Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
At the Democratic presidential primary debate in Iowa, January 14, 2020
All things considered, they played nice.
Bernie Sanders contrasted his position on the Iraq War with the hawks, who made the most catastrophic policy blunder in 40 years, but he didn’t go after Joe Biden for having been a major blunderer. Likewise on trade, Bernie pointed to his opposition to NAFTA and establishing permanent normal trade relations with China, but didn’t go after Biden for supporting them.
Biden acknowledged error on Iraq, but added how he’d helped coordinate Obama’s efforts to pull the troops out. His position seems to be, “I sent ’em there and brought ’em back; if you don’t like one position, you’ll like the other.”
He also argued that we have to keep trading with the world, but that he now supports more worker- and environmental-friendly agreements. Again, if you don’t like his old positions on trade, you’ll like his new ones.
It wasn’t just Bernie; no one pounced on Joe, not even Elizabeth Warren, who’d waged a long, righteous battle against the bankruptcy legislation, championed by Biden, that victimized millions of small consumers and unknowing patients.
Perhaps it was the fluidity of the race that constrained them. With 40 percent of Iowa Democrats as yet undecided, and with widespread affection for Old Joe, like that for an uncle who may be slipping but has generally meant well, going after Biden—or any of the other candidates—may have seemed a fool’s errand. The one exception to this rule was Amy Klobuchar, the scourge of progressives. Her entire candidacy hangs on whether she can convince her fellow Democrats that she’s the only level-headed one in the whole bunch, the gal in the green eyeshade poring over the accounts while woolly-headed utopians dream of better things. She spent her time popping every dream, disparaging every big program and systemic critique, she could. No one will ever accuse Amy Klobuchar of campaigning in poetry.
The artful performance on the debate stage was Warren’s. It’s clear that she planned to use the controversy over whether Bernie had told her a woman couldn’t win to position herself, as she hadn’t until Tuesday night, as the Women’s Candidate. She needs that positioning, because when it comes to politics, policy, and program, the effective differences between Bernie and herself are minimal. Each speaks to a different constituency, but each offers fundamentally the same critique of American capitalism and the governmental corruption that has enabled its systemic abuses, and each offers fundamentally the same policies to diminish its clout. That splits the party’s progressives, leaving neither with enough support to claim the nomination. On Tuesday night, in her response to what Bernie either said or didn’t say, Warren took on a new identity without relinquishing any of her old one. She played the Woman Card to a party that is majority-female. Whether or not it ultimately wins her the nomination, it certainly won her the night.
That leaves Buttigieg, who appeared painfully earnest in every one of his answers, without saying anything particularly memorable. His every line, his every glance, looks to be studied; I don’t doubt his burps come off as thoughtful and his farts, considered. This is probably not an asset to an aspiring young pol.
