The second Democratic Debate continued on Wednesday with another 10 candidates appearing on stage in Detroit. You can find our recap of night 1 here. Following the same format, here are our winners and losers from night 2.
Winners
Obviously, President Trump is a big winner in the debate overall. Democrats continue to show their economy and industry killing policy that will result in huge tax increases across the board. While several candidates attacked Trump as a racist, I believe the American people are tired of this rhetoric and have moved on.
Tulsi Gabbard certainly looked strong in the second debate. She came out fiery against Kamala Harris and took stands on Harris record as Attorney General of California. Her pointed attacks were initially dodged by Harris as she deflected and turned the response to Joe Biden. As the night continued, Harris was forced to answer Gabbard’s attacks. It’s interesting to note that Gabbard did not go after Biden, which either indicates she doesn’t feel he is a threat or she is attempting to play into the idea of a VP role.
Andrew Yang also stood out as different, but I hesitate to call him a real winner in this debate. He did draw out how his ideas were different from the other candidates, but really did not clearly identify how his solutions would benefit. The real reason he comes into the winner column, he didn’t appear as crazy as some of the other candidates. I will note that his far left ideals came out as the night went on however.
Losers
The biggest losers of the night were the coal and fossil fuel workers across the country. All the Democrats seemed to be united against these workers and bent on eliminating their jobs. In response to eliminating their jobs, they basically led with the Green New Deals promise of a job and salary for everyone without any clarity what that would be.
Joe Biden was definitely a loser in the debate. Biden began taking attacks from the first opening statement from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The attacks continued from Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. At one point, Cory Booker had Joe Biden in a corner essentially until he was saved by the moderators.
Kamala Harris also seemed to have struggled for most of the debate. While she did great when attacking Biden, she did not have great responses when she was being attacked. In fact, her Twitter team had better responses when she was attacked on her Medicare for All plan. This tweet went out soon after the exchange, tying Obama support to Medicare for All.
Pretty much everyone else should go into the loser column and possibly suspend their campaigns. Cory Booker had some great attacks on Joe Biden, but did nothing to secure himself with policy. Inslee had some attacks on climate control, which led to the destruction of the American coal and fossil fuel industries. Bennet appeared to be missing a step most of the night. Gillibrand and de Blasio proved that they are not realistic candidates for this nomination.
In the end, this debate was more entertaining than night one. There was more pointed attacks and the real candidates seemed to emerge from the pack. It will be interesting to see in the coming weeks if the number of candidates dwindles as Democratic donors start aligning behind the real candidates. I don’t believe Democrats are any closer to having a solid candidate than they were in the beginning. These debates have to leave Democrats saying, along with a popular rapper from Detroit, “will the real candidate please stand up?”
You can contact JD through the Liberty Loft website or by Twitter.
