Elizabeth Warren went after the mayor on an issue of equal importance in a Democratic primary: His private fundraisers and his connections with the elite of American politics. Aside from his fundraiser in a California wine cave where the wine cost $900 a bottle and likely was not served by the glass, the New York Times came out with a story that Mayor Pete leads all candidates in contributions from Wall Street.
If this is beginning to sound familiar it should. Barack Obama got his financing from Wall Street. Did that effect his presidency? Who knows? Obama skirted the issue of Free versus Fair Trade during his two campaigns but governed as a full-fledged Free Trader. Obama promised to deliver union protecting legislation but never got around to it.
Obama was light on experience but not hardly as light as Buttigieg.
All the fireworks of this debate began and ended with the mayor. There was a flareup between Sanders and Biden but it quickly abated. Sanders again pointed out why the half-hearted approach to healthcare reform would not work while Biden again misled the audience about the cost of Medicare for All.
Andrew Yang had the best line of the night when he opened with: "I know what you're thinking. You're wondering why I'm still on this stage." (paraphrase)
Yang remains the smartest guy in the field but he is no more qualified to be president than the man inhabiting the White House. He is what we used to call an idea candidate and his idea is a good one. Until the other candidates come up with an answer to the coming age of automation, he may remain on stage. He certainly belongs on the cabinet of the next president.
Once again the frontrunner faced surprisingly little turbulence. Not one of the candidates seems willing to pay the price for stating the obvious: His son's involvement in a Ukrainian oil company is an electoral liability. It has the appearance of corruption and for neither him nor his son to recognize how blatantly inappropriate it was gives testament to incredibly poor judgement. The same kind of judgement that approved of NAFTA and the Afghan-Iraq wars.
I frankly don't have a clue as to why Trump is afraid of Biden if in fact he is. There is not a candidate in the running who wouldn't run rings around Trump in debate except for old Joe Biden. Biden thinks he can charm the working class voters in the critical states but he has no more to offer for job exportation and declining living standards than Hillary Clinton did. In fact, their policies are the same.
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