Friday’s Democratic debate was pitched as a battle between the centrist and the left-wing candidate. But that’s not quite how it played out
Heading into Friday night’s Democratic debate, the media had effectively declared that the Democratic primary was down to only two viable candidates: Mayor Pete Buttigieg, of South Bend, Indiana, and Senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont. Monday’s Iowa caucuses had ended with the two candidates effectively tied after disastrous and seemingly systemic incompetence drew out the reporting process for days. The debate in New Hampshire was pitched as a contest between them, a bid to see which would prevail – the moderate, big money-backed Buttigieg, or the grassroots financing juggernaught of the progressive Sanders. Prognoses pitched the debate as a battle between the party’s ideological factions, and speculated at how the two men would attack each other, and which would prevail.
But the five other candidates onstage had other plans. Senator Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, attacked Buttigieg fiercely and repeatedly. The moderate Senator is competing with the mayor for the Democratic party’s right flank, and it made strategic sense for her to go after the man stealing away what she sees as her most likely voters. But there was also what seemed like a degree of sincere personal contempt in Klobuchar’s remarks toward Buttigieg. She has remarked before that his youth and inexperience would not be overlooked so easily in a woman candidate, and her comments on his inconsistent positions and lack of national experience carried with them a sting of anger at his arrogance and easy rise to the top of the polls. The exchanges highlighted Klobuchar’s refreshing authenticity, coming as they did on a stage full of people who are very practiced in saying things they do not mean. This combined with a ready sense of humor made Klobuchar a more charismatic figure on stage than many of her competitors, even as her policy positions continue to tend toward the unimaginative, uninspired, and unambitious, and threaten to reproduce ongoing cruelties.
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Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
