With less than 70 days until the Iowa caucus, the fifth Democratic primary debate should have been a debate about distinction. Instead, the candidates mostly played nice, refusing to have any serious contact with each other about their policy differences or how they would find legislative success with a Republican-controlled Senate. Surprisingly, the moderators didn’t even bother to challenge any of the candidates on how they would achieve their lofty legislative agendas. This becomes more important on the healthcare front, particularly the healthcare plans proposed by Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, which former Vice President Joe Biden noted wouldn’t even get congressional support from all Democrats.
The debate was remarkably flat and dull, and the candidates didn’t finally come alive until New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker joked that Biden “might have been high” when Biden said he doesn’t support legalizing marijuana. The problem with that, though, is the debate ended 20-30 minutes later, meaning it took more than half of the debate for the candidates to start making direct contact with their opponents, and that’s just entirely too long.
The lackluster performance shows why 62% of Iowa voters are still open to supporting someone else. All voters, regardless of political party, want to believe there’s someone to fight for them, they want someone who’s going to stand up to their perceived boogeyman, but none of the current pool of candidates appears to do that.
Politics is a contact sport, and the Democratic candidates would be wise to learn that now. Going toe-to-toe with President Trump will be unlike anything they have encountered. He doesn’t play by the rules, and he doesn’t care about hitting below the belt. Candidates need to take the gloves off and show their Democratic base that they’re capable of fighting for them, just as Trump has done so well with his supporters.
One of the biggest failures of the night was the lower tier candidates’ unwillingness to directly take on the new Iowa front-runner, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard tried but failed miserably after getting into a debate with Buttigieg about foreign policy, to which he chastised her for meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, citing how Trump’s meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un yielded nothing in return.
Others, such as Booker, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and Andrew Yang, all seemed not to realize there was a front-runner at all.
For example, Booker, who hasn’t yet met the threshold for the December debate, needed it most. Instead of seizing the moment, in a confusing twist, he went after Biden about his unwillingness to support legalizing marijuana. No, seriously, he went after Biden about marijuana, even though going after Biden hasn’t worked so far for anyone — just look at Harris’s struggling campaign.
It’s mind-boggling how poor most of the candidate’s debate strategies are. They seemed to enter the debate with no clear endgame. It was as if they were just going through the motions.
Democrats don’t seem to recognize the purpose of presidential debates: separate yourself from your opponents and showcase your ability to defeat your potential opponent to carry the torch across the finish line. While most of the candidates will live on to fight another day, it would behoove them for the next debate to highlight their goals and what they want voters to get out of their performance. But as this process continues, voters are going to expect just that. They’re going to expect candidates to battle it out so that the best man or woman prevails.
On Wednesday night, the Democratic candidates failed to meet that marker.
Only Buttigieg appears to have met his likely goal. He showed that he could be a front-runner and not only make it through the process but thrive and prevail. He’s unscathed as a result of his opponent’s inability or unwillingness to take him head-on, and that’s a failure of the other candidates, particularly those on the lower tier. Still, it’s a gift to Buttigieg because he remains largely unscathed and survived his first real test as a front-runner. It may cement his support in Iowa among some voters.
It should be a lesson for Democrats going into the next debate that they need to have a clear strategy for what they want to accomplish when on the next presidential debate stage.
Shermichael Singleton (@Shermichael_) is a Republican strategist and political analyst regularly appearing on MSNBC.
