Speed sniping in Miami: The second Democratic debate

BEFORE WE knew who the players would be, there was the temptation to call the first night of a multi-night Democratic debate series “the undercard.” This year’s was different. With its own singular mix of progressive, mainstream and established political personalities, the first debate at the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center had a weight, a velocity of its own. Depending on what you were looking for in a prospective candidate, the undercard could have been the main event.

But there’s no getting around it: On the basis of polling response, donations raised and name recognition, Thursday night held more of the heaviest hitters in the 2020 presidential campaign. And the principals — Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Michael Bennet, Andrew Yang, Kirsten Gillibrand, Marianne Williamson, Eric Swalwell and John Hickenlooper — all knew that a lot was at stake.

So the gloves came off early on Thursday night. Health care was an early and frequent target of opportunity. Hickenlooper, the former Colorado governor not given much of a chance, still struck a clear note that Democratic leadership should pay attention to: how the little matter of the party’s self-identification matters moving forward into the teeth of the campaign.

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“Well, I think that the bottom line is, if we don’t clearly define that we are not socialists, the Republicans are going to come at us every way they can and—and call us socialists,” Hickenlooper said.

“And if you look at the Green New Deal, which I admire the sense of urgency and how important it is to do climate change, I’m a scientist, but we can’t promise every American a government job if you want to get universal healthcare coverage. I believe that healthcare is a right and not a privilege, but you can’t expect to eliminate private insurance for 180 million people, many of whom don’t want to give it up.”

Williamson brought the pithy: “We don’t have a health care system in the United States. We have a sickness care system in the United States.”

And Vice President Biden answered the bell on health care with a full-throated defense of his role in Obamacare:

“Look, this is very personal to me. When my wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident my two boys were really very badly injured. I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like had I not had adequate healthcare available immediately. And then when my son came home from Iraq after a year he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he was given months to live. I can’t fathom what would have happened if, in fact, they said by the way the last six months of your life you’re on your own. We’re cutting off. You’ve used up your time.

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“The fact of the matter is that the quickest, fastest way to do it is build on Obamacare, to build on what we did,” Biden said. “And secondly, secondly, to make sure that everyone does have an option. Everyone, whether they have private insurance, employer insurance or no insurance, they, in fact, can buy into the exchange to a Medicare-like plan.

“And the way you do that, you can do it quicker — look, urgency matters. There’s people right now facing what I’ve faced and what we’ve faced without any of the help I had. We must move now.”

Points. But that was about as good as it got for Biden. A debate performance that was to that point tolerable, not exactly a barn-burner but survivable, quickly turned into something else.

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YOU DON’T HAVE to be a high-school debating champion to know better than to violate one of the cardinal rules of all debates: Never undercut yourself. Never concede the stage you’re on by telling the audience “my time’s up. I’m sorry.”

You’re especially advised not to do that when you’re a septuagenarian politician already accused of being out of step with a newly assertive chunk of the electorate — an electorate that, in the main, views the defeat of Donald Trump as nothing less than a prime directive.

Joe Biden ran afoul of that central law of rhetoric and presidential politics. By accident, he took the center square on the second night, and took up oxygen and time better used by the other candidates, who took shots at building policy bona fides in fits and starts.

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Some worked better than others: Bennet had the courage to resist the Medicare-for-all diktat solidifying in the Dems’ leftmost precincts. Bennet agreed that health care is a right, one realized and enhanced by “finishing the work we started with Obamacare and creating a public option, a choice – I believe we will get there more quickly if we do that.”

Buttigieg similarly pushed back against the evolving trend toward student debt forgiveness, saying that students should pay some of their debt. “It also needs to be more affordable to not go to college.” He’d also raise minimum wage to at least 15 dollars.

Some didn’t work at all: Eric Swalwell, late getting into this thing, didn’t really bring much of substance beyond a pledge to make family reunification a day-one action item. There were weak invocations of Kennedyesque oratory, aimed at Biden (“Pass the torch!” he kept saying). And by plugging his policy prescription of giving everyone in the country $1,000, Andrew Yang has secured his role as the Herman Cain of the 2020 cycle, wasting an opportunity to put a lot more flesh on those bones.

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BUT IT CAME down on Biden and Harris to crank up the energy in the room, with a memorable exchange, one likely to go down in modern political history as a pivot point moment — the flashpoint instance when one style of American politics first fully, sharply came into its ascendancy, while another style of that politics began an irrevocable decline.

Harris scored the former vice president for his past associations with Herman Talmadge and segregationists during Biden's time in the Senate. And it deserves to be digested in its entirety, in text and in video. The careful reader or viewer will notice that, wrapped inside Harris’ painful American reverie is a recognition — and celebration — of contemporary Democratic party values, and what the party stands for, and what the Democrats need to double down on in 2010.

KAMALA HARRIS: Okay. So, on the issue of race, I couldn’t agree more that this is an issue that is still not being talked about truthfully and honestly. I—there is not a black man I know, be he a relative, a friend or a coworker who has not been the subject of some form of profiling or discrimination. Growing up, my sister and I had to deal with the neighbor who told us her parents couldn’t play with us because she—because we were black. And I will say also that—that in this campaign, we’ve also heard—and I’m going to now direct this to Vice President Biden. I do not believe you are a racist and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground.

BIDEN: Mm-hmm.

HARRIS: But, I also believe—and it’s personal. And I—I was actually very—it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day and that little girl was me. So, I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously. We have to act swiftly. As attorney general of California, I was very proud to put in place a requirement that all my special agents would wear body cameras and keep those cameras on.

RACHEL MADDOW: Senator Harris, thank you. Vice President Biden, you have been invoked. We are going to give you a chance to respond. Vice President Biden.

BIDEN: That’s a mischaracterization of my position across the board. I did not praise racists. That is not true, number one. Number two, if we want to have this campaign litigated on who supports civil rights and whether I did or not, I’m happy to do that. I was a public defender. I didn’t become a prosecutor. I came out and I left a good law firm to become a public defender when in fact —when in fact my city was in flames because of the—the assassination of Dr. King, number one. Now, number two, as the U.S.—as—excuse me—as the vice president of the United States, I worked with a man who in fact, we worked very hard to see to it we dealt with these issues in a major, major way. The fact is that in terms of busing, the busing, I never—you would’ve been able to go to school the same exact way because it was a local decision made by your city council. That’s fine. That’s one of the things I argued for that we should not be—we should be breaking down these lines.

But—so, the bottom line here is, look, everything I have done in my career—I ran because of civil rights. I continue to think we have to make fundamental changes in civil rights. And those civil rights, by the way, include not just African Americans, but the LGBT community. They don’t—

HARRIS: But, Vice President Biden, do you agree today—do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America then?

BIDEN: No.

HARRIS: Do you agree?



BIDEN: I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education. That’s what I opposed. I did not oppose—

HARRIS: —Well, there was a failure of—of states to—to integrate—

BIDEN: —No, but—

HARRIS: — public schools in America. I was part of the second class to integrate, Berkeley, California public schools almost two decades after Brown v. Board of Education.

BIDEN: Because your city council made that decision. It was a local decision.

HARRIS: So, that’s where the federal government must step in.

BIDEN: The—the federal government must—

HARRIS: That’s why we have the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. That’s why we need to pass the Equality Act. That’s why we need to pass the ERA, because there are—

BIDEN: —That—

HARRIS: — moments in history where states fail to preserve the civil rights of all people.

BIDEN: I have supported the ERA from the very beginning. I—I supported the ERA from the very beginning. I am the guy that extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years. We got to the place where we got 98 out of 98 votes in the United States Senate doing it. I have also argued very strongly that we in fact deal with the notion of denying people access to the ballot box. I agree that everybody, once they in fact — my time is up. I’m sorry.

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IT’S STILL EARLY yet, and up until Thursday night, Biden was enjoying an uncommon period of levitation in the political sphere. That never lasts; every candidate's reality distortion field takes a hit. The next round of polls, some originating after the debate, will be out in the coming days. It’s all but certain they won’t be good for Biden. Ironically, though, losing big so early in the campaign might be the best thing that could happen for Team Biden.

Being the frontrunner right now, this early in a field this crowded, is a lot like leading the majors at the All-Star break. It feels good for a minute, but there’s a lot of season left. In some ways, the season hasn’t even started.

Which is a good thing for the 10 on the stage on Thursday; they live to fight another day (or a few more months). It’s an especially good thing for Harris, who (watch the polls) is likely to get a big fundraising assist next week.

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For Biden, it’s a sobering thing. Snappish, combative, unfocused, Biden showed Thursday he's ready to assume the persona of the slightly dotty neighbor who yells at the kids to get off his lawn.

Biden’s also managed to assume some of the ways of Hillary Clinton: the blind, presumptive, autopilot confidence that all will be well if they just stay the course. Biden needs to get his head around one fact: He can’t wing this. He won’t inherit this. This is not a coronation. He needs to prepare, deeply and seriously.

The next debate assortments will be in Detroit at the end of July, a month from now. There’s a strong chance that the shakeout will begin within a month from then. The frontrunner better be sure he’s not one of them.

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Image credits: Biden-Harris: via NBC News. Hickenlooper: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty. Bennet: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty. Harris: Drew Angerer/Getty Images. Biden: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty.