Last night's Democratic candidate debate: a club soda

Last night's Democratic Presidential candidate debate was like a club soda...lots of fizz, but missing a satisfying taste.  CNN structured that debate for Joe Biden to be a pinata and in so doing, Obama was more the object of the left's disaffection instead of Donald Trump. News flash. The point of 2020 will be Trump vs Democrats and never
Trumpers and whatever version of health care, immigration, and economic fairness trump Trump.  The questions were posed to maintain that focus on the differences between candidates deeply entangled in the public policy weeds for the entire night to the neglect of economic and racial and gender fairness as a contrast with Trump. If there were winners, Biden showed he could take the hits and throw a few himself. He survived and his poll numbers may also survive. Whether the Democratic Party won enough to beat Trump is even more questionable than before.

What was missing from the debate were any contrasts or hits on the top concern of most Democrats is beating Trump. Strangely, the outrage of Trump's revealed overt racism and his subversion of democracy, Trumps stuffing the courts with anti Roe v Wade judges,  his feeding the wellbeing of the top 1%  to the neglect of the middle class ,and his personal amorality and administrative incompetence either were ignored or were barely mentioned, yet those are key motivating voter factors. 

When all is said and done the Democratic Party made little headway in winning the main event in 2020.  The bottom-line question is whether Democrats can retake the industrial blue-collar states to garner enough electoral votes while holding onto their 2018 midterm gains and the states they won in 2016. Blue-collar Biden would be an acceptable alternative there to those key states, but it is not clear if blue-collar voters in these industrial states are seeking an alternative to Trump. If anything, on issues of open borders and loss of private insurance which would affect more than those currently benefitting from Obamacare. moved to the forefront, which could be turnoffs to those critical states, while Democrats left with firming up their blue state wins and a repeat of 2016. The unspoken hope for Democrats is Trump himself whose policies of white nationalism, anti-choice, and climate change denial will cause a higher voter turnout of minorities, young people, and suburban women and the debaters did nothing to advance those causes dear to the turnout of those groups. Those issues should not remain unspoken in future debates.

 For example, the whole focus on health care policy was the weeds of the details and difference between various "moderate" defend amend Obamacare with a public option and repeal and replace Obamacare with the Canadian system.  The moderates tried to scare potential Bernie backers with arguments his plan would eliminate all private insurance, including employer insurance and the cost of his proposals and tax increases that would offset deductibles and copays.   None on the pure Medicare for all Sanders, Warren end of the spectrum backed up the tradeoffs with any projected cost/benefits evidence.  The greatest sin committed by all on the stage was only giving brief mention or no mention at all was that Donald Trump's administration was attempting to throw out Obamacare in total by backing action in the courts that would do it, leaving many without any coverage whatsoever.
Either plan, total Medicare for All or mend Obamacare, would be far better than anything the GOP offers.  Also, while scaring voters they would lose their employer insurance may be an effective strategy, where the moderate debaters missed a good point, consumers would have a choice of what they wanted, a more positive message, than a message of l fear of loss.. Barely uttered by moderates was if consumers if they liked their insurance they have and did not like the Medicare public option, they could keep it.   Neither the Sanders/Warren approach or Trump would leave consumers with a choice.  Trump's idea to eliminate Obamacare with no replacement would leave millions without a choice of anything they could afford and would not solve the high deductibles and premiums and coverage of pre-existing conditions.

The other flashpoint was on immigration, pitting the left against moderates on whether the undocumented migrants would be subject to criminal or civil law.  That is a legal fine point that is confusing but sounds like one side is more permissive than the other, the open borders v the Trump acts of cruelty and committing administrative malpractice.   Unless voters understand the legal and procedural differences between civil and criminal law, they may have been lifted scratching their heads.  The point is that Democrats, including Obama, were neither intentionally cruel or incompetent in their administration...and no one on the stage was for "open borders", just which laws to apply.

The only candidates addressing the underlying issue of the sense of economic well-being were Sanders and Warren who identified those left behind in an otherwise robust economy.  If Democrats cannot reassure voters they will keep full employment and a generally healthy economy continuing, but make it fairer, they may lose in 2020.  Trump's economic populism is still popular, but he has failed to make it fair or to live up to details of his promises and the Democratic candidates barely touched on what I think will be one of the important deciding factors in 2020.