CNN Coverage Of Democratic Debates (42)

PART 1 of 2

The 1st debate of the 2020 Democratic nomination fight is in the books!

10 candidates onstage, their answers limited to 60 seconds and most of the candidates unwilling to engage one another, the debate was less a debate than a series of one-minute speeches

WINNERS

* Julián Castro: The former San Antonio mayor had been running below the radar -- WAY below the radar -- until Wednesday night. That is likely to change after his performance, in which he was able to carve out a remarkable amount of speaking time for a candidate polling somewhere between 0% and 1%. (An hour into the debate, Castro had spoken as much as Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is in the midteens in national polling according to a count kept by The Washington Post. Hugely helpful!) Castro's battering of Beto O'Rourke on immigration was hard to watch (especially if you were related to O'Rourke), but a clear win for Castro.

* Elizabeth Warren: Yes, she got more questions than anyone else. And, yes, she didn't directly answer all of them. But Warren -- especially in the early parts of the debate, when the most people were watching -- was the straw that stirs the drink in the debate. (She did disappear somewhat in the second hour.) 
The debate began on home turf for her -- talking about economic inequality. And Warren's hand-raising when all of the candidates were asked whether they supported abolishing private insurance (only Bill de Blasio joined her) was a strong message to liberals watching that she was proud of who she was and what she believed.  Warren came into the debate with the momentum in the race. Nothing she did on Wednesday night will stop that momentum.

* Cory Booker: The senator from New Jersey won't be the big star coming out of Wednesday's debate -- my guess is that Castro will be that person -- but he found a way to inject himself into most of the conversations during the night -- even those where he wasn't directly asked. Booker had the most talking time of any of the 10 candidates; talking the most isn't always a sign of victory, but when you are someone like Booker who is just trying to get his name out there, it's a pretty good measure. One caveat: For all of that talking, is there a memorable line from Booker coming out of this debate? I don't think so.

LOSERS

* Beto O'Rourke: Hard to watch. Badly out of his depth from a policy perspective. Too rehearsed in his answers. The idea of him starting his first answer of the debate by speaking Spanish might have seemed like a good idea in his debate prep room but it played as pandering and overly planned in the moment. If one of O'Rourke's goals coming into this debate was to show he was more than a good-looking but sort of empty vessel, it, um, didn't work.

* NBC's sound people: It's never a good thing when there are hot mics when there shouldn't be. It's even worse when the tech people can't fix that problem quickly and you have to go to an unplanned break. And it's disastrously bad when the President of the United States takes to Twitter to say this: ".@NBCNews and @MSNBC should be ashamed of themselves for having such a horrible technical breakdown in the middle of the debate. Truly unprofessional and only worthy of a FAKE NEWS Organization, which they are!"

* 10-person debates: Within the first 10 minutes of the debate, it was clear that 10 candidates onstage is too many. It's just not possible to get any clear sense of a) who the candidates are or b) what they believe with so many of them onstage. I understand that the Democratic National Committee wanted to welcome as many candidates as possible, but I am already looking forward to to the fall debates where the DNC's more stringent qualifying criteria mean there may be fewer candidates onstage

I laughed at this article. And I never think CNN is funny

(14:38) 2019 Democratic Debate ROUND 1 Recap -
"No Hablo Inglés!

The first part of the first Democratic debate of 2019 for the 2020 campaign cycle has come to an end. Cory Booker, Bill de Blasio, Julián Castro, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke, Tim Ryan, Elizabeth Warren appeared on stage and gave their two cents about a variety of issues including healthcare, minimum wage, climate change, the Supreme Court, Donald Trump, Russia, and more. They also attempted to connect to, shall we say… a “growing” base in America by speaking in Spanish at many points in time throughout the debate. One of the NBC moderators, Jose Diaz-Balart, even asked Beto O’Rourke a question in Spanish.
None of the candidates really stood apart from the rest. Possibly due to the fact that ten people shared the stage for a little less than two hours of total debate time. Donald Trump weighed in on Twitter labeling the debates as “boring"

Most don't realize that English is not our official language.. we don't have one. And Americans didn't back the fight to make it so.
I swear half or most the country is living in a box!!

There WAS a debate in the late 1700s, between English and German. English won.

And from what I remember.. it was the early 1970's that, Press one for English began (yet German still was the second most spoken)

In Caliphexico. If you don't speak Spanish, they don't want your business. In LA all signs are in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Korean.

It is a shame that POTUS didn't tweet about it not being entirely in English.
But I am not surprised, but certainly disappointed

In Caliphexico if you don't speak at least 2 languages, (Spanish and English) you won't even be considered for a employment at lot of places.

I think we are turning into Canada!
Soon we could have a law that all signs must be in 2 languages

Democratic Debate -
Live Chat & Post-Show
July 30th, 7pm, EST


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Well, I am not going to watch the debate.. I will wait for the bloopers