory to right-wing ideology so he can vote against Trump. This column only makes sense in that context.
4
I think RD is right to point out that Biden was the winner last night. He now sits at 32% to Warren's 14% and Sanders 16%. All the chatter on the left hasn't changed that fact. Outside of the coastal bubbles, Warren is not resonating like Biden.
Warren has other problems. She thinks her ancestry claims are behind her but they aren't. All her policy portfolios won't hide this fact. This fact alone should disqualify her. She is no better than Rachael Dolezal. She personally benefited from those false claims at a time when there was no downside to claiming that heritage. She will get savaged in a general election if she were to become the Democratic candidate. Her false heritage claims will be played endlessly on tv adds.
Democrats are making the same mistake they made in 2016. Then Sanders could have beat Trump. The time was ripe for an outsider. This time, however, I don't think the time is ripe for Sanders or a Sanders-like candidate. This time people are hungry for a sensible and steady hand. Sure, I want all the goodies the left is promising, however, the timing is not right for a full-throttle turn to the left. This all-left-or-nothing is going to give us four more years of Trump (not to mention a number of new Supreme Court nominations).
7
This is the 2nd front page opinion piece that in my opinion wants to spin the debate towards a victory for the establishment. The establishment is really only about how to maintain the status quo for the super rich and the giant, heartless, soulless multinational corporations that the judicial corporate lobby some still call the Supreme Court has given the "rights" and "super rights" of so called "citizens."
Senators Warren and Sanders represent what most Americans actually really want and need. They represent taking on the old, swamp filled, big money interests.
It is clear to me from the selection of post debate opinion pieces and just by the headlines today and leading up to them that the paper and the super rich do not want a real democracy or one in which the needs and will of the people are put first.
Why don't you post an opinion piece that most of your readers will actually agree with and that is that it is time for a real two party system composed of representatives who are not just shills for big money and the status quo but for real public servants who fight for the real needs and aspirations of our citizens and future generations?
5
Everywhere I turn, conservatives are telling Democrats which Democrats will win. You are not a Democrat. You want conservative politics but allowed your party to make Donald Trump king. You go after Trump, Warren, and Sanders, but where are your calls to GOP senators? To congressional reps? It is not our job to present conservatives with a candidate they find palatable. It is our job to vote our conscience and yours to fix your party.
10
Seems like Democrats don't learn from history. The only DemocraticPresidents elected since 1968 have been perceived as moderates, and two were Southern--Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Obama got a white guilt bump because he was perceived as motivated more by reason than ideology and with a personal story that included growing up half white.
Let us never forget McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis and their loss of the vast majority of America. I can so easily see Biden as the modern Mondale. History does repeat itself.
And let us never forget how toxic Democrats perceived Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bush II to be. Trump is no more excoriated than those men.
The real truth is that the Presidency seems to be a toy that the elctorate tosses from one party to the other party after eight years. One term presidents are very rare and seem to occur only during parlous economic times.
2
I disagree completely. Biden did not win.
Both Sanders and Warren beat the moderators who wanted to sow division.
They also beat the "moderates" in terms of the quality, clarity, and vision in their ideas.
Why do people seem to believe that a half-hearted, compromised idea is somehow more compelling than a much-needed bold one, clearly stated? Perhaps because they aren't the intended beneficiaries.
I fear the Democratic Party will alienate its future, post-baby-boomer base with the poverty of imagination apparent in analyses like these.
8
Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are going to come out tonight looking like they are a couple. We are in it to win it and I would be surprised if these two didn't present themselves as the dream team and together ganged up on everyone else
They are the team to beat.
42
@Deirdre
A friend who has friends very active in state politics here told me in the Summer of 2018 -- a full year ago, before anyone had even announced a run -- that the Democratic ticket would Biden/Harris.
My heart sank. So it's already decided?
I think a rapprochement after the discord of the last debate plays perfectly into making that happen, and not look too, um, pre-ordained.
9
@Deirdre
That would be nice. We like both of them.
8
@Deirdre
Harris better not support decriminalizing illegal border crossings and free healthcare for illegal immigrants. She should also back off of the reparations for descendents of slaves.
America is tired of free stuff for non citizens and people who didn't earn it.
7
It seems to me as if several of the Democratic presidential candidates are competing to see who can make the most woke and socialist promises:
Free college tuition. Medicare for all, including illegal immigrants. College loan forgiveness. Reparations for blacks and gays. Guaranteed basic income. Federal job guarantees. Federally mandated school busing to achieve integration. Green New Deal (eco-socialism). Voting and early release for prisoners. Open borders.
All the fabulously wealthy US individuals and corporations together do not have the many trillions of dollars needed to pay for these goodies year after year, and even Bernie Sanders has admitted that taxes would have to be raised on the middle class to pay for Medicare for All, not to mention the additional trillions needed for the other items. (For perspective, the current US budget is about $4.4 trillion, with a deficit of about $1 trillion.)
As Margaret Thatcher aptly noted, the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money. We need to keep in mind that our goal in 2020 is to elect a Democratic president, and that will require appealing to the independents, undecideds and others whom the Democrats did not succeed in reaching in 2016.
If all of these progressive (socialist) promises, or even a few, are planks in the 2020 Democratic platform we are doomed to a second term of Trump as president.
2
I'm not sure what debate you watched, but what I saw was the flogging of every moderate candidate on that platform by the two progressive front runners. You reference Biden's poor performance in the previous debate as though the equally uninspiring performances of his moderate colleague should bolster the case for him. It doesn't. The more Biden speaks, the less popular he will become, like Kerry and Clinton. Using your logic, if either Warren or Sanders dropped out at the last minute and endorsed the other, the one who remained would overshadow Biden tremendously.
4
Does any of this really matter?
Next time they're just going to outright switch numbers in the election boxes knowing we aren't going to do anything about it but gripe and complain. One thing I've noticed, each republican led atrocity over the last 20 years has been worse than the one before it. I fully expect historic turnout in the next election regardless of who the democrats run, which every expert in the world would say favors the progressive, and we're still going to lose.
It's going to be Georgia all over again... you cannot trust an election to be fair when the ruling power is the one tallying the votes. And they are the ones doing the counting, because they've outright obstructed any oversight.
And given the doom-and-gloom of my prognostication, it's worth qualifying, I'm a consummate pragmatist.
This isn't conspiracy theory... do I really have to list the ways in which republicans have subverted the vote in recent years? People write entire books on the subject... this paper has published countless articles on it...
There is no way Trump loses this next election and I have serious doubts out winning back any Senate seats... this entire Russia debacle was a litmus test for how far they can go... and we haven't imposed a limit yet.
1
Actually, the winner was Trump. What with the leading Dems wanting to decriminalize undocumented border crossings, calling for free heath care for illegal immigrants, while wanting to phase out private health insurance for tens of millions in order to pay for Medicare for all, he has all the talking points he needs to go a long way toward 270 electoral votes.
1
Joe Biden becomes president and NOTHING changes. More of the same stasis we have had in our party for decades. If FDR were alive and standing before us today saying almost the same things progressives are saying the Republican party would be calling him a socialist or communist and Douthat would be claiming he wouldn't stand a chance of winning. People just keep drinking the Republican talking points and playing into their scare tactics.
8
@Magan
"Joe Biden becomes president and NOTHING changes"
Aren't you forgetting something?
2
@brian
Nope.
Biden is the only candidate who has a chance to beat president Trump. To do that he is going to have to win over voters who are scared witless by the likes of Harris, Warren and Sanders. A good start would be a refusal to apologize for his record on crime and forced busing, accompanied by a promise never to play the "race card" under any circumstances, period.
1
@Robert Howard
He's pretty darn good at not really apologising. That is part of what will lose him women's votes in the ACTUAL primaries.
He is waaaay too old in his thinking if not his bones. We need young blood. BTW: I am an old futz.
This analysis is correct. The front-runner wants to be a unifier but also does not want to get fatally stabbed by the Senate (et tu, Bernie?).
A small crew of moderates increasingly desperate for attention can throw the rocks at the liberals' glass houses while Biden talks about lifting all boats and ethical policies.
Ignoring specific details, if Democrats act like sore winners, it will further divide the country and invite another Trumpian backlash. Have we already forgotten that the ACA barely survived the attempt to repeal it? This suggests it is premature to promote a far more drastic change, but some candidates apparently think such change is what everyone wants.
With Sanders and Warren, it's a case of "the more of you I inspect, the more I feel regret". With Warren scurrying about the stage like a deer about to be darted for a medical checkup, it's all rather silly. Neither can win a general election promising open borders.
4
Yet another opinion piece advocating for a moderate candidate. Where are the opinions that say we need a liberal candidate? I mean, this here is just an opinion piece and not a well researched article that we usually expect from NYT. Enough already.
4
@R Thayyil
Pay attentnion. The NYT gave Trump more coverage than any other candidate in 2016 and still does. MSM does more to keep him in the defining role than anything. Selling outrage sells papers.
Watch how Biden will get all the coverage even when he loses primaries. Hillary did. Bernie's wins were covered in one or two paragraphs after the Hillary lead.
The people who own America haven't the guts to compete fairly. They'll give us Apple Brown Betty Biden whe what we need is fresh blood and guts.
1
I am a lifetime Democrat. Voted for Ronald Reagan. Didn’t always agree with him but I liked him. Last nights debate was a joke. I keep saying most should drop out. That’s eight. This leaves Warren and Sanders. Their ideas won’t work! Medicare for all is too expensive. How about refining Obamacare? People like it. It can be made better.
Eight in this group should drop now. Leaving Sanders, who isn’t even a Demcrat and Warren’s ideas aren’t workable. They also need to drop out. Far too many running. Splitting the party as I keep saying, Trump wins. This debate was a joke and waste of time. Every one in this group should do us a favor and drop out. No one is this group is even likable. Like Hillary times ten.
I don’t like Trump. This group cannot beat him. Be sensible and go home.
Thank you Ross for so clearly laying out the Republican/Conservative/Evangelical Axis strategy. That is to talk up the centrist bible with Biden as its High Priest. You have clearly described in more ways than one that Biden will be hamburger once Trump is through with him. If he cannot stand up against Progressives in his own party without interlopers, he will NEVER beat Trump. There is no question in my mind that the Democratic message will be clarified and refined by the time the final nominee is selected. The question is not what the message will be but WHO can deliver it successfully against the LOUD BULLY in Chief. Biden is not it. I also don't think Sanders is it, but there are a few very viable candidates all of which Trump is afraid of. Warren, Mayor Pete and Harris are all able to volley someone like Trump and deliver an effective message. So, thank you very much Ross for presenting the old-line conservative message. Bye.
8
For the love of grog, let me help Warren and Sanders explain why smart people will be willing to give up their company insurance.
By eliminating the tremendous expense of unnecessary insurance companies, we can afford you better healthcare than you company can. It includes optical and dental. And you can take it with you to a new job or no job - you are free to move about the country! FREEDOM You don't have to give up higher wages for healthcare in your union negotiations.
Imagine - no more medical bills and statements to keep track of. And your doctor doesn't have to be a businessman. Oh, but your taxes will rise - about half as much as the insurance premiums you won't see anymore.
You have to give up your old sedan for a Tesla. What a tough choice! Common Bernie, Elizabeth - tell it like it could be. It's hard to understand the ignorance of the status quo.
14
@Tracy Rupp
Then try it at the state level first. Why has no state, even California or Main, been willing to go through with trying this?
Having been hospitalized in Europe, I can tell you the experience is quite different. It also seems to me that various countries are often having problems with their funding, and that it can create quite a drag on the country’s economy and power.
Eventually team Warren/Sanders or Sanders/Warren will ran together. Let us see then whether Uncle Joe will be still winning.
4
Picking the debate winner before he opens his mouth? In that case I'm case I'm going to say that Weld won the Republican debate. Totally nailed it.
3
No one can be as radical as a moderate Democrat.
Two worst catastrophes that hit America in the third millennium were the Iraq War and the Great Recession.
The number of the individuals prosecuted during the Obama Administration for the colossal damages inflicted upon our country was ZERO.
If you don’t punish the leaders for the wrongful behavior they are going to stay on the wrong course.
“Moderation” can be as deadly as the rampant extremism.
There was nothing moderate regarding letting the criminals walk away free.
If you don’t stop them, they are going to stop and paralize the country…
The Trump Administration is the ultimate result of Obama’s failures.
He spend the most crucial couple of years trying to negotiate and compromise with the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.
Remember how Trump was dealing with such a kind of politician.
He just steamrolled him…
5
Please turn your attention to the misery of the US.
Impermanence and change may be what shows up. It always has.
Would you still insist on the cultivation of fear, hatred, anger and delusion?
Embrace kindness, generosity, vulnerability, compassion, forgiveness, and Atruism.( M. Ricard, 2016).
We all depend on one another...ALL. Avoid harm.
1
Biden botched the last debate. He’s going to have work harder than that if he wants to win my vote. Harris ran circles around him - and effortlessly. It’s not good enough to be merely white, male, and over a certain age any more. Time to put in the hard work like everyone else. He’s gonna hafta bring home the bacon AND fry it up in a pan. Step up.
4
Ross exemplifies what the Dems are up against: mind sets that are beyond change or fact, fed by “alternative facts” and religious ossification and by unending propaganda from all the sources they are glued to. Just have to hope those voters who don’t do politics will get off their duffs and vote in 2020!
4
The truth is the only candidate who will beat Trump in the key battle ground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin is Joe Biden. Polls indicate him even leading in Ohio.
And he will beat him bigly.
1
It is not that people necessarily want Biden they just do not want what they hear from the rest of the Democrat candidates.
3
There was another white male in last nights debate you have not provided any comment on. Why? Does he not fit into your prescriptive argument? Buttigieg is strong and has done consistently better than Biden, Sanders, and the other moderates. His fund raising is undeniable. Could it be you think a gay man has no chance of winning the nomination or the election? Curious that in your equation you chose to leave him out as a factor.
4
Watching Warren and Sanders last night it was clear they are passionate in their beliefs but their demeanor played out more like desperate and slightly unhinged. There was not a calmness in their responses that I was hoping to see because to beat Trump I think you have to keep your composure so that your counter punches do not get lost in the emotions. Trump thrives on being the bully which is to attack and hope that you get so flustered that you no longer are thinking straight and you instead get into an insult battle.
I know that they are trying to get voters excited for them and to raise that passion. Problem is that they already have the ones that will get caught up in that. Who they do not have but need are the swing and moderate voters who could be convinced to parts or all of their positions but the communication vehicle has to be different than what plays to the progressives.
If the DNC runs Biden,
I’ll vote for trump, for spite.
That’s how much I despise the crooked DNC.
5
@New World
So you're a Republican. Congratulations on that self-realization.
14
@New World:
I bet you’re bluffing.
3
@New World
I think the kids call people like you “Trolls”?
9
Mr Douthat,
You are not exactly an authority on Democratic politics and not someone who I would go to for advise on who to vote for.
You are a conservative Catholic whom still lives in the glory days of the Church.
Good for you.
Just get out of our lives as we try to elect a person who would face the challenge of all the damage done by the GOP and its clown in chief Trump.
The only thing I learned from your article is the ridiculous middle name of Joe “Delaware Corporation” Biden. It sounds like the French word for faucet. Joe “Clarance Thomas” Biden would be even more appropriate.
26
@Blunt Thanks for the great advice for Mr. Douthat. This attitude will ensure another 4 years of Trump. I wonder if you will want Ross out of your life then? We got Trump because Mr. Douthat's colleagues at the NYT decided that Hilary Clinton was the one. Your beef should be with them.
2
@My Aim Is Truei
The ONLY thing that will ensure another 4 years of Trump is Democrat's inability to present a united front against him. PERIOD.
1
Oh Ross, I wish I could stick my head in the sand as far as you can. Throughout the years you've grown more and more susceptible to what I've started to call old white man syndrome. One of the main symptoms is being able to only view things through the lens of an old white man who has lived an incredibly privileged life. This has resulted in not allowing yourself to understand the fundamental generational change happening right now. If you want to know why progressives are on the rise just take a look in the mirror and evaluate what your party has done to the country.
Especially young people are supportive of more progressive policies because those policies are focused on the future of the country and setting up the next generation for success, not maintaining the current status quo. There were a lot of structural issues created by your generation, and your party in particular, that must be addressed by grander visions for the future of the country. It is also necessary for the future of the country to have a strong progressive arm within the Democratic party to counter the extreme positions of Republicans. Just look at climate change. There was consensus as recently as 2008 that a carbon tax was necessary to combat climate change but Republicans went off the deep end on that one. How exactly do you work with an entire party that is more concerned with maintaining power than actually passing necessary policies?
5
Better figure out how. In includes the majority.
I don't care if Hillary's Dog runs....whoever is left to run against Trump in 2020 that's not a Republican get's my Vote! Stop the Insanity !! I don't care which candidate Russia Promotes in 2020...let's avoid that candidate like the Plague..no matter what the GOP, Barr ,and Fox Nation say !! Vote Blue ...No Matter Who !!
6
This column is based on politics as they used to be, not as they are today. Biden will not motivate progressives, minorities and the young to the polls thus 2020 will be a replay of 2016 with key states lost. It is amazing how many columnists are looking to the moderates when there are no more moderates to vote for a Democrat in states that are in play. Also keep in mind that if Biden ignores and insults the progressives to the same extent HRC did a 3rd party progressive candidate will run.
2
@Tibby Elgato You might live in a progressive bubble so it appears that way to you. But, here in Georgia minorities love Biden and everyone further to the left has told me they will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is. Biden has the experience that we need after Trump. Biden is a likable person, unlike Hillary was perceived. Biden appeals to a lot of different types of voters. Biden is currently the most realistic choice. He's left of center too, but he realizes that the nutty things promised by Warren and Sanders have no chance of becoming law. The country has never been as far right as it is these days. It's not realistic to think that the furthest to the left candidate has the best chance of winning.
Sanders sounded like he was off of his rocker in last night's debate, and while Warren is obviously very smart, she doesn't have much widespread appeal and her plans don't have much credibility, when you take a close up look. But, like any decent person, I will vote for whoever runs against Trump because nothing could be worse than having him for a 2nd term.
2
I need to be educated about something. There is almost a consensus that Biden is the guy who will appeal to the moderate swing voters that the Democrats need to pick up the swing states they lost in 2016. BUT, say the Warren or Sanders or whoever supporters, Biden will not inspire the young and idealistic to vote for him. They'll stay home, and then Trump will win.
Here is my question: is the idea of voting against Trump and driving him off to whatever country has no extradition treaty with the U.S. (probably Russia, where he can join Mr. Snowden and spend some quality time kissing the posterior of the dictator he admires so much) not enough to bring these idealists out to the polls? Are these the kind of people who said they could not tell the difference between Bush and Gore? And finally, don't they know how to count?
If getting rid of Trump isn't enough to get these folks to the polls, then I have nothing but contempt for them.
Keep in mind, however, that the vast majority of these people live in states that Biden could not lose if HE shot somebody on Fifth Avenue. He doesn't need their votes, except in swing states.
If having Biden as the candidate means gaining 100,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and losing 1,000,000 votes in New York, California, Illinois and Washington, I will take that deal in a heartbeat. Although I might like to see many of the Warren or Sanders proposals implemented, only one thing matters now: beating Trump.
12
@Ken
Thank you.
1
@Ken
AMEN to that.
@Ken, I think your comment is smart and sensible. But I would point out one thing worth considering. I think Barack Obama is a great man and was a fine president. But his very grace, poise, and moderation (and, let’s face it, his skin color) primed white America and other angry Americas to vote for Trump. My response to you is this: if we beat Trump but try to return, in doing so, to the status quo ante, and thereby, er, make America great again, what makes you think that that return to past normalcy won’t be replaced in 4-8 years by another larval Nazi? Trump is a symptom, not the disease; his election happened because angry fools caught up in an asymmetrical and isolated media ecosystem wanted it. The nationalist and supremacist hate, and the white fear of obsolescence, that underpin the Trump presidency will not leave with Trump.
One could retort: wouldn’t the more radical alternatives to a nostalgic moderate only deepen the divide? I would answer: only if the progressive president did not succeed in bettering the lives of those who are angry.
One thing Hillary Clinton proved conclusively—other than the antidemocratic monstrosity of the Electoral College—is that entrenched Beltway logic has no appeal to the disenfranchised. I voted for her without hesitation, but not without reservation. This country has ideals to live up to, and our moderates obscure too many of them. The more I study our history, the more clear this becomes to me.
Smart comment all the same!
1
Elizabeth Warren won the debate hands down. CNN had a terrible format not letting her or anyone else even finish a sentence.
What is the point of a debate if you can't hear complete sentences about what the candidates policies are?
CNN seemed to be trying to get gotcha moments instead of hearing policy ideas from the candidates.
2
Great. To govern is to decide. Now govern.
Any time a conservative tells me that "X candidate is moderate and that's what we need" then I know that X candidate is too far to the right and that's exactly who we DON'T need.
6
The debates are a performance spectacle that don’t really interest me. Polls right now don’t matter too much either. I’m concerned about substance, not who is best at playing “gotcha” or winning on style points (Harris really annoyed me with her questioning of Kavanaugh, a bunch of bluster and innuendo is not what this country needs). Nor am I interested in blaming people for positions taken and popular years ago.
Intelligence, grace, kindness, gravitas - that’s what I find attractive. I’m not looking forward to the next election.
2
Out of curiosity, how did you feel about Kavanaugh and all that unseemly rip-snorting anger he displayed after Blasey-Ford testified? Was that grace or gravitas? Odd to attack Harris when one thinks about how Kavanaugh, now appointed for life, comported himself that day.
What a sad state for Democrats. They distance themselves from left-leaning concepts, but not alienate left-leaning voters -- the Democratic party's core constituency. By contrast, Republicans embrace right-leaning concepts, thereby appealing to right-leaning voters -- the Republican party's core constituency. Bottom line: Democrats must keep their core constituency at arm's length, while Republicans welcome their core constituency with open arms.
3
If Biden won last night, the real winner is Trump. Third time's the charm? More like three strikes your out. Biden isn't carrying the 2020 election against an incumbent no matter what 30 percent of poll respondents say. Allowing Biden to skate is the surest path to another Democratic defeat. Everyone was so sure about Clinton too, remember?
4
It is good thing that Biden is not on the stage yesterday. Otherwise, he would have Beaten by Warren. If Biden gets nominated, he would go down the same way as Clinton did. Loose.
4
@Kodali Deep down Ross wants another 4 years of Trump that is why he is advocating a win by Biden!
@Kodali
Let start with the basics.
Clinton lost to Trump because of FOX news, Republican gerrymandering, Citizen's United, voter suppression, Facebook and other social media platforms, RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE, the Electoral College and Americans who didn't vote.
Otherwise, she got 3+million more popular votes and we'd never be in the position we're in now by having a white nationalist in the White House.
There. Fixed that. You're welcome.
1
“The real victor in the moderates-versus-progressives battle was the moderate who wasn’t there,” claims Ross Douthat. That moderate? Joe Biden. If you were watching the debate, this would be the man with the same ideology that was just shown to be comically inadequate in response to the various crises we face. That man won the debate. Douthat likes to believe that by avoiding the body blows of Sanders and Warren, Biden emerged the victor.
He doesn’t account for the fine dust that used to be John Delaney. He doesn’t respond to the power of a Sanders/Warren one-two punch. He doesn’t have a clue what he is doing with this op-ed.
I suppose if you are contractually required to report on the debate and refuse to write a kind word about progressives, sure, this is a logical take. To any casual viewer the entire debate ran through the bold ideas of Sanders and Warren. The man who won the debate hasn’t offered a single, bold idea to date. Nevertheless, Biden wins by default, according to Douthat.
Polling numbers do not win a debate. Avuncular mannerisms and Obama’s coattails do not win a debate. Ross Douthat’s analysis is neither accurate, nor written in good faith. He needs to be better or go away.
2
This column essentially states that Biden should win only if his many weak spots were left untouched and only if every other candidate did everything they could to help him hobble to the finish line.
Idk about you Ross, but that doesn't sound like a winning candidate to me.
2
Some of the losers in last evening's debate were the part of the 99% that cannot afford to pay for Pay-TV and could not watch. Many of these folks, who may be inclined to vote, cannot afford cable. They should be allowed to view the debates free of cable.
Move future debates from CNN to PBS.
Inclusion is a good thing.
9
If a columnist was fired every time they uttered a wrong prediction we would live in the columnist-free world.
If an elected official was fired after failing to fulfill the campaign promises, nobody would ever give a single cent as campaign donation.
If the newspapers were shut down after the editorial boards endorsed the wrong candidates not supported by the people, we would live in the world free of the free press.
If the politicians really tried to unite the country they wouldn’t be the members of any political party.
Can we be unified if the political parties antagonize and divide us to protect and conserve their grab on power?
The religious divisions are created by the clergy.
The political divisions are created by the politicians.
The wars are launched by the presidents and the lawmakers.
It is tragic that those whose solemn duty is to unite the people are filling them up with hatred, animosity and bias.
3
While every candidate fights to be heard,
fights to press their points,
fights to finish their thoughts,
Your boy cries:
“My time is up. I’m sorry.” — Mr. Biden cutting himself off after his exchange with Ms. Harris.
Mr Douthat, this is just a cheep provocation piece,
But we’ll, it’s a living I suppose.
2
Add together Bernie's poll numbers, add in Elizabeth's and most of Mayor Pete's and you see you is truly winning.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
3
Last night Warren lost another huge chance to break out.
Instead she reminded the country she is still awfully lost out on Left field, wishing upon a star.
Sanders was just Sanders, the socialist who appeals to the fringe left and no one else.
It was just a matter of time until the Democrats realized that the tini left fringe was not only not enough to win the election, but is also the reason why Trump can win on a landslide.
People care more about their pocket, the medical bills the can’t pay, or that elusive job that they have a hard time finding, and personal security.
The 2 Left Feet show the Democrats keep playing every night was going to get tired someday. Hopefully that finally happened last night. Now the centrist can come in and win the sweepstakes. And the only one standing on the winning spot, is Biden.
1
Biden is not going to win! Can't the Times get it through their corporate heads that the American people did not want Hilary and they do not want Biden. Biden and Hilary are politically the same. He represents no change. Why does the media keep saying a moderate candidate is what people want when Trump who is an extreme (you fill this in) was elected? Hopefully, tonight' s debate will shed some light on Biden. Hilary was also leading polls but lost. So much for polls.
5
@clif howell
1. Polls are about probabilities. If Hillary showed a 67% chance of winning, that means that two out of three times the election is run, she’d would win, and one out of three times she would lose. That does not mean she gets twice as many votes as her opponents or is a sure thing as some people seem to interpret these numbers.
2. IMO, Hillary lost because she had way too much baggage and made some major strategic errors like that stupid “deplorables” remark and not getting out among the people (but showing up for big money donor events). I expect that it didn’t help that people misunderstood the likelihood of a Trump win (more math in school, please!) so if they were not excited about her personally they were less likely to be motivated to vote (thinking seeks going to win anyway). I do not think she lost on her politics.
And let’s not forget James Comey coming out about the email business right before the election, but failing to mention another open FBI investigation into possible collusion between Trump and Russia. That didn’t help, either.
2
However much Biden is able to stay on top right now, he may not have the wherewithal to sustain, or tolerate Trump's low blows (he lives in the stinking toilet, after all), trying to belittle Biden by the very same flaws Trump is so richly endowed with. Trump is a poisonous snake, with hardly any novel or worthwhile ideas of his own, hence, always on the rabid attack by outlining other's mistakes. Trump is, by far, the most swinish, and corrupt, president we have had, immoral to the core, with no scruples whatsoever. And Biden is too much of a gentleman to know how to accurately shoot Trump's ego...and send him packing.
1
Unfortunately, it is We the People who are supposed to "win" these debates - not the aspirants to the DNC nomination as a candidate.
Yes, the show was entertaining. It is always fun to watch these people fighting each other all claiming to have a solution for everything that is wrong with our nation in the package of a single person. That sounds more like a King than an elected President with a functioning congress and courts - another Trump wannabe at best.
None of these aspirants have shown that they can broker compromise and bring disparate parties together in common cause. Therefore, We the People lost yet another debate. Given that the debates are really about advertising ratings and TV station revenues, we will always be the loser in these "debates."
5
Who in the world can broker a compromise with Mitch McConnell? Wishful thinking about a person as dangerous to the democratic process as Trump. His “ rules ‘ are an affront to the Constitution.
7
Gordon, have you ever tried to discuss ideas in context with a Trump loyalist, especially uneducated one? How can we be talking out brokering compromise with people whose political philosophy, whether inchoate or articulate, is antirational and counterfactual and conspiracist?
But maybe we could “broker” stuff with elected officials. You mean, Moscow Mitch McConnell will start bringing proposals—good OR bad—from a Democratic president to the Senate floor? (Pray God Amy McGrath beats him!) Do you think any deals can be brokered with Jim Jordan, whose very sleeves bespeak a preference for pugilism over reason?
Come on. The Democrats can only win by offering real people stark choice. This is not a time for temporizing or incrementalism. Court the moderates too eagerly and the 18-45-year-olds will stay home, and the result will be the temporary but awful reign of America’s fascist underbelly, followed by climate apocalypse. So, you know. No pressure.
2
Gordon, my comment was intended for George, not you—we agree. My bad: a typo/brainfart. You clearly get it!
1
Does anyone remember that just prior to the Democratic Convention in 2016 that all national polls showed Bernie Sanders beating Trump by a wide margin as compared with Hillary vs Trump. Ross, do you remember that?
5
A democratic candidate that is moderate enough to get votes from republicans who do not like Trump will also most likely cause the minorities and younger voters to be turned off. On the other hand a more liberal candidate may not attract the republican vote, but if he/she brings out the minorities and the young, wouldn't that lead to a better chance that the democrats win both houses of congress? The disaffected republicans may vote for a democratic nominee, but they are unlikely to vote for democrats for the congress.
5
@UponAMI
That’s a theory, but given how historically unreliable younger voters have been, it’s a real gamble. Also, mathematically, it’s better to flip the other party’s likely voters than to draw in fresh ones. Results not guaranteed either way.
Young leftist radicals will stay home and not vote for the moderates should they run in November. Older centrist moderates will mostly stay home or vote Republican if Warren/Sanders runs. So it is mostly a wash, but Trump will sneak through again if the dems run a radical against present health care. (which most people actually like presently)
These comment sections are virtually worthless in gauging public opinion because these sections are swamped by far angled leftists (for the most part)
Now let the haters commence. But- full disclosure- I don't read any replies- mine or others. Do yourself a favor and write your own comment in the main section. Replies- no one reads or cares about them. I know I don't.
4
The real progressives had concrete proposals; the moderates made word-shaped air, and so will Biden, whose record is also a problem. Hickenlooper: “I can get things done.” Delaney: “America will vote for a slightly upholstered worm corporate suit.” Bullock: “You’re peddling fantasy, even if my sentences don’t hang together.” Ryan: “I lack the charisma to defeat a potato, but I can beat Trump.”
Universal healthcare is a century-old and non-radical idea. Everyone knows legislation goes through a long process of vetting and implementation. Problems with existing bills could be fixed in legislative review. Implementation would or could be gradual. We know it can work because the rest of the civilized world does it, and for far less money. And what do our patriotic moderates do? Paint it as an effort to ROB Americans. Shame!
Decriminalizing immigration: here the format did not help. (It didn’t help, period.) Warren was saying that the legal lever that could justify caging children needed to be removed. She is right. Julián Castro was right last time, too. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make our legitimate points of entry safe venues for asylum seekers and legal process. Shame!
The Democrats need to lock arms and spit fire. Instead, they’re monomaniacs seeking self-aggrandizement and power. The candidates at center stage want to fight. Trump is a brawler. We need one too. You don’t bring a knife to a nuclear war.
Will Biden fight Trump as Bernie or Warren would? Please.
3
Universal healthcare is not single pay or or Medicate for all. If you stick to that, that’s fine. The rest sounds and is extreme.
Believe it or not, universal healthcare essentially meant “Medicare for All” when it was first seriously considered (long before Medicare existed). It’s entirely possible that we might have had it long ago, had it not been for World War I, the Depression, and the combination of Taylorism and Bernaysian propaganda that so grimly anticipated some of today’s deepest and darkest problems.
All of that said: I agree with you. Framing is everything here. And if people want to keep private insurance, why not let them? If the government system really worked as advertised, it would provide self-evident proof of concept and gradually those choosing private insurance would migrate over—and private insurance would die of natural causes, brought on by a number of preexisting conditions (enumerated by Warren last night).
Both Buttigieg and, I think, Harris are in the process of getting this right: Medicare for All Who Want It. Both, I think, want the bigger prize, but both want to do it gradually and to include the element of choice. American voters will want to feel that they retain their free choice, after all, though they ignore the countless ways they’re used to surrendering it in status quo American life, healthcare included.
Why aren’t people giving Buttigieg the credit he deserves for clarity on this issue? He was poised and sensible on healthcare and shares Warren and Sanders’ goals, tweaking only the means and the rhetoric of volition. Why didn’t that “click”? Sigh.
1
If Ross Douthat spent as much time, energy and effort advising the Republican Party on what they needed to do to regain moderation (and morality) as he does lecturing Democrats, perhaps Donald Trump would not be the Republican standard-bearer.
Douthat would be better served attending to the state of the Republican soul than worrying about Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, whose goals and policies are much more in line with Jesus's teachings than the Prosperity Gospelites' across the aisle.
9
Indeed! FDR once remarked that ideas quite similar to Warren’s and Sanders’—his own—were the logical extension of Christian ethics into political policy. The New Deal, he said, “is as old as Christian ethics, for basically its ethics are the same. It recognizes that man is his brother’s keeper, insists that the laborer is worthy of his hire, demands that justice shall rule the mighty as well as the weak.”
We need such vision at this hour!
The quotation from FDR appears in a book every American should be forced to read: Jill Lepore’s magisterial “These Truths: A History of the United States* (p. 430).
2
@MM,
That's a wonderful FDR quotation. Thank you for that gem, which encapsulates perfectly what I wanted to express. We certainly do need such vision as FDR's in this most difficult hour. If we have learned anything from our history we should be able to recognize the parallels between his era and ours and apply the neccessary remedies that he showed were possible.
Education is key and I concur that Jill Lepore's book is magisterial indeed and should be required reading. A foundation of facts that can move us forward...
P.S. I have a soft spot for Bound Brook - my first band practiced in a little studio there in the late '80s. I grew up in Highland Park :)
A thin argument. Just the Establishment trying to shore up its position.
“That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” (Christopher Hitchens)
9
I wish I could recommend this comment twice.
2
Anyone writing a comment saying they will stay home if Biden is nominated (or any other Democrat, for that matter) will be, if they follow through with that threat, complicit in the destruction of American democracy over the next five and a fraction years.
3
It is surpassingly silly that we are reading this stuff, more than a year away from the real auto da fe. Looking back, it will be apparent that the Democratic party made a terrible mistake in staging these cattle-calls--the only outcome is that each extreme candidate will, by the logic of progressivism, become even more extreme; voters will get VERY tired of the hair-splitting and other antics; and each candidate's followers will become even more entrenched in their views--which are based on morality, not practical "can they win" thinking. A disaster--sole beneficiary pundits and politico-cable shows.
3
In other words, for a Democrat to win, they must be centrist?
Republicans continue to win with increasingly far right candidates (i.e. Reagan, Bush II, Trump). Do we assume from these results that the country is increasingly moving to the right? Or does it simply mean that Republicans run true believers while Democrats run "realists" ? Isn't it about time for a Democratic true believer? I think it would improve their chances in this election in particular.
2
I don’t think we need true believers who yell loud because they think they have the moral high ground.
1
Very interesting analysis as to how one candidate can debate with another and advance the candidacy of a "bystander". Unfortunately we have a president who has sought to divide our country with seemingly racist remarks and policies. Many of us want to get back to the America we know and love, one where we regard each other as Americans. We need someone to pull us back together again, set our path right and be at peace with each other. Joe Biden recognized this early on, and I think has the key to uniting our country and all its peoples
2
The Dems are preoccupied rearranging the decks chairs while.......
Trump must go for the sake of our 243 year history, for the sake of the rest of the democratic nations of the world and (at the risk of sounding overly dramatic) maybe even for the sake of our planet as an viable ecosystem.
One thing everyone should be painfully aware of by now is that half of this country (almost) has conservative views. They will vote Trump even if they too can’t stomach the guy. There has to be a viable alternative and that alternative is good old plain white bread Joe Biden. An inconvenient truth, to borrow a phrase.
6
Ross, your right-wing bubbles are showing. Marianne Williamson did not win the debate in terms of rhetoric (the other two are entirely subjective, and I for one thought she was rather uncharismatic, but certainly an improvement on the 1st debate). She rejected any plan- or policy-having on its face, praised herself for inexperience, and refused to sully herself by descending to a level of analysis below 'dark psychic energy'. People who care about left-of-center policy will not be enthused, although people on the right are having a blast pretending she represents democratic ideas.
1
What you call moderates would in any other developed country be called conservative moderates.
6
After reading this I’m wondering if we watched the same debate? I don’t think Ross was interested in what the candidates actually said, instead he was looking for some kind of center ground from which to attack the Left.
Please, focus on the substance of the candidates policy and plans. This ‘be afraid of the leftist’ routine — while ignoring the candidates messages altogether — is not constructive. Those of us who have actually listened to the candidates messages can tell you missed the whole point.
6
The winners are the American people. This was an intelligent debate about policy with depth and passion, with valid points on all sides.
The contrast with Tweets, platitudes and outright lies (clean American air and water etc.) couldn’t be greater.
I look forward to what Biden, Harris et al have to say too.
6
Change, more Change, better Change, bolder Change, greater Change. Time after time, face after face, politicians promise Change. Any real Change? NO! Unfortunately, for the politician and even more unfortunately, for the average citizens, we are bounded by reality. Change without reality check is just empty promises and wishful thinking. So please, for a change, this time, don't talk about change, talk about reality. So, I choose to be a moderate with a vision (you can have both). A vision I know won't be realized in my lifetime but will become the reality one day.
1
I have read many highly-educated pundits' beliefs that the best way to beat Trump is by nominating a progressive, someone who excites the base to get out and vote. I respect these views and acknowledge the realism of them.
But I come from a different background, and have a different view of how Americans vote. As someone who studies cultural history, there is a long-standing tradition, dating all the way back to Washington, of the American people idealizing the president as a sort of father-figure: someone who will comfort us in times of crisis, who speaks calmly and compassionately, and who assures us that he'll take care of the troubles facing the nation so that we can go about our day without having to worry about politics. It didn't strike me just how prevalent this mentality was until I saw the deification of Robert Mueller--a stoic, straitlaced, suit-and-tie wearing older man--and how so many people were pinning their hopes on him coming in and cleaning up Trump's mess.
There have been exceptions to this in the past (John Kasich is arguable more of a traditional father figure than Trump is, yet he still lost the nomination), but there's no denying that Joe Biden is the most Dad-like person in American politics right now, and certainly of those running for president. At the end of the day, I find it very likely that voters will go with someone who assuages their fears in times of panic, rather than someone promising monumental change.
5
@Autumn
Good analysis. I've often had the same thoughts.
3
Biden is the oldest news out there other than Bernie Sanders. Biden cannot defend himself against Trump’s bombastic style and Bernie is a Progressive dreamer as is Warren. The Progressives have no chance of getting elected. The Democrats do not have a reasonable ability to get to the WH 2020. The sharpest candidate is 37 years old and gay.
3
Agree but he can’t win and has to get off the Electoral College issue.
Please Ross, stop with the advice. Fix your own party. Or start a new one. Democrats have been Republican lite for far too long.
6
Thanks, Ross Doubthat for confirming what I've known to be true all along: that the real reason there are so many impossible white man candidates in the Democratic Party is to overcome the alienation that many white men in the Democratic Party about Donald Trump, his Hitlerlike symbolism, and their ever-ending need to be seen as conscientious -- always it's about "soul" with the white dude Dems.
The white soul haunts even when its apparition manifests on day two.
Why in the world should Democrats let a person who holds no progressive views whatsoever choose our presidential candidate? This may come as a shock to Ross Douthat, but I honestly don't care what he thinks. If I did, I would belong to a different party.
5
@Kathleen Martin
The only "shock" here is that you seem to forget there are Democrats who may not be as "progressive" as you are, and who think the exact same thing about progressives.
At this point, if Democrats don't get it together to address both factions -- we'll be doomed to another four years of Trump.
2
It doesn't matter which one of the moderates or radicals wins the nomination. Most of the nation is focused on ridding ourselves of the curse word of a person shambling around the White House spending our tax dollars, insulting everyone and raising the debt. Health care pales next to the threat of a trump monarchy and an heir to the throne in Javanka.
Democrats and independents, and quite a few left behind republicans, will go to the polls and vote the bum out of office.
7
Biden only inspires my 73 year old neighbor who thinks more of the same ole is the best we can ever hope for.
No.
We can and will have to do better.
Bernie 2020!
9
I like Biden, but if you have to NOT be in the debate to win it, I think you might not be the best choice.
1
As a 76 year old Friday, Joe worries me. As a young man he would frequently get tongue tied. He's a solid candidate who has a history of doing himself real harm. Last night Delaney and Klobuchar did great. The writer lady was the most on point overall, Hikenlooper would be VERY hard for Trump to beat because he actually did the stuff Trump promised but never got done. The guy from WY also was surprisingly strong. Warren and Sanders have policy proposals that are "a bridge too far" to use a WWII maxim. Look for Tulsi Gabbard from HI to use her big brain to stun a few folks tonight. She is whip smart and courageous. Steyer needs to get on stage next round. Nice to see really qualified candidates discuss issues.
1
Of course Ross is here to sow division amongst the Democratic party like this.
4
You mean, Ross isn’t being paid by the oligarchy to promote a candidate who will protect their own interests and continue to send everyone else off the cliff?
Agree.
2
You know the U.S. is screwed up to some degree when you are considered a progressive when you want good affordable health care for everyone. In the rest of the world that's called business as usual.
9
What needs to be understood is that what the SP,MFA choices are not necessary for universal affordable healthcare and they won’t even deliver that in a quality fashion.
Based on the polls moderate voters have failed to find an alternative to Biden. Probably because he is a familiar name. However, when it comes to debates he clearly is not on the same level as Hillary Clinton and could fade due to poor performances. There are many candidate to the right of Warren and Sanders who could emerge, perhaps even if they don't qualify for the next debate but can still raise enough money to continue onto Iowa. If Biden fades anything can happen.
1
Ross Douthat you should have held on to this article until tonights debate. Everyone will be watching to see if Joe Biden can both keep up and possibly keep the lead among some really fast company. My guess is that he will not.
Still, i will strongly support any Democrat in 2020. I love Uncle Joe but am ready for big change.
1
There are too many random people running for the Democratic nomination to pay attention to what is essentially a large group discussion. When we have 6 or less still in the running, then I'll start paying attention. Hopefully we have a good progressive and a good moderate among them to choose from. The current state is just ridiculous.
2
@NJth101
With a year and a half to go, there's just too many advertising spots to sell to narrow it down this early. More debates, more backstabbing, more rivalry - it's kind of like the professional wrestling "battle royale" that starts with 20 wrestlers in the ring , winnows down to 4, then 2, and then only 1 left standing (except professional wrestling is much more interesting).
4
Sanders and Warren will lead us out of the destructive path we have been on during the past two years. We need to end tax breaks for the rich, racism, militarism, government corruption, destruction of the environmental, a failed education system etc. Voting for moderate Democrats like Biden will not take us there and will only result in another four years of Trump.
2
Not Biden, for heaven’s sake. Trump will wipe the floor with him. But that’s just one big downside. The other is he’s the backward-looking candidate, whose vision embraces what got into this mess—government of, by, and for special interests with lots of money. I won’t vote for him. (I won’t vote for Trump, either. I’ll abstain.)
3
Then you are voting for Trump. You don’t get to pick the choices, just one of them. If you don’t order anything on the menu you are leaving the restaurant with nothing.
1
If there is a better way to ensure the re-election of Donald Trump than nominating another individual who voted to invade Iraq, I am sure I don't know what it is.
1
Sadly, the Democrats have lost my vote. They appear a greater threat to the best interests of the American citizenry than Donald Trump. And that’s saying a lot....
7
One track to winning is winning over voters who voted for Trump in the last election. Another strategy is turning out a larger portion of left voters. I vote for that strategy.
2
I really like Warren, but Biden does look better to me after last night. Warren's refusal to say that middle class taxes won't increase under her plan for health insurance gave me pause. As a retiree already on Medicare, my 'total cost' will go up, not down as she stated. Not all of us in the middle are the same and Medicare isn't universally an improvement for everyone. I had excellent insurance through my employer with no monthly premium and good coverage for a 'traditional' PPO plan. It wasn't until I enrolled in Medicare that I ever had to pay out of pocket for health insurance and my Medicare Advantage plan coverage isn't as good as what I had. I'm not complaining. I was one of the fortunate members of the middle class, but I worked hard to get there also. Add in the cost of caring for the undocumented immigrants who would flock here under Warren and Sander's plans and the cost of free tuition and reparations for injustices that none of my ancestors committed and Biden looks better to me, despite his gaffes and his age.
7
The oligarchy thanks you.
1
@Lilly
It doesn't matter as long as it isn't Trump who thanks you .
2
@Penguin:
The middle class’ taxes will go up under Warren’s or Sanders’ plan, but:
1. All paycheck payouts to their present insurers would vanish.
2. All copays, surprise bills, uncovered portions, etc.? Gone.
Taxes go up, other costs go down, and the result is parity: only everyone is covered and no one has to beg a private insurer to cover prohibitively expensive meds. Why is this so hard to understand???
Will the “moderates” who ditched Hilary Clinton for Trump comeback for more moderation? Jus asking....
2
What a perfect example of horse-race handicapping by a GOP hack. The electorate has explicitly made clear that it's no longer interested in timid professions of allegiance to a "moderate" center that has been shoved far to the right. If Biden is nominated, far too many Democrats will sit on their hands and ensure a replay of 2016.
Democrats should attack Trump, not each other.
4
I agree. I ended up liked Bullock last night because he was a moderate and was honest about the cost of Bernie and Warren's proposals. I've always said the Dems should focus more on states like Montana and lo and behold, there he is. But I am a moderate. Bernie and Warren both give me a headache with all their shouting. Bernie seems full of anger at Wall Street but he never explains how he will pay for things. Or why he hasn't been able to get his proposals through Congress since he's been there. The Bernie supporters will rant at me in their typically angry way but us moderates have a right to speak our opinion in the USA.
5
Bullock and Delaney may as well be Republicans.
If you consider viewing the American people solely as prey for the increasing the wealth of the oligarchy, as the policies they promote do, then perhaps you are actually a Republican too.
As the Democratic candidate for president I will applaud him when he elects Hillary Clinton as his vice President!
2
Biden will get less votes than Hillary, Bernie with Warren or bust!@
3
@rupert
Biden 54%
Trump 43%
PENNSYLVANIA (Quinnipiac)
4
Biden is long past his prime.
We need new, MAJOR change in the country and the "old" ways won't cut it. We will miss the boat on green energy, climate change, and any chance for a better future.
We don't need 2012 again. We NEED a new 2021 and systemic changes for the future even if its a bumpy road at first.
Biden is a scardy-cat choice.
3
Per the moderates at last night's debate:
If Democrats struggling to win back union workers tell them the great healthcare they negotiated in lieu of a raise is going to be taken from them and that their taxes will go up to provide healthcare to all, including illegal immigrants...
We might as well say good-bye to 2020 right now.
9
Since we’re focused on the politics of addition, perhaps it’s worth keeping in mind that Joe Biden is 77 years-old right now. As far as I’m aware, that number is only going up from here.
Currently, the estimated average lifespan of an American is 78.69 years, and it’s been steadily declining in recent years. It’s not an unreasonable concern to think that a presidential candidate should probably be young enough so that dying while on the campaign trail isn’t their most glaring flaw.
1
I don't always agree with you Ross, but in this case, you're absolutely correct. But I don't want to see Biden carry the moderate mantle into the general election. I think the time has come for new, fresh ideas. I do hope Delaney, or Klobuchar or any of the other moderates does hang around. Bernie and Liz, along with Williamson, confirmed last night that they're my three least favorite Democrats. Having said that though, if the Philly Phanatic were to jump into the Democratic race and win the nomination, even he would have my vote come November 2020.
3
The socialist wing has no clue about health insurance reform (what they mistakenly call "healthcare"). Their simplistic bombast carries no credibility. Even Harris, who tried to back-peddle a bit is clueless. The PPACA is a complex law that deals with many facets of healthcare, true healthcare. We need to make this law stronger, not weaken it. Sadly, Bernie is trying to wave a magic wand and make us socialists -- we are not. Hopefully Joe Biden will carry us to sanity and rid us of this disease called trump.
5
Here’s a clue: Medicare for All isn’t socialism. Universal healthcare, guaranteed by the federal government, isn’t socialism any more than is providing for the common defense.
It’s quite arrogant to suppose Sanders doesn’t know the difference between single-payer and government-supplied healthcare. Of course Medicare isn’t the VA.
Maybe you mistakenly think making Medicare universal would be a policy mistake. Maybe you think it’s still a political loser. But give the rest of us who know better some credit. Guaranteeing payment to the doctor is guaranteeing healthcare as sure as guaranteeing nonpayment guarantees that care is denied.
4
This is the age of populism. Far left is like far right, both are populists one way or another. And for various reasons, they tend to win these days!
If you really think a “moderate” will be the next democratic candidate, well, then it is worth to pay a visit to the White House and see who is there!
2
Does anyone think the cadidates of color can resist painting him as a racist? Will Corey and Kamala try to peel of what's rightfully theirs? I think we know the answer.
1
Well since he is a racist, I think they should just let him speak for himself.
3
Ross is the embodiment of all that is wrong with "journalism" today. You had a group of intelligent people with serious proposals to address real problems. All Ross and the rest of the media can talk about is who "won." Pathetic.
21
It’s hilarious and rather touching how desperately the Times conservatives are hoping for a Biden nomination. All of them are constantly pleading with Democrats to nominate the solid Rockefeller Republican in the race. I don’t want to be rude and suggest that if Douthat, Brooks, and Stephens think Democrats should do something, Democrats would be nuts to listen, but what are the odds that they’re the best place to go to for advice?
13
so, if there were any doubt, Douthat wants Biden to be our first octogenarian President.
Steve Bullock actually won last night's debate.
1
@teoc2
The same could be said if it were Sanders, Warren or Trump when it comes to age -- but there's more to it than that.
Here we go....
The ruling class of this county, who dominate broadcast and print media, will relentlessly advise Democrats to be "less liberal", and more corportist, all while providing justification and support for the GOP's hard turn to the far, far right. They will tell you being bland and centrist wins elections, while they do exactly the opposite in order to get out the vote and win elections.
Wake up folks. Turn off the noise and listen to yourself.
13
Oh, please. Biden is Hillary Clinton without the spine.
7
@Jim K Clinton's favorable rating was underwater--more unfavorable than favorable.
Depending on the poll, Biden is up 32% higher favorable than unfavorable (NBC/WSJ Realclearpolitics).
4
Oh thanks much for the 247th Joe Biden campaign pamphlet coming from this paper. What all Democrats look for most, meanwhile, is advice from Republicans.
9
If the democrats run a "moderate" like Biden, I will not vote for them, although I would certainly vote for a candidate like Sanders or Warren. Maybe I'm the only one, but I have a feeling I'm not, and therefore I wonder if a "moderate" candidate really can beat Trump.
2
@American Dreamer I support Warren too, but this is very irresponsible. If you actually want Trump gone, and think it matters, you have to vote for the democratic nominee, whoever it is. Otherwise, you'll have to explain to the kids in cages that Biden just didn't float your boat, so they get another four years of Trump.
8
@American Dreamer
I don’t understand why people who want to challenge democrats from the left turn around and elect Republicans. We first have to elect Democrats before we can challenge them from the left.
4
@Nicholas Holten
Time to cut out the middleman.
1
I don't believe that Biden won last night. I think Marianne Williamson had a good night and was the most Google'd candidate. Not trying to be wonky but I just bought stock in essential oils and magic crystals. There is a lot of dark energy around the DNC right now and I believe Marianne has the strategy of love and compassion to root out all the hate from those vile Trump supporters.
2
My sons aged 22, 20 and 18 are voting Bernie and my 14 year old daughter knows no other candidate. Bernie is the most trusted American politician. He speaks to people's pain and anxieties and inspires because he's passionate and principled. No one under 30 remembers Biden. Bernie 2020.
16
@Maureen Oh how heartwarming and encouraging is your comment!
2
What the progressive/left doesn't take into consideration is the fact that the majority of Democrats do not fall into that group, and no matter how bold and egalitarian they may think their plans are, if they are either unwilling or unable to find a way to meet them half way they'll never win their votes.
The fact remains that moderates make up the majority of the party no matter how many expletives about them being "center-Republicans" are thrown at them.
And at this point, the only winning ticket would be one that somehow manages to represent them both.
4
Explain to me the moderate Democrat who would pull the lever for Trump over Warren.
Why would anyone do that? Because they’re afraid of losing their private health insurance?
I think in the past neoliberal Democrats were as afraid of tax hikes as Republicans. Warren doesn’t promise higher taxes on most people, not after allowing for savings from foregone insurance premiums. So it’s hard to see what threat she represents to their prosperity. In direct contrast to Trump.
1
@James K. Lowden
Since I'm not a Democrat who would pull the lever for Trump over Warren, I can't answer your question.
But it's foolish to think there that aren't Democrats like that out there.
I totally agree. I think Ryan, a strong supporter of unions, would make the best "attack dog" for Biden.
1
So Biden needs a moderate attack dog to do his dirty work tonight. Since I don;t have a clue who some of the Democratic candidates are, I am guessing that will be Michael Bennet, unless he turns out to be as colorless as his fellow Coloradan, Gov. Hickenloooper.
2
Though I laughed at Marianne Williamson after the first debate, I though she delivered some dynamite this debate. Though not ready for the presidency, if we developed a Peace Department, she should head it.
2
And Trump is worried.
4
Warren should announce Al Franken as her running mate. It'll crush Klobuchar and paint Gillibrand as a one note single issue candidate and give Warren a powerful boost as Al was more center of the spectrum.
4
@On Therideau
That's a good idea. I was hoping for a Warren/Harris ticket, but I think Al Franken would be better. He would appeal to lots of different voters for lots of different reasons.
3
@On Therideau If Al is on the ticket I will vote early and eagerly. I love Al. He is my favorite and is honest. But the Republicans will tear him apart (as they also tear everyone else apart). I will vote for any Democrat. Trump is ruining this country. We need a voice of sanit.
It's obvious to me that Ross and other conservative never Trumpers want a center right democrat to run against Trump. Biden fits the bill. He will lose if he runs. Elizabeth Warren is my woman or should have I said my choice?
6
@scott k.
Trust me. If "conservative never Trumpers" is what it takes to get this man out of the White House -- I'm all for it.
At least there's a better chance to put a progressive agenda forward with them over Republicans.
And anyone who doesn't realize that will find out the hard way … AGAIN.
1
If Joe Biden is selected as the Democratic Party nominee for the White House -- God forbid --, Donald Trump will be reelected.
Reason: we will lose the enthusiasm needed for a Democratic victory.
As a well-wisher of the Dems and strong supporter of their causes, I request both, Joe and Bernie, to withdraw and enjoy their retirement -- and our thanks and love.
5
@Malek Towghi
If four more years of Donald Trump doesn't inspire enthusiasm for a democratic victory, then the democrats will only have themselves to blame. Sorry folks, but Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are not a fortress of progressive liberals. We need these states, especially independents and moderates, to get 270 electoral votes. Sounds like the same petulant voices that threw a hissy fit in 2016 will throw another one in 2020 if their candidate does not win the nomination, and hence, hand Trump another term on a silver platter. Cutting your nose to spite your face is not a winning strategy.
@dba enthusiasm is always more effectively generated for something than against something.
1
Elizabeth Warren for President. Bernie did a great job last night also. But I favor Warren. Maybe a Warren/Sanders ticket?
12
The latest polls of registered voters have several Democratic candidates beating Trump in Texas, which is quite astounding. But Biden is not one of them.
356
@W:
He doesn't have to be, he's ahead in the rest of the country. It comes down to; which party is going to take away my healthcare and which is going to fix and improve Obamacare.
36
@W Won't need Texas. The Midwest Firewall is about it.
11
@W
The only thing that should tell you is don't trust polls because they all skew differently.
And remember.
Polls didn't see Trump winning in 2016, either.
32
At this point, I do not know what to think. We have to let this play out and listen to the voters' voices who will be first up in the primaries. We will get more perspective as to Democratic leanings. Personally, I am rooting for Kamala Harris. She is progressive enough while not leaning too much to the left of the spectrum as Sanders and Warren do. Regarding moderates, I just wish more time were given to governors Bullock and Hickenlooper. The first is a Democrat in a Red state. The latter successfully led Colorado from "Purple" to "Blue." That is not to be taken lightly. We shall see, however. As Ross writes, Biden was very likely helped last night. Frankly, I am so desperate to send Trump packing and back to his tarnished Golden Tower with his McDonald's and fries, I would vote for any one of these candidates. They are so superior to this fool in the Oval Office, so much more intelligent and ethical and moral. Mostly, however, they are sane. Trump is imploding in front of our eyes...beyond soul, beyond heart, beyond reasoning.
5
Has anyone noticed that moderate Republican-Light Democrats lose general elections?
Every time a Democrat tries to put themselves forward as a lesser Republican, liberals don't vote and moderates vote for the Republican.
Are Democrats NEVER going to learn this lesson?
Trump has lost a pivotal portion of the support he had in the 2016 general election. He can't get it back.
His remaining, shrinking base isn't big enough to reelect him in 2020 no matter how extreme he tries to be.
The key to victory in 2020 is not to be a lesser evil (moderate), the key to victory in 2020 is to be a clearly different alternative to Trump.
The farther away from Trump a candidate can be, the better.
America is looking for change. Trump picked their pockets.
They're going to vote for someone else.
4
@S Butler
All, that's every single one, of the seats the Democrats gained from the Republicans in the house in the last election were with moderate Democratic candidates.
4
@S Butler
Obama was a moderate Democrat.
4
So-called moderate Republicans back Trump 100 percent (they're afraid not to). That makes them Trumpers'. They can't go back. Many of them will lose in 2020 for just that reason.
Your so-called moderate Democrats are voting with the liberals. That makes them liberal no matter what YOU thought they were.
1
It still comes down to who is going to take our healthcare away from us and who is going to save and fix Obamacare?
4
Early polls are notoriously fickle. Why do so many pundits base all their commentary on polls? For heaven's sake, make some comments on your observations about the candidates' policies or qualities, that's your job. It's not to simply repeat polling data...
4
Douthat must be a plant for the GOP. Dems ran the female version of Joe Biden in 2016. For some hard-to-fathom reason the Dem playbook from the Clinton 1990s didn't sell to a lot of people struggling with the fall out from those years: impact of NAFTA, workfare, ongoing financialization of the economy, falling real wages, ongoing support for preposterously huge military budgets, and so on. Those folks went for a candidate who seemed to offer genuine change: Donald Trump (who already had a base of radically white wing, I mean right wing, supporters lined up). Why can't the Dems learn? The Republicans supported their repugnant candidate when it was clear he would win; the Democrats undermined their strongest candidate.
3
“Moderate”,”moderate”, moderate” can anyone here write an article about the democratic candidate without saying this? Seems the media wants this narrative, and how I read/see it , they want trump to win. Start talking about the issues! Do you think people voted for trump because he’s a moderate? How about talk to those voters then were for Bernie & then voted for trump. Why is that ? Maybe get out of your bubble & start talking to Americans. How’s that healthcare working out for them, the one they desperately need to hold on to? It needs to be addressed! Bold ideas. That’s how you get things moving. We have some serious issues in our country right now, we need a visionary not a moderate.
8
The 'moderation' argument is relentlessly pursued by the establishment wing of the democratic party so they could continue staying in power and milking the country.
In the meantime, republicans are now so far to the right, most of them are unpatriotic and treasonous. Don't even get me started on Trump. He is a thief, liar and has broken all presidential norms. The republican congress has stacked the judiciary with not just conservative, but impartial and less than qualified judges.
On top of this, the establishment wants you to be moderate. I don't think so. Go as far left as needed to restore democracy and social and civil rights of the United States citizens. We will accept nothing less.
12
The current polls may show otherwise, but the Dems may be making a mistake sending another insider (Biden) to challenge Donald Trump.
"He’s holding 30 percent of the primary electorate" until his next gaffe.
I'm not too worried though.
Elizabeth Warren is going to outshine him when they finally share the stage.
4
The comments on these types pieces continually demonstrate the sound credibility of the horseshoe theory of politics. So many "progressives" tearing this article to shreds sound like the Trump cult: disdain for the mainstream media (e.g. "I wish the NYT would stop pushing Biden's candidacy"), belief in unfounded conspiracy theories (e.g. "the Democratic establishment is conspiring to give Biden the nomination, just like they did in 2016"), unquestioning need for ideological purity (e.g. "Biden is Republican-lite and I would rather vote for Bill Weld").
If you are on the farther edges of the left wing and your preferred candidate does not win the primary, will you commit to voting for the Democratic nominee? Or will you take the ball and run home, blaming the loss on a "rigged" process?
If you consider yourself anywhere to the left of Trump and his GOP reactionaries, it is your moral imperative to do the former.
4
@David Disdain for corporate mainstream media is not within the exclusive domain of Trump and his supporters. The disdain is widespread and based on well founded concerns over an industry dominated by a handful of giant self interested corporations. If I recall correctly, it was the mainstream media that gave Trump millions of dollars worth of free airtime whenever he held a press event or opened his mouth, primarily because it increased their ratings.
5
@David
It is YOUR moral imperative to back a progressive so we don’t lose like last time?
Do you even care about your children or the future of the world? Hillary and her ego rolled the dice and lost. We tried that. New plan!
1
Why do you establishment people hang desperately on to well known corrupt, do nothing for regular people, work only for the benefit of corporations and the one percent kind of candidates. Joe Biden is your man Ross?? The moderate message is right wing talking points. Actually creating a fair, not free, playing field for regular people is just a bridge way too far for you huh? Get off your elite pony and care about the masses who have been abandoned by both parties for nigh upon 40 years. Biden will speak softly and carry on supporting things like bank deregulations and insist the fraudulent student loans be paid and admonish young people for wanting at least the chances he had as a young man. He will support insurance companies to go on gouging people and letting them die a lot. He will let the planet burn up and us with it with his tepid and stupid 50 year plan. But hey he somehow mysteriously makes you feel safe? Biden is such a fool alone about reaching across the aisle and doing what the republicans want which is not all that different that the corporate Dems. Why should it be when they have the same donors calling the shots.. If you could only wake up from your moderate bubble. You are actually following the big donors' orders. They still get to pillage the USA no matter who wins, oh except if Bernie or Elizabeth win. Yep they will not put up with the corruption. So here is to the moderates who are digging their own most people's graves.
1
Now, with the first part of the debate show done, let the spin begin!
Apparently, responsible citizens must make their decision based on the reality show of the debate and the spin of “experts” such as the writer. And people wonder why Trump is president?!
2
I completely disagree. And, as a younger voter, I can guarantee I will not vote for Biden. He's way too old. He's way to establishment. He's way too out of touch.
Voting for Biden is basically voting for the status quo minus Trump.
6
@kz - I already voted for Biden twice. I'm still Hoping the war in Afghanistan will Change and come to and end. Still waiting for the closing of Gitmo.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Joe Biden, a former U.S. vice president and Democratic presidential candidate, compared Republican President Donald Trump on Friday to the late George Wallace, a prominent supporter of racial segregation.
"I think the Democratic Party could stand a liberal George Wallace — someone who's not afraid to stand up and offend people, someone who wouldn't pander but would say what the American people know in their gut is right,” Biden told the Philadelphia Enquirer on Oct. 12, 1975, referring to the racist then-Alabama governor.
This is the best the DNC has????????????
1
Fall 2020 is light years away. Don’t waste your energy figuring out what’s going to happen then. How many commenters here who see a Biden nomination as a loss will not vote for him vs. Trump?
Why is it that Republicans, like Mr. Douthat, think Democrats care what they think? We don't.
The loser last night was CNN. What they did was shameful. I guess I didn't realize that Rupert Murdoch owned the company.
4
Democrats nominated the moderate in 2016. The result? Donald J Trump is President of the United States of America.
7
Not the debate I saw. Warren and Sanders won it handily: Biden just seemed more the dead-end middle to me.
9
Most middle class Americans, with husband/wife working. raising kids, paying mortgages, car payments, will be super disappointed by the position the Liberals are taking.
Most of the candidates are not addressing any kitchen table issue. Instead they seem keen to up each other on protecting border crossing, asylum seekers.
They want to up each other in offering best health care to the above segment, and wager amounts to be paid as "reparations" to the Black community.
All examples the candidates talked of last nite had a Hispanic last name, a segment that does not pay taxes or dues when compared to other ethnic citizens like Chinese, Indians or Jews.
Trump is not the ideal GOP, mainstream folks like me would prefer a Kasich, Romney, Bush..But last night predicted one thing. Dems do not have a candidate to win this..
3
@Gyns D
I know it’s hard to believe, but many middle class Americans pay mortgages, raise children, care about “kitchen table” issues like universal healthcare and climate change.
We also vote for progressives, and raise our children not to demonize and hate “others”. We pray that someday you will do the same.
Where are all the " last night's debate is why Ivanka will win in 2024 and 2028" takes ?
2
Why does the NY Times so aggressively promote centrist Democrat party lines?
Republicans are changing government so dramatically that a centrist attitude will not undo all of the Republican changes nor will it change the way of life for our young kids.
We ought to think about a revolution, but no, the NY Times and people like Ross, want you to take it slow, very slow.
Warren and Sanders have the courage and long term thinking to promote real changes.
6
Dear Conservative Republicans Offering Advice to Dems,
No thanks.
Sincerely,
A democratic voter
123
@Dan B:
Do you really think Douthat would vote for and support Trump against Biden?
2
@PL
Absolutely. His ONLY issue is Abortion.
Seriously.
13
Trump KOs Biden 2 minutes in the 3rd round.
5
@New World
Biden 50%
Trump 42%
IN OHIO (Quinnipiac)
5
I refuse to take conservative pundit Ross Douthat's opinion as anything other then yet another attempt to stir up and divide Democratic voters with candidate on candidate memes.
13
@Chuck Democrats are already stirred up and divided.
1
It seemed to me that John Delaney was being used by the moderators as a stand-in for Biden, and he got bodied. Delaney (and Klobuchar, Ryan, Hickenlooper, Bullock, O'Rourke) didn't provide ideas so much as flaccid excuses for not championing morally necessary, popular policies. This is especially true for M4A: universal healthcare has worked in dozens of countries for decades. It's caught on so fast in the US, the health insurance industry has launched a coordinated effort to water down enthusiasm (i.e. massive middle class tax hikes, losing your doctor, carting off grandma if she's too expensive to treat)
Warren and Sanders successfully laid out their case against the moderates and the moderators. They're correct that Americans are hungry for structural change. It's especially mystifying to me how anyone concluded after 2016 that Democrats should play it safe, or else. If I remember correctly, our candidate played it quite safe within establishment lines. Of course, she was done in by gerrymandering and the EC, but those are very much still in place, and the appetite for change is unabated.
From last night's debate, we saw two leaders pushing for substantive, inspiring ideas to make America a more humane country, and a gaggle of unserious Serious People trying and failing to swat them down. Warren or Sanders 2020, please.
9
@Ted B Gerrymandering has no electoral effect on Presidential nominees, only on congressional district candidates and issues.
1
@Ted B
Americans may be "hungry for structural change" but are they willing to pay for it? Notice that all countries with single payer/single payer plus private health care systems have much higher rates of personal tax than the U.S. That's because such systems cost plenty and citizens must pay for them. Still waiting to hear a full account of how progressives intend to pay for a single payer U.S. system. And a 'wealth tax' wont cut it. Oh and how are all the other freebies going to be funded? Lets at least have an honest answer of that! Americans value choice above all other things - dont try to take it away from them - they cant handle it!
2
@Ted B
Give medicare to all that need it.
I'd rather keep my insurance.
Not inspiring ideas, rather 60s ideas that will never pass in congress
And free tuition for all? really, for Bezos kids as well?
gimme a break
It is so early who cares - time to follow the candidates in 2020 - maybe one reason Americans are disgusted with politics is that it is all the time and campaigns seem to run all the time. Why not wait till Jan. 1, 2020 to follow it?
2
I can see why polling is important, and the Left needs to be careful of underestimating the specter of "socialism" as a term. Nevertheless, I think pieces like this under-estimate election politics v. governing politics. Biden has struggled running for office beyond his traditional seat, is famous for misstatements and sometimes awkward machismo, and his long record as a Washington insider is already causing issues, including the fact that his pivot to the more leftward views feels insincere and scripted. His policies, like Clinton's, are more realistic and doable, but as Trump showed, most voters do not care about that; they vote out of feeling tempered by thought, not wonkiness. Conversely, Warren and others showed direction, conviction, vision, clarity of mind, and hope in the debate. I feel like Democrats may again pick a Clinton-Kaine 2.0, a ticket that feels safe and "moderate," alienating passionate Democrats and disillusioned outsiders--and failing to get enough fickle moderates to make up the difference.
2
Biden is a loser. He is too old, has said too many stupid things, been too touchy with too many women, and looks crispy around the edges... like Santa Claus just before he takes his nap. He is beginning his long trajectory downward to Iowa where he will lose and spiral out of site.
What last night's debate showed is that there is a centrist platform developing in the Democratic Party, one which will be taken up by the next generation.... watch Kamala eat Biden's lunch tonight. No matter what Sleepy Joe does, he can't escape the fact that his time has past.
7
To me, it was actually John Kerry who won the debate. Oh wait....
Biden - attractive as warm beer and cold pizza.
28
@Marty Rowland, Ph.D., P.E.
John Adams wasn't "attractive" either
Maybe the problem is that CNN had made people care more about electricity and attractiveness than resolve and command
3
@Marty Rowland, Ph.D., P.E. Must be why he does so well in Pennsylvania, where I grew up. I call it "Pizzamania".
1
Biden falls apart when he debates other Democrats. When Biden has to debate President Trump he will really fall apart. Biden is really great when he does not show up--says it all.
10
@Jonathan
I bet you think Palin & Paul Ryan wiped the floor with him
4
Remember back to 2008 when the GOP quickly assumed John McCain was the most qualified candidate without much of a fight or vetting process? It was “his time” and he was due the nomination as the safest, most respected, and most centrist bet to follow a highly unpopular outgoing president. The primaries were over early for the Republicans, which ended up greatly benefitting the Dems who got a lot more time in the spotlight and focus on substance.
Let us not make the same mistake by coronating Biden too soon. Let us also not forget that Biden was weeded out in that primary as well. Let us not suffer from nostalgia and fear. A lengthy, drawn out, substantive debate will benefit everyone, keep Trump guessing, and draw the American people into the discussion. Let us learn from the failed playbooks of recent history.
Let’s trust the American people to make the best decision. They did in 2008.
18
@CJ what about in 2016?
2
@Talbot I think that the Dems had coronated HRC by writing off Bernie, and the GOP ended up going bold as a result of a protracted primary where most of the GOP candidates ending up looking the same as each other.
I think Americans DO go for bold. Obama was incredibly bold for this country, as was Trump. Folks are reacting positively to Warren and Sanders because they are grounded in their convictions. You don't have to agree with everything a person believes to want that person to represent you. It's the willingness to have conviction that makes the difference, I think.
@Talbot
Oh I see...Best decision? Ha. Well, since I'm a democrat, I'm don't trust the GOP to make a good decision. And they validated that.
Williamson is in another planet.
As to Sanders, and Warren, I don't see how they won.
The Medicare for all idea leaves many behind. When medicine in urban areas is moving to concierge service so that those that want can have better access to medical care they are proposing that over 100 million Americans loose their insurance.
So, to be clear, people can buy luxury cars, jewelry, a full island, spa for their pets, but you would not be allowed to spend your earned money in medical care?
Besides, it will never pass.
And tuition free for rich people, the CEOs of Silicon Valley but no talk of aiding K-12 so poor kids can make it to even apply to college? Pay them for tutors, better teachers, I will be happy to pay more taxes for that. It will bring a more equal society but not old fashioned socialism from the 60s
1
I'm going to vote Democrat no matter what, but platforms that appear to get rid of all private insurance, decriminalize illegal entry, provide free college, forgive all students debt, etc., make me very nervous. They're all smart and worthy objectives, but the voters we need to defeat Trump live in the Electoral College, not Blue States. They're not going to see these as rational solutions to big problems; they're going to view them as a violations of their sense of fairness, of things being taken away from them by coastal elites. These perceptions may be 100% wrong, but right/wrong isn't the issue.
I fear that regular readers of the Times, Post, etc. (as I am) tend to think the political opinions they hear from those around them or read in the Twitterverse are representative of the American electorate (except for the Deep South, of course). They're not. The people who are most likely to vote in the states we need to win don't want "revolutionary" changes. They want things fixed incrementally. Yes, it's arguably business-as-usual and progress-at-the-edges, but I think it's the picture the candidates will need to create.
This election is different than any other I've seen in my 70 years. We can't afford to dig in our heels about platforms that "don't do enough." We've to get Trump out of the White House. That's got to be goal #1. The close goal #2 has to be winning the Senate. Nothing happens without at least one of these things. Nothing.
21
@Longtime Dem "the voters we need to defeat Trump live in the Electoral College, not Blue States. They're not going to see these as rational solutions to big problems; they're going to view them as a violations of their sense of fairness."
Great point about sense of fairness and about electoral college. While a higher turnout among African Americans can switch some of Trump's 2016 wins, the ones who didn't vote are not necessarily Warren/Bernie liberals.
3
Bernie and Elizabeth both showed their fighting spirit and bold ideas. The rest of the field paled, except for Marianne Williamson who was the spiritual and psychological voice.
Joe Biden won nothing, he seems a weak shadow compared to these strong frontrunners.
30
@Citizen
The most sensible, cogent reply on this thread.
9
"Every front-runner can benefit from having an attack dog on his side, savaging his rivals while he stays a little more above the fray."
Of course the most liberal candidates appeared last night. I hate to break it to you, Ross, but Harris is likelly to tack towards the center (where she really belongs, given her resume) and thus becomes a really interesting rival to Biden.
Booker too may be a rival, but I don't think he has the toughness Harris has. I wish Biden had faced at least one of the magic couple last night, because it would have provided a truer test of his ability to make the moderate case over the really progressive one.
I'm sure Team Biden is just hoping that Joe doesn't look as lost and dazed as he did in the first debate. If so, he might fall precipitously, because it's hard to imagine him taking on Trump if he can't parry a Democratic rival.
9
It seems like the "radical" left-wingers have the GOP crowd scared. Next time you want more moderate views, maybe do not elect people like Trump or Mitch McConnell. The backlash is coming. That is what the GOP wanted and that is what they should be served. We need to balance the books. A moderate vs. Trump would still leave the country too close to the extreme right.
8
@The Hawk That is it exactly, Hawk.
1
Dear Mr. Douthat:
Your eviction from the Democratic Party is forthcoming. Please adjust your future housing plans accordingly.
As the working class and its 'radical' agenda of a living wage, healthcare as a right, etc. increases strength and reclaims the Democratic Party over the coming years, I suggest you and other 'moderates,' including many in the Democratic establishment, retake your old home in the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party. It's filled with cobwebs and is a real fixer upper, but it is a comfortable home with strong foundation in a neighborhood that used to be pleasant - before it was overrun with the right wing, anti-worker corporatists that have come to dominate the GOP for the past 40 years. Please go back and retake your neighborhood, you have no power here.
Yours truly,
Ordinary, everyday Americans who believe in social democracy over greed.
54
@people power
Excellent post!
5
@people power I don't think Douthat is or ever was a Democrat...
3
@tony zito
Mostly he’s just a provocateur.
Well, it’s a living.
2
I hear this nearly every presidential election cycle: the primary dogfights are so vicious that the candidate who comes thru it will be too tattered to mount an effective attack during the main event: Republican vs. Democrat.
I don't want to seem glib, primaries do discredit even the winner to some extent. But I can't recall one instance where the winner of either the Republican or Democrat primaries hasn't been able to bounce back. In this time of such polarized politics, such a bounce-back would be a slam dunk.
@john clagett, well, there was that one lady, whatsherface? She ran recently. Can’t recall her name...
1
With Trump's level of unpopularity, it is taking creativity on the part of Democrats to get him reelected. But by Jove I think Warren and Sanders have figured it out! Medicare for all! Americans will fear DMV like medical care experience and flock to Trump. Wow!
3
@CGB I agree with you post 99%: I would change only one word in your first sentence, and precisely this:
"With Trump's level of unpopularity.." with;
"With Trump's level of POPULARITY"
"Biden won." That's an unexpected headline. Actually, during and after the debate last night, I had forgotten about Biden. Does that say something about Biden? Policy aside, I saw so much energy last night, It's hard to fit Biden into that picture.
35
That' the thing about Joe Biden. He's better in the abstract - he wins the debate he's not at, but struggles when he's actually there.
30
@Wilbur Clark
Because they are voting for a place holder to keep their looting of the treasury. Biden made it abundantly clear he will let the republicans sail to brighter pastures after Trumps misadventures.
He sees Trump not as the canary in the coal mine but simply a fluke. How can he address real fundamental issues revealed by Trump if he believes it’s just bad luck and nothing needs to change.
1
What's with all the left, moderate, progressive labeling? It's a lazy way to distinguish the candidates as it avoids objectively considering their substantive positions. It's this simple minded, empty labeling that has given us Trump and the bizarre notion that everything is back on track.
3
After seeing Marianne Williamson's flash in the 10-candidate panel last night, I decided to look her up. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_Williamson
This is not the resume for a president, but, rather, compliments the present one.
After reading that resume, I was reminded of the character of Reno Sweeney (evangelist and nightclub singer), portrayed by Ethel Merman in Porter's "Anything Goes." I was also reminded of someone closer in time, the playwright Claudia Shear, specifically her play "Blown Sideways through Life," not to mention the song "I'm Still Here" from Sondheim's "Follies."
None of this makers for presidential timber, but sure generates noise. As the old saying goes, "A broken clock is correct twice daily."
It is all too easy to call out problem areas and propose the beginnings of solutions to gull those who can't--or won't--think.
1
@Carl Ian Schwartz I almost forgot to add that I wonder who put Williamson up for this, and who's paying her fare, so to speak. More "weapons of mass distraction" courtesy of "reality" TV?
Thanks for the advice, Ross. I’ll file that right next to my plans for becoming a MAGA fan.
Sad.
18
Sure. Give us Joe Biden, "Democratic" National Committee, and see Millennials stay home on Election Day.
(Well, it IS a Tuesday.)
Go, trump?
13
@Willy P - It'd be just like them to take their collective ball and go home if they didn't get the candidate of their choice. Any one of the current Democratic candidates would be better than Donald Trump. And yes, I realize that's not saying much. Even I would be a better president than Donald Trump.
4
@Christopher M
They owe their precious Vote soley to the Caniditae who EARNS it.
This is 'sposed to be a Meritocracy, remember?
1
@Christopher M. " It'd be just like them to take their collective ball and go home if they didn't get the candidate of their choice." I'm actually pretty concerned that "moderate" democrats will do that if Biden is not the candidate.
1
All the Opinion Columns at the NYTimes span the range of Neoliberal to Neocon thus different flavors of pro-corporations. None support Medicare for All for example which is supported by the majority of people. Just like CNN showed commercials by Big Pharma and the Insurance Corporations during and after the debate, just like this papers advertisers and donors to politicians whose those campaigns are Medicare for All.
15
VP Joe Biden is clearly the only person who can beat Trump and who will! I am solidly in his camp and that is with full knowledge of his "vulnerability" with regard to his son, Hunter's, activities and Biden's refusal to "disown" him. I would like to see a "Biden/Warren 2020" ticket; I think that she can provide him with good ideas both for campaigning and for governing and I believe he will be open to them. They will be better than Obama was able be, a lot better! They might even sweep in a Democratic Congress, Senate and all!
5
@Meyer - Or Biden/Harris
3
"he might need an attack dog because he "simply isn’t quick or supple enough for onstage combat anymore". I remember in a former debate Biden was encouraged to criticize fellow Democrats. He said something like, "I'm not going to do that because these people are my friends." A noble but sometimes inarticulate man had to be blindsided by Kamala Harris, a friend of his deceased son, Beau and someone who had asked him to introduce her in her campaign for Senator. It had to shock the senses when she attacked him for his pragmatic stance on bussing. Since Biden has the best chance of all the Democrats to oust Trump let's hope he can deflect the attacks that are bound to come tonight and maintain his reputation as a uniter and not a divider. In my opinion whoever the eventual nominee is should win on his or her own merits and not by an attack of another Democrat. I hope Joe tells them that.
5
As long as Democratic candidates are having serious discussions about reparations, decriminalizing illegal entry into the U.S., free healthcare for illegal aliens, free college for illegal aliens, and paying off student loans (and all of these ideas were celebrated last night), they are destined to lose.
16
Until last night, I have not thought favorably of Elizabeth Warren. That's changed. She has developed a voice and presence that is compelling. I've been in Joe's corner all along, but I have to say he has some work cut out for him. After last night, I don't think anybody running, except Joe, can hold a candle to Elizabeth Warren. He needs to show some fire tonight.
5
@John
I doubt it. She kept telling "I know how to fight and I know how to win" Really ??? Has she already forgotten Pocahontas ?
1
Warren won last night.
65
@99percent Respectfully, I think she lost bigtime, by siding with the 'Socialist' Bernie on Health Care.
They are demanding that we get rid of Obamacare and take away everyone's private insurance, forcing us all into a government run health program. Huh? That's almost Orwellian. And probably the most efficient way to lose in 2020.
2
I don’t think we’ve seen the full extent of Buttigieg’s incredibly smart spit-fire just yet. I believe some of the strongest and smartest candidates are like best race horses....holding back a bit. Will the Dems.nominate a gay candidate? I fear the party will quietly see that as a liability BUT no one ever believed same sex marriage would pass either. Besides, today all walks of life in this country, from wealthy to poor, have openly gay friends, children and family members. Pete is one hell of a strong candidate. Still very early folks.
7
CNN won. Trump won. Republicans, whatever, won. Biden didn’t win. Nobody on that stage won. And, nobody that matters will “win” tonight. A debate? I support gun control. Me too. I believe climate change is a real threat. So do I. Everybody should have health care. Yup. I believe in real middle class tax reform. Right on! There should be a federally mandated minimum wage. Amen. A debate? The winner should be the person who was the most creative in finding a difference of opinion that doesn’t exist! Make these things really TV worthy...vote several of yourselves off the island!
2
Democrats like me who consider ourselves moderates should recognize that what Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are pushing for healthcare is a reaction to Republicans fight against Obamacare and healthcare in general. They came within one vote of killing Obamacare in 2017. A case brought by Republicans is now moving towards SCOTUS that may very well be the end of Obamacare. So, this really isn't a case of left-wing radicals vs. moderate Democrats like Joe Biden. So, candidates like Ryan who claim to want to protect autoworkers in Michigan are throwing the rest of America under the bus. In my heart, I favor shoring up Obamacare's weaknesses. In my head, I know that Republicans will give their first born to kill Obamacare. That is radical, not Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. So, moderates, what's your strategy when we nominate a moderate like Biden and SCOTUS kills Obamacare?
10
Why, Why, Why, were there no American flags at last nights debate. The DNC is actually encouraging the GOP to call them anti-American when they do stuff like this.
4
@RS
Unfortunately so many Americans are that superficial and will make that the takeaway
1
@RS
What do you mean, "no American flags?" They presented the colors and had the national anthem.
1
Biden’s at 30 per cent in the polls. After 2016, how anyone can assign a measure of validity to a poll is beyond me.
People vote for change, something new. Biden is neither, and if
Democrats are foolish enough to nominate him it will be at theirs, and all Americans’ peril.
7
@Shiva
Except that the 2016 polls were statistically accurate within their margin of error.
1
Whether Biden won is too hard to tell really.
I would agree that the idea to roll out a new plan in pieces, provide healthcare options and not take away existing insurance is gaining momentum.
Delaney, Klobuchar and others(Biden) tonight will be expanding that message and I think it is a winner.
Tim Ryan made it clear that his base in Ohio may be scared to vote for a Democratic President promising something better than what they currently have.
If we’ve learned nothing we need to understand that people want options when it comes to their healthcare and not have the plan they have now be forcibly removed.
With a more moderate stance on healthcare I think Sen. Warren would gain the nomination- even over Biden. If Warren stays the current path, who knows?
3
No he didn't. Biden has to win the one tonight, on his own.
I'm a bit suspicious. Do you also dislike Medicare for the Older Set? Do you have stock in insurance companies?
No one really thinks Americans love insurance companies. The reasons for hating them, as Sanders and Warren pointed out, are quite numerous.
Americans want Medicare for All. If Sanders' critics would endorse the concept Federal Plans, we could have a conversation but right now Delaney et al sound like they don't want universal care.
If an old fashioned Republican is the ticket to beat Trump, I would prefer Bill Weld.
6
Well, they were terrible.
2
God help us. If Biden wins, Trump will chew him up and litter the stage with little pieces of him. He will eviscerate him, I have no doubt whatsoever, and we should kiss our planet, and what is left of our democracy, goodbye.
This debate was a despicable example of corporate media and corporate Dems targeting and trying to bring down true progressives and I don't think it worked. But, the intent was to weaken progressive voices - the only voices, in my opinion, who have a change to win against Trump.
Shameful spectacle.
7
@Maria
No you are fooling yourself if you believe Americans will vote for radical change. To the majority of voters in the 38 states the Trump may win, the progressive message is too radical. Wishful thinking didn't help George McGovern or Barry Goldwater win did it?
@Kate Sanders Coudray Who knows what Americans will vote for? Not only did we see that in 2016, but in every presidential election of the 21st century. I don't see Biden handling trump well in debates. But, migod, Hillary destroyed him in 2016, and how much did that matter? Kerry and Gore both made W look inexperienced and uninformed.
Current polls are way premature, based on name recognition and familiarity. The election is much too far away to credit any of these Quinnipiac, et al., poll results.
And, to Ross's point, Biden might find it much more difficult to win debates at which he's present than debates in which no-one even mentions his name.
1
@Maria
Surely you jest. Donald Trump can barely form an adult sentence and can chew nobody up except his base. If he wins, it will be the work of that base and serious election malfeasance by Trump and Russia.
1
I would like to see Harris and Buttigieg on the ticket but I will vote for ANY of them as long as we can get that racist, sexist incompetent rich white guy who never worked a day in his life before this job out of the White House. We can't have four more years of children in cages, Russians tampering with the elections, blatant charges of racism coming from Potus on Americans who work hard for this country and, frankly, his blithering comments and his inept international presence has to go. We can't have four more years of tariffs that hurt Americans. We can't have four more years of tax cuts for the wealthy, and we can't have four more years of medical care/insurance being in limbo, and then pushed for only the select who can afford it. Enough. And, I can't take the daily lies. Too many, too many. Yesterday how he was a 9-11 sort of responder, how he survived a helicopter crash, how he has created the greatest economy the country has every seen, that African Americans call the White House daily singing his praises, and that was just yesterday.
3
Ross really should consider staying in his own lane. The Democrats don't need Republicans to tell us what to do. Go comment on the Red Hat party and try giving them some direction.
6
Biden would be the Hillary of the 2020 election.
15
uh oh. if Ross is for him there is reason to be against him.
19
“If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign." Harry S Truman, May 17 1952
7
You may think Williamson is too out there, but she delivered a very powerful punch at last night's debate.
""We need to say it like it is. It's bigger than Flint. It's all over this country. It's particularly people of color. It's particularly people who do not have the money to fight back, and if the Democrats don't start saying it, why would those people feel they're there for us? And if those people don't feel it, they won't vote for us and Donald Trump will win."
13
Lately the left seems to have succumbed to a perceived sense of fate, that it is their time. No amount of polling data convinces them that socialism scares enough voters to prevent it winning a national election, or that the idea of Medicare seizing the assets of shareholders who own stock in health insurance companies would be an extremely unpopular idea which would likely move center-right voters to the Trump column.
Sorry, folks, the left wing enthusiasm manifesting itself on Twitter is not going to determine the election. It is time, as it always seems to be in election season, to face reality and move the needle a little bit left instead of all the way to the edge. In the end, that’s the way democracy works. The winner of an election is whoever gets the most votes, not who is more committed to their ideals. That’s why we have President Donald Trump.
Besides, even if Sanders could win, how would he get his health care plan through Congress? As Trump has learned, being President doesn’t create a winning coalition in the House and Senate. Sanders isn’t even a Democrat, so it seems a stretch to assume he could get enough votes to push it through.
Even though she isn’t running, Nancy Pelosi is the model the left needs to admire in a prospective President. Unlike Sanders, she is an accomplished veteran at putting together a coalition to get legislation passed. The question for this campaign is which candidate is like her?
13
After watching last nights debate I think that Joe is going to need more than just an attack dog. Not only did both Warren and Sanders hold their own they clearly were not beyond putting Delaney in his place. What both Warren and Sanders exhibit is conviction and passion about their visions and will defend them with gusto. I am not convinced Joe has this. He may have to call out the National Guard.
85
If you take all the support for the top progressive candidates, it beats Biden. When their supporters consolidate behind one they will offer Biden a real challenge.
12
RINO – Republicans In Name Only
DINO – Democrats In Name Only
AINO – Americans In Name Only
Both parties would destroy their country to stay in power.
That’s how they have piled up $22 trillion in debt.
That will hurt us much faster than the global warming.
3
@Kenan Porobic Spare me. This equivalency thing between the two parties is ridiculous. ONE party is responsible for the rank social and racial divisions, the skyrocketing debt, the stripping away of environmental protections, the failure to provide affordable health care for all, the lunacy of our gun culture, and the total dismissal of planning for any kind of decent future for our children. And that party's name doesn't start with D.
4
@RDA
It takes two poles to be polarized. It means both parties are responsible for divisions, antagonism and bias. BTW, didn't the party starting with D promise you the same old promises all the time?Did they revoke reckless Reagan tax cuts? A sucker is born every second...
Why doesn’t Buttigieg benefit from all described as well? When there are twenty candidates, holding your own can be considered victorious, while Biden has at least a fifty fifty chance of stumbling further tonight.
3
Every time democratic candidates say that they will decriminalize illegal border crossings, they lose moderate voters like me.
22
@M Maybe you're not a moderate.
11
@M
What the heck is wrong with them?
We just cannot nominate a Dem candidate who supports decriminalization... Trump will annihilate them.
4
If that's true you're already lost. Illegal immigration isn't even in the Too ten list of problems facing our country today.
6
The Democrats should have eliminated 10 candidates after the first round of "debates" three weeks ago. Then held two debates, with 5 candidates, yesterday and today.
Both debates were circuses, coupled with poor moderation, and lack of control of NBC, CNN, and the candidates themselves. In the three debates, so far, the ones with the most loudest mouths, and rudeness, have been declared "winners".
I agree, though, with Mr. Douthat, that Mr. Biden won. Why? Because the other 19 candidates are all over the map. All brimming with ideas that, let's face it, will never make it out of the House, let alone the Senate.
Yes, I would like a single payer, universal Canadian style health care system.I would love to have a living wage, I would love to have Social Security to also be a living "wage" if you may. I would love to have the US address climate change. i would love to have a fair tax system. I would love that troops are no longer put in harm's way. i would love to have a fair trade system. I would love to have campaign finance reform, a code of ethics and politicians who are held to high ethical standards.
The problem is that the Republicans don't want to do any of these things. And the Democrats do not have the stomach to do any of these things.
Mr. Biden brings something to the table; he is the opposite of Trump. If anything, this country's most important thing is to fix what both parties, Bush, Obama and Trump broke. That is the challenge rising above everything else.
4
Best thing Joe Biden could do for himself tonight is call in sick. Why risk his current favorable position?
10
Biden did awful in the last debate. But, as we saw with the Clinton/Trump debate, a good performance on the debate does not translate into votes necessarily. People will vote for Biden because they are the kind of democrats that are too afraid to admit they are actually republicans.
13
CONTRARY to the views of left wing talking heads, Biden actually bested Harris in the first debate as evidenced by their poll ratings. Harris came across as too strident and dishonest attacking the former Democratic VP on racism, when everybody knows Biden is not a racist.
Biden came across as a gentlemen, an elder wiser American statesman.
Presidential material.
Harris did not.
5
Yes, the moderates gave Biden a big boost, but the collusion pact between Warren and Sanders gave him even more help. Warren with her detailed plans and genuine fire had been looking more and more like an infinitely more pragmatic version of Sanders. By colluding with him she made herself look like his understudy and accomplice. The two of them doing their arm waving thing together under the bright lights of CNN. To my mind, their pact also made Hickenlooper, Delaney, Klobuchar, Bullock, Buttigieg all look much better to me--and made them look more progressive. For instance, I like the public option now more than ever, precisely because of how those folks presented it last night. If it works as described, folks will be happy to give up their expensive private insurance, and get the better care for less money.
3
Wait till tonight, Ross Douthat. Joe Biden didn't win last night's execrable CNN social media spectacle, the first of two nights Dem Debates from Motor City. The show was a colossal waste of time, but did allow us to see a couple of possible Democratic contenders for the presidency next year. Like Sanders and Warren, among a few others (Buttigieg, Klobuchar, O'Rourke). Too many of the soon-to-be-also-rans were given far too much air time by CNN last night. The CNN anchors unfairly distributed questions to the eager candidates. A few of the firecrackers were duds -- Ryan, Delaney, Bullock, Hickenlooper, but Williamson secured her place as a woo-woo intelligent candidate who isn't yet a household word. Let's see who CNN drags onto their eye candy set tonight. Let's see how VP Biden does tonight.
Joe Biden was the winner???
...Well, this solidifies my decision to unsubscribe.
4
If Biden was twenty years younger he would emerge as the Democratic nominee and he would flush Trump out of the White House in November 2020. But he is not! Biden must demonstrate mental toughness, good memory, agility and the vigor to engage.Vintage or near vintage Biden will be the next President of the UNITED States of America.
1
The DNC will decide "who won last night" - not the people.
The DNC made that very clear in the 2016 cycle (the one benefit of the Russia hacking).
My guess is the DNC has already picked its candidate, and the debates are simply going through the motions and trying to rally the base.
12
Everyone seems to be yelling we need a moderate, it seems to me we had a moderate in 2016. Do we want that outcome again? People are voting for change, Obama was elected to bring change and then Trump was elected to change the world albeit for the worse. Voters who switched from Obama to Trump were certainly not moderate, that was a radical change. People will go to the polls if there is something new to vote for but will stay home if it's just the same old same old, why bother. People are saying Biden would return us to the Obama years, Clinton would have kept us in the Obama years and people said "no".
402
@Duncan
"We had a moderate in 2016 and we lost, so we should not run a moderate again."
What flawed reasoning. We also ran a woman in 2016--should we not run a woman this time around?
22
@Duncan
With all due respect Duncan, I know people who voted for Trump because yes, they wanted change. However, the kind of change the country got was not change for the better or good, but a more terrifying and scarier change.
I think some folks will see the "change" Trump brought as destructive and harmful to the majority of Americans and this country.
The "change car" was taken for a spin and the test drive resulted in ownership for 4 years. I think a lot of folks are not looking to extended that coverage.
Frankly, I enjoy being a moderate because that's where my comfort level is. Trump scares me a little more with each passing week. I may find disappointment in some areas if Biden wins the domination and is elected president, but I do not think I will go to bed being afraid.
I think you may find more people returning to "same old, same old" because right about now, that feels a lot better than being scared.
28
@Duncan
Democrats find strange reasons to lose the political vocab battles. For example losing "Pro-life", "Law & Order" , "Constitution", "Morality", "Legal Immigration" etc. could be democratic choice of words to express exactly the same message they have been expressing for generations. Now they are adding the word "progressive" in that list too, by constantly pitting the word against "moderates".
Democratic Party is and has been the party of Progressives in the 1930s, Well before Bernie and Warren were born. Please lets stop pretending like they are the pioneers of progressive ideas.
6
The losers are the American people. Jake Tapper couldn't be a worse moderator. Too many questions with the answer he's looking for built in.
329
@PeteG
Yes - our household consensus was that Tapper was dreadful.
80
@PeteG
It was set up entirely to pit the candidates against each other. It was shameful. It was also meant to bring down progressive leaders. CNN questions were framed from a conservative position each and every time. Probably working for their advertisers.
122
@PeteG
These debates are so transparently orchestrated by corporate desires it is disgusting.
56
Republican wishful thinking. Warren won the debate and it wasn't even close. We'll see if someone can beat her tonight.
411
@617to416 I'd say Warren *and* Sanders won the debate last night, but the two of them also espoused radical ideas that could hardly win a general election.
23
@DB Nothing radical here, keep moving and ignore the labels (aka "Think for yourself!)
34
@DB Didn't Donald Trump run on replacing Obamacare with something "really terrific" that would "cover everyone?" And he won.
69
Ross, we Democrats don't need or want your advice on which one of the candidates did better or best last night. We can choose effectively, and we will, without your poison-pen meddling.
You should perhaps focus on your real problem - the sick GOP and the dearth of decent proposals that the GOP has to address the myriad of problems that we face.
And, PS, tax cuts for the wealthy ain't one of them.
808
@Byron Good one Byron! An ad-hominem attack that ignores valid analysis. After 2016, maybe we do need to listen to people other than the Twitter left and NYTimes comments section.
Biden is above thirty in the polls, even amidst the cacophony of noise from people that don't reflect the base of the party. If he can repel attacks from Harris and Booker while simultaneously appearing magnanimous, Biden will win the nomination. I, for one, am rooting for him as he will win PA, MI, and WI, thus winning the election and ending this collective nightmare.
51
@Byron Thank you, my thoughts exactly!
39
@Byron
This exactly!
27
Joe Biden should retire from his campaign after tonight when more Americans see how he is so ill-equipped to be a President of the United States, especially in the 21st century. (The same statement can be made for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, except that they probably will retire a little later.) In contrast Andrew Yang will shine tonight!
6
Donald J. Trump won last night's debate.
4
Kinda of an incomplete take on the debate. Delaney launched an intentionally misleading attack against Sanders and Warren, suggesting that their views on health care meant they were anti-private markets. That was irresponsible and does indeed play into a false Republican Party narrative.
Presenting Williamson as anything other than a nutcase is hard to understand. Ignoring her flip flop just this year on vaccines, espousing clearly anti-mandatory vaccination ideology and then quickly reversing herself -- ignoring that is problematic because of what the incident reveals about her personal views of science and reality and what the incident reveals about her willingness to deny something she had just said clearly.
Most on point - why say that only Biden won? Sure, the two front runners in last night's debate (Warren and Sanders) were VERY clearly progressive on health care. But what about Kamala Harris who seems to align best with Biden on her health care strategy? If voters begin to worry about either Warren or Sander's ability to defeat Trump, there are other candidates to turn to other than Biden and Harris may be the winner.
The New York Times is not the only news source that has published multiple "winners/losers" articles today. None are particularly useful, insightful, or helpful.
2
@Joan Johnson
Williamson's flip flopping on her vaccination stance is about as scary as Bidens flip flopping on LGBTQ rights and Kamala Harris on mass incarceration.
@Justaguy Completely reversing a very clearly stated view within days is a revealing flip flop.
In my opinion, views that evolve over years or even decades (whether the individual's personal views truly evolved or the individual merely accepts that consensus has shifted) is not flip flopping and it is not scary. Attitudes about LGBTQ rights in particular have changed rapidly in this country and I am not concerned by those who came around to my view only in recent years.
Importantly, I am old and MY views on some major issues have evolved over the course of my life.
1
The same way that the Clinton/Obama presidency set the stage for Trump 1.0, a one term Biden presidency will set the stage for Trump 2.0. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
3
"Biden’s tricky task, unless he gets unexpected backup, will be to prove he can counterpunch without seeming to be too anti-left...." Commentators like Douthat disserve political discourse by framing electoral politics as a sports contest. All this focus on strategy and who's ahead in the horse race diminishes American politics. This isn't the NCAA basketball tournament, Mr. Douthat.
4
Oh Mr. Douthat...
Senator Harris is also a moderate and a pragmatist, but the media seems to tag her as "lefty" or "progressive" based not on her policy positions but more on two things she can't control: her race and her gender. This is usually unspoken, but is almost always implied, including in this column.
Biden and Harris both benefit from the first debate but I would argue that Harris benefits more because for some people she is a more palatable (read: younger and more "woke") embodiment of Democratic centrism than the often out-of-touch and occasionally entitled Biden. Among the leading moderates who is the most likely to screw up their own campaign: Harris, Klobuchar, Buttigeig...or Biden?
1
Interesting. Harris claims to be a progressive, while she clearly is not. And you say the opposite? She also takes corporate money. Enough said!
1
The Biggest Loser in last night's debate is Warren.
In fact, it looks to me that she effectively killed her candidacy.
Because she's now lumped right in with Sanders, attached at the hip per her "I'm with Bernie" on Medicare for All. (Bernie is a socialist, and not even a real Democrat.)
And, instead of debating the issue, she suggested that those who oppose Socialised medicine are 'spineless,' cowards that are focused on what we can't do, as opposed to cheering on her fantasy island platform of Free Everything for Everybody.
I'm spineless? And focusing on Reality makes me unqualified for choosing the President?
She's painted herself into the wrong corner, making it far easier for a moderate to beat her today, than yesterday.
Please note that Bernie’s Medicare for All failed miserably in his home state. The Vermont Governor dropped it in 2014 after an estimate said it would cost $4.3 billion a year, almost the size of the state’s entire $4.9 billion budget. The Washington Post reported that he, the VT Governor, could not "responsibly support" an 11.5 percent payroll tax hike on all Vermont businesses and an income tax hike of up to 9.5 percent that his administration said would be required. So, if ya’ll want to pay 21% more of your income to support mediocre health care, and also lose the election to Trump in 2020, best of luck!
29
@Rob So what's your plan should Warren or Sanders be the nominee? Vote for Trump??? Stay home or go "third party"? 2020 is not difficult to figure out, unless you are crazy enough to anything - *anything* - that might help give Trump a second term. Calm down and remember that the president doesn't pass legislation, the Congress does.
7
@tony zito My plan, as per your contingency, is to vote Democrat. Marianne Williamson included. I already noted that I think that Warren and Bernie are a risk to the objective of beating Trump. Look to how Dems won in 2018. That's the playbook. Moderation.
4
@Rob - all other developed western democracies have universal healthcare and do it for HALF THE COST OR LESS than what the US is spending on its private insurance-based healthcare system right now.
People keep saying it's a socialist fantasy when everyone else is doing it, showing you how it works, right in front of your eyes.
2
"They could make a direct and pointed and unapologetic case against the major leftward candidates, their plans and policies and political vision, so that Biden doesn’t have to do it."
Let them make their case, Ross. In the end, Biden will be alone to defend his recycled DNC platform and his own history. And then what? He too will sink perpetually backwards as his generally unpopular moderate views are outed for the watered-down bromides that they truly represent.
The "moderates" you speak of don't hold majority on the issues that get voters, especially millennials, to the polls. All of these anecdotal scenarios make for great print, but the election is about numbers. Moderates will vote for any Democrat at this point, so millenials and women are the two biggest demographics to pursue.
Who commands millenial support? Sanders
Who commands women's support? Warren
Those numbers will not change.
So while Harris is clearly the Democratic establishment's darling - and that they will certainly back Biden if she can't move past him - all of this does not matter in the big picture. Biden may be the candidate to beat, but Biden will beat himself in the end.
4
I wish they'd stop calling corporate-funded, right-wing Democrats like Delaney "moderates," which connotes reasonableness and inclusiveness. It's as misleading as the congressional "problem-solvers caucus," whose prime agenda is solving the problems of billionaires by eviscerating even the mild Wall Street reforms of Dodd-Frank.
I think what is really scaring the moderates and the anti-progressive mainstream media is that Liz and Bernie made the brilliant tactical decision to join forces on the debate stage, refusing to take CNN's blatantly cheesy bait in hopes of a progressive food fight.
Biden won insofar that he is probably thanking his lucky stars that he had people like Delaney, Ryan and Hickenlooper acting as his stunt men and stand-ins. It's not going to last.
And by the time Kamala Harris and the increasingly desperate Kirsten Gillibrand get done with him tonight, Joe might well be begging for Bernie and Liz, who obviously care more about the public good than they do their own individual political fortunes.
So here's hoping that their tactical and ideological partnership lasts to the convention and beyond. Sanders-Warren or Warren-Sanders would be a winning ticket.
Notice how quiet Trump was during and after the debate? He knows that he's in deep, deep trouble after the knockout punches thrown by Liz and Bernie last night.
99
@Karen Garcia
I'm with you, Karen--and with a Sanders-Warren ticket.
4
@Karen Garcia
What about Biden/Sanders, Biden/Warren or Sanders/Biden, Warren/Biden? Is there any place for Biden in this equation?
I'm just trying to figure out how to get PA/WI/MI and maybe even pick up OH and FL again.
All of this would be interesting Ross if this were an ordinary election campaign which it, assuredly, is not. Your use of the terms "revolutionaries" and "neo-socialists" might have had an impact in previous elections when John McCain and Mitt Romney were the Republican alternatives. However, it's Donald Trump this time, so the only labels that should apply are "sanity", "truth-telling" and "patriotism". I appreciate your counsel but the circumstances are more black and white this time (literally). I will enthusiastically vote for any of the top polling candidates in the democratic primary and, if push comes to shove, any of their spouses, children, house pets or house plants before I pull the lever for a Republican again in my life. I've often had doubts about my party's candidate but I've never been more sure about my party.
7
Well, Joe Biden may have won last night's debate. Let's see how he fares against Kamala Harris tonight before we polish up the crown. If Biden gets the nomination, Donald Trump will wipe him out in November.
3
Even though I am 73, I think Biden should retire and get out of the way. I will never forgive him for how he treated Anita Hill and I think he is incapable of inspiring the party to dethrone Trump. He's out of touch, tone deaf and no longer viable as a contender. But I felt that way about him 12 years ago and earlier. We need a bold and courageous candidate who does not dither or dodder. I don't support Sanders, but there's an old guy who could go round after round with Trump. It's not about age. It's about grit and grace. Nice guys finish last. Joe has been weak and embarrassing for decades. This is a strange column.
90
@Jamie McKenzie, Ed.D.
Gosh, it's almost like a pro-trump hit piece on Progressive Dems.
Gotta wonder, what's up with that?!
7
@Jamie McKenzie, Ed.D. i don't think Trump will run a campaign in which he personally confronts the Democratic candidate. His approach will be endless Twitter bombast and falsehoods (which NYT and the rest of the press will duly echo) and fascistic rallies in friendly states (which will also receive deep coverage).
5
@Jamie McKenzie, Ed.D. I too am 73 and as a woman I can forgive Biden’s behavior years ago with Anita Hill. (I mean look what the Republicans did in the Kavanaugh hearing!). What I find harder to deal with is the too passive, calm exterior in dealing with Trump; the lack of passion against today’s policies; the lack of forward thinking counter policies; the slower response to other situations.
Biden is a nice man, but I want someone with more fire and a big pin to deal with Trump whose ego bubble needs a big pop to bring him down to size. May be they can get Steven Colbert’s writers to come up with some great ripostes.
1
No, Ross, that’s not the case; Biden didn’t “win” last night. Ideas and energy did. Your cynicism is not welcome here.
227
In the last 10 years the Dems have become very diverse on social issues but not diverse on solutions. And that lack of diversity has cost the party in terms of effectiveness, leadership and election wins. The Dems are a fractured party right now. Some openly warn moderates that their elected days are numbered. Others will refuse to vote for the eventual nominee - like '16 and elect Trump. WAKE UP DEMS... history is well on its way to repeating itself.
2
I have read enough of Douthat to know that his idea of moderate is my idea of hard right. In the rest of the civilized world universal healthcare, free college tuition, and a recognition of the dire reality of climate change are moderate, slightly right wing, ideas.
62
Ross Douthat attempts to cloak himself in Trump disdain. however his ingrained Republican instincts always betray him. His columns should be immediately disregarded by anyone seeking to defeat Trump in 2020. Biden only offers the status quo without Trump.
100
@Sarah
If you can't make a distinction, a meaningful one between Trump and Biden.....
@Sarah
Well I wouldn't say the "status quo" - which is essentially our current state. I think we can all agree that Biden would be a far, far cry from our current state, which is a sort of pre-apoocalytpic nightmare.
Please, please don't do what a LOT of people apparently did in 2016, which is to skip the election because they didn't get the Democrat they wanted.
1
The left wing of the Democratic party wants to nail us to the immigration/asylum cross. If you are a moderate, then Joe Biden is your William Jennings Bryan.
2
So Joe is biding his time while moderates provide cover from the left? Maybe. As long as the Democrat’s nominee wins the presidency,
we all win.
3
Here's my fear:
No one candidate will deliver the necessary number of delegates outright to win the Democratic nomination in 2020. After some backroom dealings with people who think more like Mr. Douthat, the so-called super delegates will swing the election to Biden or, if he stumbles badly as he still may do, to another candidate altogether.
Here's my hope:
That Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will join forces to win the nomination as a team. Combine their poll numbers (and their eventual delegates) and they would beat both Trump and Biden and any of the other conservative Democrats ready step forward in "the name of party unity."
I know it's early to be thinking so strategically, but seeing a crown on Biden's head makes me worry that the media and the Democrats alike are going to start the same process they pulled on Sanders in 2016. This shouldn't be a repeat coronation.
33
@avrds In the Warren/Sanders team, who is on top of the ticket? Neither will agree to the other and be on the bottom the ticket. Warren is 69. She is too old to be VP for Sanders and thereby wait 8 years to be President unless she has to step in and take his place because of health or death. Sanders is not going to last much longer given the realities of his age. Anyway, the point is, they will not be on the same ticket.
@avrds. That is my hope as well. It'll pain me to choose one over the other in the primary!
2
@avrds
We also need one of them in the senate. Their voice there is imperative to clean up this mess.
2
Over thinking much? We're months before the first primary and a full year from the convention. If anything, the real question should be why Joe hasn't put it to bed yet. He's in front but only at about 30% and bouncing, depending on which poll which is about where he's been since the beginning. Where exactly is his growth going to come from? Why are people currently backing the distant trailers still backing them instead of just going straight to Joe if he is indeed their second choice?
Joe would do the party and the process a lot of good if he just retired to his rocking chair gracefully much sooner than later.
3
Biden would do well to better define his moderation. Warren/Bernie have correctly defined the problems, but have gone all in on solutions. In some cases that’s necessary, others - healthcare - not so much. What will not work is any hint of Clinton style neo-liberalism - when Delaney opened his mouth last night, Wall Street spilled fourth. Biden needs to avoid that.
1
If the Democratic candidate cannot offer a decent healthcare proposal, there is no reason I would care very much about the outcome of the presidential election. Healthcare is the one area in which Trump has totally failed. The economy is booming, Trump was right to take on China, and I and every other sane person wants immigration controls not open borders, and is fed up with the bizarre shenanigans of the cultural left wing extremists, their rewriting of the English language and Twitter mobs destroying people's careers. Trump has also resisted starting new wars or expanding old ones. He is no way near as bad as some (including myself) predicted, rhetoric excluded. I'm a lifelong Democrat and worked on Obama's campaigns.
3
Why doesn’t the rise of white nationalism, the fact that so many families are falling apart while the economy (read: Wall Street) is booming, or the dismantling of healthcare and the ACA bother you more? I can think of some possibilities, but they don’t involve nice words and aren’t suitable for public use, so I’ll leave you with the question.
17
@Anne
Rewriting of the English language? No way near as bad as predicted? Economy booming?
Trump barely knows how to use the English language, and your opaque attack on 'cultural left wing extremists,' whatever that means, doesn't deserve much more of a response other than to say equal rights is not extremist.
Your equally vague 'no way near as bad' comment is nothing but silly. He demonstrably--demonstrably--lies at a rate unseen by any American public official in my lifetime. This and his uncensored racism, contempt for citizens of the United States, regions of the Unites States, nepotism, cronyism, and on and on I think more than show your comment to be idiocy.
Economy booming? Are you in the 1% because that's who it's booming for (and, by the way, it's slowing down). We know that the gains in GDP have floated to the top--for years. So it's a win for us all when the top gets more gains? Call me unimpressed with your 'booming' economy.
8
@Anne Well, you might want to dig a little deeper on your Trump analysis. Check out environment regulations. The refusal to publish data by scientists. Firing people in order to put in his own flunkies. Iran now developing a nuke. N Korea testing more missiles. Shady dealings with the Saudis. The Mueller Report . Lots of his "best people" either in jail or waiting. And his economic growth and unemployment stats are about the same as Obama's. So, not sure why you think he has been doing a good job for America.
8
Are Democrats actually flirting with moderation? Are the serious candidates not really interested in reinventing the U.S. economy and overturning capitalism? Well, that's at least a hopeful sign, especially for Mr. Biden; but it still does not address the fact that he's too old and looks it--nothing can. Dems appear to want to distance themselves from universal healthcare, but they're still not dealing with the as yet unexploded bomb of uncontrolled immigration which Mr. Trump can be counted on to detonate under them when the campaign gets going. Where is the Democrat extreme left in this picture?
3
What a joke. I respect Joe Biden but his time has come and gone. He's yesterday's news. Moderate "Republican-lite" Democratic strategy has been failing the Democratic party for years and years now. Joe Biden would lose to Trump just as Clinton did. Warren or Sanders are the best hope to energize the election and beat Trump. End of Story.
162
@Paula Agree. Joe is from a past that no longer exists. The GOP has not been willing to compromise on any issue for the last 30 years Joe is living in the past. If he thinks he will attract the "Trump voters he is living in fantasy land.He should drop out of the race .
6
@Paula
I believe that Hillary was a more sound choice than Joe Biden, so where does that leave us if Joe gets the nod, right back in Douthat's Republican conservative stranglehold. We will then spend another four years listening to Russ scold we Democrats for allowing a trump win.
6
@Paula
Then why is Biden outpolling Trump by the consistently largest margins? The Warren/Sanders platform as it currently stands is probably too extreme to attract the only voters who will really count: the 75000-or-so swing voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
6
No, not true. The real winner was any of the millions of Americans who will finally have the chance of candidate who will actually fight for the majority of them instead of pandering more of the same old, same old, which is all that Republicans like Douthat have to offer. Conservatives have lost all standing in the conversation of how to get the country back on track, for it is their very philosophy of government has brought us where we are today. Well-meaning or not, Douthat is far more a part of the problem than he will ever be of any solution.
28
I had many quasi radical/progressive views and attitudes when in college and after college . . . until I hit 40. Things didn't necessarily go down hill from there, but my view, especially my political views and understanding became more focused and balanced.
I feel as though I grew into my "moderate" mode of seeing things. It was fun being radical in college, heck, "radical" was the middle name of most students at Madison when I was there. Boycotting and protesting was in our blood.
Being much older now and having been a payer into social security and medicare as well as paying a ton in taxes over the years, I have a developed a more tempered view about many things across the board.
I still LOVE to hear various discussions about new and progressive options and plans, but at the end of the day, I fall back into my moderate mindset because that is where my comfort level is.
Presently, the guy in charge frightens me more every day. What I do not want is a Democratic candidate who may have a similar effect. I realize that both Sanders and Warren want what is best for this country and citizens, but I think they may scare off more voters than embrace.
And that's where Joe Biden comes in. No candidate is my favorite, but right now, today, he tends to be my front runner. We will see what happens after tonight's debate. But for now, I am thinking he could possibly be that guy I vote for in 15 months.
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@Marge Keller
He in no way represents me as a liberal. I want someone to take our issues seriously and provide a potential logical path to achieve it. Not place holder for the next republican to defeat.
3
Trump won.
3
All these moderates are what made people so angry they wanted to vote for Trump. Sheesh.
And now everyone's afraid of messing with our wonderful healthcare system. But wasn't Trump going to tear it down and replace it with something "really terrific" that would "cover everyone?" What on earth is going on?
And why is it incumbent on democrats to moderate- republicans have gone so far to the right, but democrats have to follow them? No. How about republicans come over to democrats?
20
Twenty candidates have been allowed to compete in debates 1 & 2 in an effort to have exposure all around the country. Too many from any other point of view. Ross,Joe Biden has his baggage: too old, some unfortunate votes that supported Republican views, family worries, a glad-hand love-ya mode of connecting that helped in the past.
Today we must correct the errors of the Republican party, especially Trump, McConnell, and the Senate, errors that threaten the survival of democracy. Too early to pick a winner. We still have a lot to learn.
3
Ross it is difficult to express how exceptionally wrong you are if you think the heart of the Democratic party is behind Biden. You need to keep your wishes separate from your opinions. Biden is just as close as you can get to a Republican.
6
@Jenifer
Every Democratic and General Poll in recent history supports Ross' contention and belies your claim
4
@SteveRR
Great, so Democrats looks like ultra-conservative columnists who used to be Republicans?
@Evan
I honestly have no idea what that means.
When Bernie, during last night’s debate, promised free college for illegal immigrants, my first thought was “Thank God Biden’s in the race.”
17
@Stephen
What, so Bernie should start negotiations with appeasement, and move from there to complete capitulation?
A lousy strategy,* if you ask me.
*and yet, one "Centrist" Dems seem to prefer...
1
@Stephen so if an immigrant passes the exams to go into a pre-med program, why wouldn't we, as a country and society, want that person educated?
What if they are the top performer for that year?
You seem to really just be stuck on this idea that these "other people" will be getting things.
2
@Willy P
We like having a strategy to win Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Our country is being run by fear, controlled in part through the money large corporations invest (apparently quite effectively) to convince people that moderation is the only important direction politicians should take.
The time for moderation is over. When are you and your fellow columnists with the New York Times going to realize that and, hopefully, begin to write about it?
A single payer health plan, increased taxes for the rich, reigning in the power of large corporations to purchase influence; these are progressive ideas, not moderate.
And the time for them to come to fruition is long overdue.
5
The only reason Biden has an apparent lead springs solely from mere name recognition from his undistinguished VP stint. Poll after poll after poll confirms who the real "moderates" are: those who push for universal health care (as per the entire rest of the Western world), no more wars, and a wealth tax, i.e. the vast majority (say 98%) of average Americans. Given that Sanders, yet again, out-polls Trump, nominating Biden would be the greatest "failure of imagination" in American politics since 9/11, and potentially as equally damaging.
23
@Neocynic HC's lead in 2016 was largely name recognotion as well.
3
Clinton was polled as the most respected woman in the world, with a resume longer than your arm. Trump, on the other hand, had absolutely nothing to offer but name recognition. That's how Democracy works in a society where more people read Us Magazine than a newspaper. So that's your point?
3
@wcdevins Biden's resume is longer than Clinton's.
3
I mean no disrespect to Mr. Douthat or any other pundit who talks about who "won" or "lost" the debates. I'm most interested in what the candidates say and what their positions are, and I could care less if Joe Biden leads in the polls. There is the old truism that "success breeds success." That we consider Biden, Warren, and Sanders successful is simply because they're seen that way.
I live in South Carolina, which is the critical "first state in the South" in the primaries. I'll make up my own mind about who I support. But that decision won't be based on who leads in the polls, who is the candidate to beat, or what the pundits say.
10
I think Delaney did a better job arguing against Warren and Sanders than Biden could have, and the progressives still looked strong and motivated. Biden is clearly benefiting from not being on the same stage as his main competitors from the left. Even if that counts as a temporary win, it's a huge problem for moderates going forward.
2
We all fear a Democratic candidate so badly gored by his own that Trump wins.
Full throttle it seems we are crash landing.
No real thought given to realistic Senate challenges some of them could be making.
If somehow Donald won, yet you kept the House and won the Senate Moscow Mitchovitch would have to retire to a dacha on the Black Sea.
Will any of these folks put the nation above their own vanity?
5
Biden support seems more about fear of Trump than enthusiasm for Biden. People do not support Biden with their heart; rather, it's a calculated, measured assessment of odds to win. I am not sure this is the way to build a strong foundation into the general election. It would only take a few major gaffes by Biden for those measured calculations to dissipate and maybe, tragically, side with Trump's erratic and offensive confidence. Their final calculation being: It's the economy stupid, and Biden is just too shaky and old. If Trump enters the general election against Biden and the economy is soaring, Biden's stumble-style could prove a liability. While he has a lead now, I think Biden is a risky choice to go against Trump. No one loves Biden. But people love Mayor Pete, Harris, Sanders, Warren. Better to go with that energy, I think, than the calculated Boring Biden one.
64
@PE I one hundred percent agree. To get anything done, Democrats don't just need the presidency. They need more votes in Congress. And to get that kind of massive, blue-wave voter turnout, Democrats need the youth vote.
Biden -- weak on abortion, weak on women's rights, with his history on the Iraq War vote and Anita Hill hearings -- won't energize young people to turn out for him.
Any of the candidates that you mentioned -- particularly Warren, Sanders, or Buttigieg -- could lead a wave. Biden will lead a ripple. And when he talks about "compromising" with Republicans, that's because he wants to govern in ripples, too. Young people won't be sure why they should bother with Biden.
20
@PE
I support Biden with my heart and so do many of my friends and we are all over 60.
1
@Katherine. Would you not support any of the others, then? Because that’s what it boils down to.
Williamson is a charming, nut. Delaney was shut down by Warren. CNN-et al-Don't waste our time. Unless candidates poll double digits--don't invite. Unless CNN invites PBS to show tonight, not expecting much
3
I think both Bullock and Ryan stand a chance if they can last until it's a single night debate.
The fireworks are going to explode if we have a final group that includes Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, and a couple of moderates like Bullock and Ryan.
The moderates are not going to attack the Lion in Winter Biden. They'll leave that to the others.
They'll be the loyal nights next to the aging king. And when people figure out they could somebody like Biden but 20 years younger and faster on their feet--the better to beat the Tasmanian devil in the White House--and who've won in red states to boot, one of them may cruise into first place.
2
Trump won. Just like in the last debates.
2
Ain't it something, that an American "moderate" is a radical in any other industrial democracy?
Try, for example, running on the 2106 Democratic platform in Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Spain or Portugal.
You won't get "conservative" support, and most of the neo-fascists won't touch it either -- it's too right-wing.
Of course, there's no surprise this is Ross Douthat's preferred program. The question he has yet to answer is whether he'd actually vote for Joe Biden.
Don't, as it were, hold your breath.
49
@jrd I believe 2106 will be a mid-term election (if we are still a fully functioning democracy by then). But, other than that typographical issue, I agree. The Democratic platform of any recent prior election cycle would be a reversion to meaner times in the countries you list.
Nailed it.
Hey Ross, show a little political courage and answer the question : would you vote for Biden, or any Dem, over Trump?
5
The corporate media, the Times in particular, keeps pushing for a so-called "moderate." In Biden's case, they keep ignoring the graft he has received throughout his career from Delaware's chemical and banking industries, and other corporations hiding out in Delaware. Biden is an honest politician who stays bought and the media keep looking the other way. The Democratic establishment and their corporate media allies are trying to loose this election, like they lost the last one.
179
@Emacee There has literally not been one positive piece about Biden in either WaPo or the NYT since he started his campaign. Even this is a piece from a Republican, and it’s a piece on strategy, not an endorsement of Biden himself.
Also, please stop with the smears. Republicans will do that for us, no matter who our candidate is. Argue the ideas, not the shady rumors.
22
@Emacee. You noticing that too? I am sick of the talking heads telling me who I ought to vote for because they are moderates!
What Trump is doing to our democracy isn’t moderate and a moderate response is simply not enough. We need a ticket with fire in the belly and guts enough to tell this big mouth bully to put a cap on his pay off the billionaires policies and stuff it with his Big Macs.
So the republican in democrat's clothes won the debate?
And corporate-friendly Biden is the real winner?
Pretty clear to guess you political allegiances.
Corporate America is the reason why we are where we are today.
Without change, we'll be jumping off a cliff in the very near future!
164
@Patrick De Caumette You can't fault Mr. Douthat for liking the self-funding millionaire the most. He was a Republican for so long for a reason.
1
Having though she was a total joke in the first debate, Marianne Williamson really hit it with me last night. She is the first and only candidate to ever actually say what I (and I'm sure many other Americans) think, "Stop tending to the problems caused by systematic problems, and address the systematic problems." I think she is well aware that this is no quick or easy task, and exponentially harder than tending to wounds. But, the sheer ability to recognize that if we don't fix the problems, we will forever be stuck in triage mode, is the bravest thing I've ever heard a candidate say.
While I see her as extremely intelligent, I still think she is woefully underprepared for public office. But, at the same time, maybe having a president with a simple and positive plan, and then letting the experts (not paid lobbyists) figure out the best way to accomplish it, is what this country needs.
2
@Justaguy I'm curious as to whether you realize that you are repeating, literally word-for-word, what early Trump supporters were saying 4 years ago after the first GOP debates. Especially the last paragraph...
3
@Leonid Andreev
I thought the same thing. Your description of her pretty much describes Trump's appeal. If I wanted a preacher/savior/therapist, then maybe. But I think she should "actualize" herself—and her brand, which is really what this is about, as all the plastic surgery should make clear—in a different sphere of public life.
3
@Justaguy - she has no shot, so it hardly matters what you and others think of her. Besides, she's an anti-vaxxer and that's really not cool.
1
I don't disagree with Douthat's argument (and I'm a Warren supporter).
I take some solace in the unanimous agreement to vote for and support the eventual Democratic nominee.
15
Your are correct. The debate format last night was horrible, with moderators proposing questions that pitted one candidate against another. Let's hope tonight is debate encourages fewer attacks by one candidate against the other and more questions about how teach candidate will challenge Trump. Democrats must nominate a moderate, and Biden has the best chance at defeating Trump provided he is paired with a minority or woman candidate, perhaps one who is both.
2
@Dissillusioned
Remember 2016?
That’s what happens when you run a boring moderate. Half the country stays home. Learn from our mistakes. (Or at least learn to take turns.)
2
Smart. But if harris beats him again, with her interesting health propsal? Then shen can benefit from the attacks on sanders and warren. But to do this, she must distinguish herself from them even more clearly.
Having people like Hickenlooper, Ryan, and Delaney on the debate stage is an enormous waste of time. Sanders should be presenting his proposals against someone who might actually win (i.e. Biden).
9
@Thomas
Bernie won the midwestern states last time, will do it again. Democrats prefer people who can, not who can’t.
10
@Thomas
Delaney and Hickenlooper are the purest embodiments of "Super Lucky Clueless and Out of Touch Rich White Guys" I've ever seen. They both live in such bubbles they will never relate to anyone.
Tim Ryan's only chance is if goes the reality TV route, and He and Bill DeBilso team up and claim to be identical twins.
2