RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/28/the_debates_winners_and_losers_140672.html

MIAMI — Ten candidates shared the stage on the second night of the first debate of the Democratic primary. After two hours of questions and cross talk, of impromptu barbs and prepared talking points, a tentative picture has emerged of the initial winners and losers.

Winner: Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris has arrived.

Pollsters and pundits had wondered whether the freshman senator from California could start to deliver on her well-received campaign rollout. She answered Thursday night by pummeling the front-runner in prime time, questioning former Vice President Joe Biden about civil rights.

Harris pushed the 76-year-old Biden to explain his record on federal busing, which he opposed while a young senator from Delaware, and his association with segregationists, which he has defended as necessary for compromise.

“I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” Harris told Biden.

“But I also believe,” she continued, “it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.”

Although that decades-old legislative record is hardly new, Harris made it personal.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” Harris said. “That little girl was me.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/all-ten-dems-at-the-second-debate-would-provide-health-insurance-for-illegal-immigrants/

In the second round of the first 2020 Democratic presidential debate on Thursday, all ten of the candidates onstage said their government health care plans would provide coverage for illegal immigrants.

NBC News co-anchor Savannah Guthrie asked the candidates — including frontrunners former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg — if they would cover illegal immigrants.

“Raise your hand if your government healthcare plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants,” she said.

Every single candidate raised his or her hand.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274160/second-debate-night-circus-joseph-klein

Two white male septuagenarians were the headliners of the second Democrat primary debate held in Miami on Thursday night. Barack Obama’s vice president Joe Biden and Socialist-Democrat Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, leaders of the pack so far in early polling, had the opportunity to go head-to-head, without the distraction of “rising star” Senator Elizabeth Warren on the same stage. She had her place in the spotlight on what turned out to be Wednesday night’s undercard. But the expected jousting never took place. Sanders and Biden largely ignored each other and tried to stick to their respective talking points. Sanders was the revolutionary demanding major transformational change. Biden was the experienced public servant who knew how to get things done. The only issue that they directly sparred on directly with each other was the war in Iraq, which Biden voted for as senator and Sanders opposed.

After the two main contenders, the middle of the pack at Thursday’s debate was represented by California Senator Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. The also-rans included John Hickenlooper, Colorado’s former governor; Colorado Senator Michael Bennet; New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand; California Representative Eric Swalwell; writer and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson; and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

There is hardly any difference in terms of the leftward-leaning direction the candidates want to take the country. The differences among the candidates lie in their styles of delivery and the speed of transformative change they want to bring about.

The candidates were totally aligned with each other in making President Trump their punching bag. There were 52 mentions of Trump during this second debate, 17 more than on the first night.

Sanders spewed the most pejoratives, calling President Trump a racist, a pathological liar and a phony in one breath. He said that he would expose President Trump as “the fraud that he is.” Biden said that President Trump has ripped the soul out of America and destroyed alliances. Harris called the president America’s leading national security threat. Hickenhooper called him “the worst president in history.” Williamson accused the president of “harnessing fear for political purposes,” which she said she would counter with “love.” And so on.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/democratic-debate-kamala-harris-criticizes-joe-biden-busing/

The headline out of tonight’s debate is going to be Kamala Harris starting off the second hour by turning to Joe Biden and just kicking the snot out of him on the previously long-forgotten issue of forced busing in Delaware. No older white male wants to get into a fight about racism with a younger African-American woman in a Democratic presidential primary. Biden tried to defend himself by first contrasting his work as a defense attorney with Harris’ record as a prosecutor, then moved on to a not terribly convincing, “I did not oppose busing in America; I opposed busing ordered by the Department of Education,” and then he cut himself off. Septuagenarians who have been in the Senate longer than I’ve been alive should probably avoid the term, “my time is up.” Biden would have been better off defending his stance on the merits, declaring that busing kids across town to new schools away from their homes was angering parents and exacerbating racial tensions instead of healing them.

One night won’t sink the Joe Biden campaign, but boy, did he look like he had a glass jaw, and he also seems to have aged a decade since he left the vice presidency. When asked what his first priority as president would be, Biden answered that it would be defeating Donald Trump.

This night shouldn’t have gone this badly for him. “Build upon what we’ve done” is probably a more reassuring and appealing message than completely scrapping the entire existing system of private health insurance.

Separately, Michael Bennet went after Biden on making a deal with Mitch McConnell extending the Bush tax.  This is a really interesting contrast to Wednesday night, when no other Democrat bothered to go after Elizabeth Warren, the highest polling candidate on stage.

Beyond that exchange, Kamala Harris came prepared. During one particularly irritating moment of shouting and crosstalk, she silenced the cacophony and declared the audience “doesn’t want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we’re gonna put food on the table.” (Is it the job of the president to put food on your table?) She seemed to be wanting to replay the Obama style – simultaneously casual, personal, and inspiring. The also-rans might want to start diverting some of their fire to Harris, because otherwise, she will just demolish every candidate ahead of her.

Bernie Sanders shouted almost every answer, and seemed even more cantankerous than usual, insisting that a quote he gave to a Vermont newspaper was “mischaracterization of my view.” When Swalwell went back to the “past the torch” line, Biden just smiled a “get a load of this guy” grin while Sanders’s eyes bulged and he seemed to fume. Sanders stood out when standing next to the likes of Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb. This is much tougher competition, and he’s having a tougher time.