Tonight’s Democratic debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders took place in unusual circumstances, without an audience and amid a national emergency on coronavirus. The result was an odd debate between the two Democratic front runners which saw the Democratic candidates largely agree on most current issues while disagreeing vigorously on who has led the progressive agenda over the past thirty years. Our view is that Biden did what he needed to in terms of winning the remaining primaries and consolidating his support, while Sanders failed to change the trajectory of the election. At the same time, we believe that Biden failed to win over Sanders’ voters and actually may have hurt his chances to win in November.
Biden started off the debate by coughing several times which triggered a wave of twitter comments about coronavirus, but on a substantive level, he did fairly well on the subject of coronavirus suggesting that he would rely on medical experts and making vague criticisms about Trump. Sanders was unable to draw a huge contrast with Biden on the coronavirus response. When the debate turned toward other issues, Sanders became more aggressive attacking Biden on his various votes to cut social security, in support of the Hyde Amendment, and vote for the Iraq War. Biden should have seen this one coming, but still seemed not quite ready and instead of acknowledging that his views had evolved over time, tried to misrepresent his record on a whole range of issues. Sanders tried to pin Biden down and Biden’s evasive responses likely infuriated the Bernie faithful. Sanders also got Biden to promise to stop all new fracking in America and to support sanctuary cities. We think that this will hurt Biden in November.
The larger issue that we saw was more fundamental. Biden and Sanders are old, really old. Biden and Sanders are 77 and 78 years old respectively. Biden is very comfortable saying what he did 30 years ago, how he partnered with Dick Lugar, and what the Obama administration did. But he is running to be President and should be speaking about the future. He did promise to nominate a female Vice President and a black female to the Supreme Court, but young voters view this as more tokenism. The real issue is that Biden does not represent the future. Sanders has a progressive agenda that appeals to some, but Biden represents a return to the Democratic Establishment, a globalist partnership with what Trump calls the Swamp. Biden is on the verge of cruising towards the nomination, but his inability to inspire progressives within his own party and generate enthusiasm generally is likely to put him at a disadvantage in November versus Trump.
NewEnglandPolitics.com 