First D Debate -- and the One Who Was Not There

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the early stages of the 2016 campaign, when many candidates were unknowns.  The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.  We are now in the early stages of the 2020 race.

At The Guardian, Lloyd Green assesses the first presidential debate of the cycle:

Cory Booker won Wednesday’s debate, and – for one night, anyway – stole Elizabeth Warren’s thunder. Booker scored the most TV time, close to 11 minutes, and New Jersey’s junior senator sounded progressive but not extreme.

Substantively, Booker made a difference in the discourse. He refused to buy into Medicare for All, and acknowledged the “need to check corporate consolidation” without sounding as if his candidacy was an anti-business crusade.

In the end, Booker was simultaneously assertive and reassuring. His closing had both heft and lift, the latter being something badly needed but in short supply this election cycle.

From WHO-TV in Des Moines:

 Bullock entered the race for president late and didn’t meet requirements set by the DNC to make the cut for the first debate.  Instead Bullock joined political director Dave Price for a special hour-long town hall preview of the Miami debates.

 On Tuesday evening Americans were shocked by the release of images of a father and daughter who drowned while trying to cross into America illegally.  Bullock laid out his plans for securing the US border, addressing the migrant crisis and what to do about Dreamers and the millions of others who live in America illegally.

Reid J. Epstein at NYT:

As one of 10 white men fighting for relevance from the lower echelon of a Democratic field dominated by a diverse list of well-known names and social media sensations, Mr. Bullock is aiming to translate the retail campaigning skills that powered his three statewide victories — each in years when a Republican presidential nominee carried Montana.

Mr. Bullock sells himself as a member of the I-won-and-got-things-done caucus, a group that includes Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado and former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado. They are betting on personal appeal and a political record over far-reaching policy proposals.

Also crucial to their success: the collapse of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign.

“With the front-runners, if they put their foot in their mouth in the next two months, it gives the people in the second tier an opportunity,” said Fred Keach, a Concord, N.H., city councilor who ran into Mr. Bullock at a street festival in the shadow of the state Capitol.