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Beto O'Rourke gives a great presentation for a Senate candidate in Texas.
Julian Castro has unusual eyebrows. They look like the arches in the McDonalds logo.
DeBlasio gave a strong opening statement. Can't help but think much of the TV audience heard his introduction & thought, "whoa, the mayor of New York City! He's running for President?"
Klobuchar got off the private insurance question awfully quickly, switching to easy talking points about Big Pharma. She lost points to Warren, making the powerful point about people with insurance going bankrupt in the face of high health care costs.
Fireworks, sort of. DeBlasio sideswipes O'Rourke for supporting private insurance, but Delaney trumps him, hard, for wanting to take private insurance away from people who like theirs.
Inslee, the climate change candidate, is seriously disadvantaged by the opening conventional segment on health care. Makes the best of it by pointing out that he's a governor who has delivered for his state what the other candidates are only able to talk about.
Corey Booker, who seems to have brought in his own cheering section, is a naturally amiable man affecting an intensity that does not come naturally. He still comes off better than O'Rourke, who seems to have every word of his statements memorized like he's studied for a test.
Appreciate the sentiments of the journalist making a statement on migrants in detention. Didn't catch his name. He's not a candidate and should spare us his stump speech.
God, but I hate this format. Every one of these candidates feels they have to shout to be heard tonight. Using this format, they really do.
Deep down in the USC weeds with Castro and O'Rourke. Castro in particular sounds like he's running for Solicitor General rather than President. Delaney gets cut off when he tries to make a sensible point about aid to Central America that might help reduce incentives to leave.
Anyone else think the "what would you do on Day 1?" is a stupid question? Presidents find out how to get between the Oval Office and the East Wing on Day 1.
Points to O'Rourke for a good segment on guns. @chucktodd focuses on the implications of gun safety for Trump voters who love their guns, and O'Rourke sensibly ignores him.
Todd fixates on Mitch McConnell, continuing his campaign to make sure Republicans aren't forgotten in this debate.
Finally, a climate question. Inslee makes his pitch. Todd immediately responds by asking O'Rourke how he feels about a favorite Republican talking point (government telling people how to live); O'Rourke's reply is about as good as Inslee's, honestly.
DeBlasio giving a speech about his father's war service.
Why is Tim Ryan here? He's making tolerably good points on foreign policy, but he doesn't look or sound like a potential President. More like a guest panelist on CNN. Gabbard too, though she beats up Ryan pretty well on Afghanistan.
Only O'Rourke and Delaney address impeachment (yea and nay, respectively) and whether Trump should be prosecuted after leaving office. None of the other candidates attempts to intervene.
Inslee's best moment was is close. I feel badly about that. The format served him badly -- a candidate who cares most about the biggest issue, and has also shown he can manage the others struggled to heard, about the others.
I know I'm not supposed to notice this. But does Tulsi Gabbard have paint in her hair?
Castro closes bi-lingually. Booker closes intensely. O'Rourke closes with a memorized statement very like the ones he gave when he was running for Senate in Texas last year. Warren closes personally, and effectively.
So that happened. History, it was not. But it was still the first chance many people got to see some of these candidates. Through the whole second half of this thing, I was struggling with a nagging question....
Why is no one talking about corruption? Pervasive throughout the Trump administration, pervasive among Republicans in Congress, a powerful influence on policy and on everyday government operations....and no one mentioned it. Not the candidates and not the moderators. Why not?
