You know it\u2019s a bad night for a Democrat in the 21st century when he\u2019s on stage explaining what parts of school busing, exactly, he opposed several decades ago.<\/p>\n
But there was Joe Biden, telling Kamala Harris that what he opposed was \u201cbusing ordered by the Department of Education.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden had entered Thursday\u2019s presidential debate prepared to avoid conflict. Instead, he got clobbered by Harris, a lower-polling contender.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s call it: Biden is a damaged front-runner, and he left his first primary debate of the year weaker than when he arrived.<\/p>\n
Here are six takeaways from the second round of the first debates of the 2020 Democratic primary:<\/p>\n
Harris is for real<\/span><\/p>\n One of the biggest questions about Harris heading into her first presidential debate was whether she\u2019s too cautious. After two hours, no one is asking that anymore.<\/p>\n In crisp answers that cut to the core of issues, Harris\u2019 goal was to allow viewers to envision her on the debate stage with Donald Trump. She managed to do more than that, taking a shot at Biden on the topic of race as she tries to chip away at his support among black voters.<\/p>\n Harris started off the night assailing Trump and the GOP over their tax cut for the rich. She also threw herself into a squabble between other candidates: \u201cAmerica does not want a food fight. They want to know how we put food on their table.\u201d<\/p>\n But it was her direct questioning of Biden that stole the night, vaulting her name into the most-searched term on Google and giving her the clear victory. She came into the debate with a plan to hit the front-runner over race and she executed it flawlessly, leaving Biden looking stunned.<\/p>\n Turning to the politician decades her senior \u2014 and whose allies have suggested should pick her as his running mate \u2014 Harris allowed that she doesn\u2019t think he\u2019s a racist. But his comments about his amiable dealings with segregationist senators were \u201churtful.\u201d <\/p>\n Then she turned to school busing.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that little girl was me.\u201d<\/p>\n By the end, Biden stopped himself, acknowledging that \u201canyway, my time is up.\u201d <\/p>\n Later, on MSNBC, Harris twisted the knife, turning again to the \u201cdark and dangerous\u201d time when segregationists roamed the Senate. \u201cWe have to speak the truth in this country,\u201d she said, adding \u201cthe consequences are painful and emotional. <\/p>\n "I would like to hear him acknowledge what was wrong about a perspective on busing.\u201d <\/p>\n (Some) old people are doing fine<\/span><\/p>\n Weeks of thinly veiled references to \u201cgenerational change\u201d and warnings about going back to the \u201cold ways\u201d were starting to get tired.<\/p>\n Want to really make your rivals look out of date? Stand next to them. Viewers on Thursday saw the two Democratic front-runners \u2014 Biden and Bernie Sanders (white, male and with a combined age of 153) flanked by a 54-year-old African American female senator and a gay, 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind.<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t Biden\u2019s advanced age that did him in. It was a pointed attack on his record. The weaker critique was the crasser one.<\/p>\n Eric Swalwell (presidential candidate, 38, often interrupts conversations) drew groans when he told Biden it was time to \u201cpass the torch to a new generation.\u201d<\/p>\n After Biden was through swatting away Swalwell, Buttigieg offered to interject \u201cas the youngest guy on this stage.\u201d But Sanders proved the sprier candidate, muscling away the microphone.<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue,\u201d Sanders said, \u201cis not generational \u2026 The issue is who has the guts to take on Wall Street, to take on the fossil fuel industry, to take on the big money interests who have unbelievable influence over the economic and political life of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n Sanders emerged from the debate unscathed, with no cracks in his progressive base. <\/p>\n He benefited from the outset from an extended conversation about health care, his signature issue. And former Gov. John Hickenlooper\u2019s socialism critique didn\u2019t land.<\/p>\n The exchanges shed light on the best way for younger candidates to hit the age issue: Direct criticism of candidates for how old they are can backfire, while sharp examinations of the decadeslong records of those candidates are fair game.<\/p>\n Mayor Pete owns up, but highlights his inexperience<\/span><\/p>\n While Buttigieg avoided the kind of lashing that another young candidate, 46-year-old former Rep. Beto O\u2019Rourke, experienced on Wednesday night, he also lacked a breakout moment. <\/p>\n Wearing a 5 o\u2019clock shadow, perhaps to shade his considerable youth, Buttigieg at turns showed why he\u2019s earned his way into the middle tier of the field, offering a critique of Republicans that\u2019s designed to appeal to religious voters and those outside the coasts. <\/p>\n He talked about he and his husband\u2019s student loan debt, but even there he took a middle ground, arguing that making college free was tantamount to asking working-class families to subsidize the children of billionaires. <\/p>\n Same for his \u201c\u2018Medicare for All\u2019 who want it\u201d approach. <\/p>\n But if the next few weeks were going to be a big test for the young mayor, Buttigieg did little to dig himself out of the biggest political challenge of his life. <\/p>\n Buttigieg came into the debate hobbled by a shooting in his city of South Bend. Buttigieg decided to take a direct approach\u2014indicating that the buck stopped with him. <\/p>\n It was a risky approach: \u201cI couldn’t get it done,\u201d he said, later adding, \u201cIt’s a mess.\u201d <\/p>\n It allowed him to avoid looking defensive. Yet it may have confirmed the fears of skeptics who believe the small-town leader simply isn\u2019t ready to take on the biggest job in the world.<\/p>\n Trump returns to the conversation<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s face it. Wednesday\u2019s debate looked like backup night in the rookie leagues compared with what we just saw Thursday.<\/p>\n Part of that was luck of the draw. Four of the five top-polling candidates were on the stage Thursday. But the other part was that these competitors remembered what Democrats care about more than anything else: defeating Trump.<\/p>\n It turns out that, for all of his other struggles, this is one thing Biden is very good at.<\/p>\n Biden invoked Trump three times in his first response of the night. The president \u201cthinks Wall Street built America,\u201d he put America in a \u201chorrible situation,\u201d and gave handouts to the wealthy that Biden promised to undo. Harris quickly followed suit, then Sanders, who called Trump a \u201cphony\u201d and \u201ca pathological liar and a racist.\u201d<\/p>\n This is what Democratic voters live for. And for high-polling candidates, it is the safest bet to focus on him. Even lower-tier candidates have support bases that the front-runners will be fighting over once those candidates start dropping out. The common denominator for all of them is Trump.<\/p>\n Obama is not off limits \u2014 at least according to Harris<\/span><\/p>\n Go to the tape for Harris\u2019 direct confrontation with Biden. But stick around for the riskier, more subtle point of separation she drew with him.<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s go-to play for weeks has been to invoke Barack Obama and his relationship with a former president beloved by Democrats. That was no different on Thursday. On health care, he urged voters to finish \u201cthe work we started with Obamacare.\u201d When Harris smacked him on segregation and busing, Biden reminded the audience that he \u201cworked with a man \u2026 we dealt with the issues in a major, major way.\u201d<\/p>\n Most Democrats see this from Biden, nod and move on. He was the vice president, and this is his card to play. But Harris suggested an avenue that is open to Democratic presidential candidates who believe the voters they are courting might harbor some frustration with eight years of Obama.<\/p>\n On immigration \u2014 and the large number of immigrants deported on Obama\u2019s watch \u2014 Harris said people should not be deported if their only offense is living in the United States without documents.<\/p>\n The timing could not have been better, with immigration at the forefront of many Democrats\u2019 minds.<\/p>\n \u201cOn this issue,\u201d Harris said, \u201cI disagreed with my president.\u201d<\/p>\n The critique didn\u2019t flop. And now any other Democrat who wants to make a similar case can plow ahead.<\/p>\n So many candidates, so little likely movement<\/span><\/p>\n Six months from now, you\u2019ll be recalling those pivotal first debates of 2020, right? Yeah, not so much. Julián Castro got a bump on night one, but it would be surprising to see a seismic shift in the race coming out of these two nights.<\/p>\n Truth is, Biden is still the front-runner, and there\u2019s only so much room for a low-polling candidates to move up. <\/p>\n Andrew Yang fell flat. Marianne Williamson was confusing, and Kirsten Gillibrand did not produce a memorable moment. The one contender who did, Harris, was already polling in the top tier.<\/p>\n The end of the next fundraising quarter is just around the corner. The news cycle moves quickly, and with the exception of Harris \u2014 and arguably Castro \u2014 it\u2019s hard to imagine any individual performance altering the race a week from now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You know it\u2019s a bad night for a Democrat in the 21st century when he\u2019s on stage explaining what parts of school busing, exactly, he opposed several decades ago. But there was Joe Biden, telling Kamala Harris that what he opposed was \u201cbusing ordered by the Department of Education.\u201d Biden had entered Thursday\u2019s presidential debate … <\/p>\n