Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political analyst.
Didn’t Bernie Sanders look fit and energetic Tuesday night?
None of this “fit and energetic considering what he’s been through” stuff, either. Not just fit and energetic for a 78-year-old man who suffered a heart attack exactly two weeks earlier. Fit and energetic, period. By the last of the excruciating three hours, he appeared as fresh and as feisty as the two whippersnapper candidates: Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (38) and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg (37).
The only possible signs of fatigue were that he spoke less than he had in the earlier debates (only 2,085 words, less than seven of the others), and he didn’t yell as much.
Speaking more softly was probably a political plus. All that yelling had become the subject of ridicule. Voters like their presidents to be resolute, not manic.
Sanders may have been a little quieter than in the past. But he seemed alert and robust. So much (at least for now) for the talk about whether he has the physical vigor to continue his campaign.
The political vigor is another question. Sanders energy did not flag during the debate and his voice was less hoarse than it had been in the September debate. His words were clear.
But they were the same old words, reassuring to his (apparently shrinking) base, but hardly designed to broaden that base. Despite his strong performance, in no way did Sanders “win” the fourth debate among 12 Democratic presidential candidates, and not just because so far no one has “won” any of these dog and pony shows, which have had little discernible impact on voters.
It’s also because if anyone “won” this one it was Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and they both had their best moments as they opposed Sanders’ most cherished policy proposal.
They didn’t do it by confronting Sanders, but by challenging Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren who has signed onto that Sanders proposal: replacing all private health insurance with government-run Medicare for All. Perhaps more politically pertinent, Warren has either tied or slipped slightly ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden as the front-runner in the polls.
Making her a target. Besides, she didn’t just have a heart attack. No one was going to get tough on Bernie Sanders this week.
Early in the debate, Warren was asked whether, to finance her health care plan, she would “raise taxes on the middle class to pay for it, yes or no?”
Warren gave a 247-word reply which did not answer the question, inspiring Buttigieg to say, “Well, we heard it tonight, a yes or no question that didn’t get a yes or no answer.”
After a few more minutes of Warren still not answering the question, Sanders broke in, saying, “I do think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up,” suggesting that this would include taxes on middle-income households.
Even with a tax increase, Sanders said, “at the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of people will save money on their health care bills” because they will no longer have to pay insurance premiums or have out-of-pocket health care costs.
That’s debatable. But it’s not evasive.
“At least Bernie’s being honest here and saying how he’s going to pay for this and that taxes are going to go up,” Klobuchar said. “And I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but you have not said that, and I think we owe it to the American people to tell them where we’re going to send the invoice.”
Though she regained her footing later, Warren was weak in these opening minutes. To avoid answering the question, she resorted (as so many candidates do) to sob story examples, talking about the child diagnosed with cancer, the mother with diabetes. It isn’t that these are not real problems faced by real people, but they have nothing to do with whether a particular plan would require tax increases. Furthermore, the alternative health care proposals from Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and others would cover that child and that mother’s health care costs.
It’s the evasiveness that might pose long-term dangers for Warren because her honesty has been challenged on other fronts. There’s the never adequately explained mystery of why she sometimes described herself as an American Indian. More recently, conservative commentators have questioned her account of being fired from a teaching job because she was pregnant.
In neither case is there anything close to conclusive evidence that Warren was dishonest. Still, a few weeks of conspicuous candor would appear to be in her political self-interest.
Ironically, should Warren falter, the likely beneficiary would be Sanders. That’s because it has been declared by the political punditariate that they are both in the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party, chasing the same voters while “moderates” such as Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Biden (who had a pretty good night, also) go after voters who consider themselves “mainstream.”
There is a little something to this, but the two Democratic Party “wings” appear to be divided less by public policy ideology than by degrees of wrath and resentment. After four or eight years of a Sanders or Warren presidency, America would look almost exactly as it would after four or eight years of a Klobuchar or Biden presidency. Any differences in how the nation was governed would be miniscule.
Right now, though Sanders and Warren (and presumably their supporters) are angrier.
“The issue is whether the Democratic Party has the guts to stand up to the health care industry,” Sanders said, “whether we have the guts to stand up to the corrupt, price-fixing pharmaceutical industry.” And at one point Warren asked, “Why is it does everyone else on this stage think it is more important to protect billionaires than it is to invest in an entire generation of Americans?”
But all the Democratic candidates are in favor of lower prescription drug and other health care costs, health insurance for everyone, and higher taxes on the wealthy. There are plausible arguments from a very left of center perspective for opposing some of the “progressive” proposals. Is it “progressive” for taxpayers to finance the state university tuitions of the children of those billionaires Warren and Sanders regularly assail?
“No one on this stage wants to protect billionaires,” Klobuchar told Warren. “Not even the billionaire wants to protect billionaires.”
The billionaire was Tom Steyer, making his first debate appearance, He spoke less than any of the others and didn’t make much of an impression. But when it comes to taxing billionaires, he’s a “progressive.”
