2020 Democrats Try to Cut Down Presidential Front-Runner Biden
After being caught off guard by attacks in the June debate, Biden repeatedly took refuge in the mantle of his former running mate.
(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden greeted Kamala Harris for their much-anticipated debate rematch Wednesday by saying, “Go easy on me, kid.”
She didn’t -- and neither did anyone else.
Over the next 150 minutes, a more engaged Biden took punches from his Democratic rivals but proved that he could also counter-punch on health care, immigration and criminal justice.
Still, Wednesday’s debate didn’t produce the same stark contrasts between moderates and progressives as the forum Tuesday, which featured liberal firebrands Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Biden’s debate performance, which followed weeks of intense closed-door rehearsals, sought to put to rest the questions about whether he was prepared enough to be the Democratic standard-bearer in 2020.
After being caught off guard by attacks in the June debate, Biden on Wednesday repeatedly took refuge in the mantle of his former running mate, President Barack Obama.
“I find it fascinating, everybody is talking about how terrible I am on these issues,” he said. “Barack Obama knew exactly who I was. He had 10 lawyers do a background check and everything about me on civil rights and civil liberties and he chose me and he said it was the best decision he made. I trust his judgment.”
Senator Cory Booker had just finished an offensive against Biden’s criminal justice record, including his authorship of the 1994 crime bill and his longer record of supporting the tough-on-crime policies that have fallen out of favor.
“The house was set on fire and you claimed responsibility for those laws and you can’t just now come up with a plan to put out that fire,” Booker said. “You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign. You can’t do it when it’s convenient and then dodge it when it’s not.”
But Biden had studied up on his opponents and counterattacked. He accused Booker of adopting “stop-and-frisk” policies as mayor of Newark, New Jersey.
And after Harris renewed her attack on Biden for standing with segregationist senators to oppose forced busing to end school desegregation, Biden charged that she had failed to take action as California attorney general to desegregate schools in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Booker and Harris, the only major black candidates in the race, have been trying to make inroads into Biden’s particularly strong support among African-American Democrats. In South Carolina, a key early test of black voting strength, polls show Biden enjoys the support of a majority of black voters.
But white candidates, too, made impassioned appeals to those voters. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand pledged to use her white privilege to “lift up” those without a voice.
“I can talk to those white women in the suburbs that voted for Trump and explain to them what white privilege is,” she said. “When their son is walking down the street with a bag of M&Ms in his pocket wearing a hoodie, his whiteness protects him from not being shot.”
In the early minutes of the forum Harris was laser-focused on dismantling Biden’s health-care proposal.
“In 2019 in America for a Democrat to be running for president with a plan that does not cover everyone in America I think is without excuse,” the California senator said of the former vice president’s plan, which would add a public option to the existing Affordable Care Act system but would not necessarily give health insurance to all Americans.
Biden criticized Harris about what he said was her muddying her message on health care and offering a proposal that would take a decade to be implemented.
“The senator’s had several plans so far,” he said. “You can’t beat President Trump with double talk.”
Gillibrand also confronted Biden on women’s issues, bringing up a 1981 opinion piece in which Biden said Congress was “subsidizing the deterioration of the family” by approving child care tax credits that were available to high-income families.
Gillibrand said Biden was suggesting that women working outside the home were “avoiding responsibility.’”
Biden shook his head. “That was a long time ago,” he said.
Almost everyone challenged Biden on at least one signature issue, and for Julian Castro it was border enforcement.
Biden defended criminal penalties for illegal border crossings despite Castro’s insistence that Democrats like Biden were “taking the bait” on Republican talking points.
“Mr. Vice President, it looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn’t,” Castro said, one of a number of attempts to portray Biden as out of touch with current times.
Biden said Castro’s plan to decriminalize illegal border crossings “doesn’t make sense.” And he suggested Castro’s current position was opportunistic.
“I don’t remember him talking about any of this when he was secretary” of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration, he said.
The question of decriminalization remained the major flash point separating the Democratic Party’s moderates, who worry about being portrayed as the party of open borders, and liberals, who say Trump is using the law to separate families and detain children.
“The policies of this administration have been facilitated by laws on the books that treat them as if they’ve committed crimes,” Harris said. “These children have not committed crimes.”
From the very first questions from the moderators on health care, Harris sought to bring the fight back to Biden, attacking his plan even when asked to defend hers. Biden’s climate plan also came under fire, as Jay Inslee accused him of pushing “middle ground solutions” and “average-sized things.”
But Biden said he could transform the economy, reduce the use of fossil fuels and rally the world to address the crisis. “We have to walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said.
Biden took the stage under intense pressure to deliver after a rough showing in June’s debate, when he was unprepared for attacks and appeared to lose his train of thought.
The debate also highlighted the growing Democratic support for impeaching or prosecuting Trump for obstruction of justice after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. More than 100 House Democrats have expressed support for starting impeachment proceedings, though others have suggested the move could backfire.
“We swore an oath to protect the Constitution,” Booker said. “The politics of this be damned.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Detroit at jepstein32@bloomberg.net;Gregory Korte in Detroit at gkorte@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley
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