With urgency rising in their fight to win the nomination to challenge US President Donald Trump in November’s election, the Democrats’ top contenders clashed over experience and electability in a fiery debate on Friday that tested the strength of a new front-runner, former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg, and former US vice president Joe Biden.
Biden, on the offensive throughout the debate, predicted that he would “take a hit” in New Hampshire’s next-up primary election after a weak showing in Iowa, but he also raised questions about the long-term viability of his leading rival, US Senator Bernie Sanders, who identifies as a democratic socialist, and Buttigieg.
“Bernie’s labeled himself, not me, a democratic socialist,” Biden said.
Photo: Reuters
“Turn the page,” the 38-year-old Buttigieg said in a jab at the 77-year-old former vice president. “Now, we have to meet this moment.”
Friday marked the eighth debate in the Democratic Party’s yearlong quest for a presidential nominee. The prime-time affair came just four days after Iowa’s chaotic caucuses and four days before New Hampshire’s primary, with several candidates facing pointed questions about their political survival.
More than their rivals, the debate tested new front-runners, Sanders and Buttigieg, who emerged from Iowa on top, but walked into New Hampshire with liabilities that their Democratic rivals tried to exploit.
With the stakes rising by the day and money rapidly drying up, Biden, and US senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar were also fighting to prove to voters and donors alike that a legitimate path to the presidency remained.
Klobuchar was among the underdog candidates who took aim at Buttigieg, criticizing the millennial mayor for saying in a stump speech that the impeachment proceedings against Trump were “exhausting” and that he would rather watch cartoons.
“It is easy to go after Washington. It is much harder to lead and much harder to take those difficult positions,” Klobuchar said.
If elected, Buttigieg would be the youngest-ever US president and he has never served in elected office beyond the mayor’s office.
However, he used experience as a weapon against Biden, a two-term vice president who has spent most of his adult life in Washington.
“I’m interested in the style of the politics we need to put forward to actually finally turn the page,” Buttigieg said.
“The politics of the past I think were not all that bad,” Biden said. “I don’t know what about the past about [former US president] Barack Obama and Joe Biden was so bad.”
Warren avoided any direct criticism of her rivals and repeatedly pivoted to her core anti-corruption message.
As Biden, Sanders and Klobuchar fought about the best way forward on healthcare, Warren did not engage, instead speaking broadly about the need to lower prescription drug costs.
Billionaire activist Tom Steyer and New York entrepreneur Andrew Yang (楊安澤) were fighting to prove they belong in the conversation.
Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg remains a major unknown in the primary math, skipping debates and the first four states’ elections, while flooding the airwaves with hundreds of millions of dollars in ads and picking up significant endorsements.
He is focusing on the big basket of “super Tuesday” primaries on March 3.
Others still participating in the primary are businessman Michael Bennet, US Representative Tulsi Gabbard and former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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