Democratic Candidates Go on the Attack, and Buttigieg Is the Target
The seven candidates excoriated President Trump, then turned on one another, as tension between Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, building for weeks, broke into the open.
NY TIMES
Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., was repeatedly pushed onto the defensive in the sixth Democratic presidential debate on Thursday night, as several of his rivals challenged his political ascent by bluntly questioning his fund-raising practices and credentials for the presidency in a contentious and deeply substantive forum.
Mr. Buttigieg has risen rapidly in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire in recent months, after his persistent attacks on Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and her support for single-payer health care. For many weeks, Mr. Buttigieg, a municipal official who at 37 would be the youngest president in history, escaped corresponding criticism from his fellow Democrats.
That changed here in Los Angeles on Thursday evening in a debate that unfolded in the shadow of President Trump’s impeachment. Ms. Warren struck back at Mr. Buttigieg for his courting of wealthy donors at private fund-raisers — including a recent event at a so-called wine cave — and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota expressed clear skepticism of Mr. Buttigieg’s electoral track record and public accomplishments. Taken together, it amounted to the most strenuous challenge so far to a relative political newcomer who has captivated many voters with his soaring rhetoric and intellectual mien.
Ms. Klobuchar, a three-term senator, rebuked Mr. Buttigieg most pointedly for dismissing the value of experience in Washington. She gilded her attack with praise for other candidates, hailing Ms. Warren for designing a new financial regulatory agency, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for directing vast resources to cancer research and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont for championing veterans.
“While you can dismiss committee hearings, I think this experience works,” Ms. Klobuchar told Mr. Buttigieg, noting that despite his claims to electoral strength, he lost campaigns for state treasurer in Indiana and for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.
Mr. Buttigieg parried the criticism from all directions. He accused Ms. Warren of seeking to impose “purity tests” for a fund-raising model — eschewing elite donors — that she herself did not follow as a Senate candidate, and he raised the subject of their comparative affluence, pointing out that Ms. Warren was far wealthier. He also invoked his experience in the military as proof of his seasoning, and cited his identity as a gay man who campaigned for office in “Mike Pence’s Indiana” as proof of his political mettle.
But his candidacy appeared to enter a new stage over the course of the evening, as his image as an articulate political wunderkind faced a rigorous test that is unlikely to ease up anytime soon. Even Andrew Yang, the former tech executive who has been a good-natured presence in every debate so far, got in a light jab at Mr. Buttigieg by alluding to candidates who must “shake the money tree in the wine cave.”
The Democratic primary battle as a whole seemed to be at a transition point on Thursday, as seven candidates, the smallest field so far, engaged for about two and a half hours at Loyola Marymount University in exchanges that were spirited and often funny — providing a wide-ranging debate over matters of global diplomacy, economic prosperity and impeachment. Four top-tier candidates remain in the race, with Mr. Biden leading in the national polls, followed by Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, and Mr. Buttigieg surging in the earliest primary and caucus states.
Less than two months before the Iowa caucuses, the race remains highly fluid, with considerable room for movement not just among the top few candidates but among the underdogs as well. Mr. Buttigieg has become such a target for his rivals because of his growing strength especially in Iowa, a state that most of the candidates onstage have been counting on as a springboard to help them overtake Mr. Biden nationally.
Mr. Buttigieg was not the only candidate who became a focal point for criticism. Late in the evening, Mr. Sanders delivered perhaps his most concerted attack of any debate, challenging Mr. Biden over his support for the Iraq war and for his opposition to “Medicare for all”-style health care. For much of the evening, however, Mr. Biden seemed to recede from the foreground as other candidates battled around him — though when he did speak, he delivered his smoothest remarks from a debate stage to date this cycle.
For the second consecutive month, the Democrats debated amid highly public impeachment proceedings against Mr. Trump. And for the second consecutive month, the gravity of impeachment appeared at times to restrain the candidates or to soften their remarks. For all their sharp arguments, the candidates uniformly reserved their harshest attacks for Mr. Trump, and several of the Democrats repeatedly interjected to plead for a mood of civility and cooperation within the party.
Every candidate voiced support for the House Democrats who voted on Wednesday to impeach Mr. Trump. But without exception, the rivals also seemed to anticipate Mr. Trump’s acquittal in the Republican-controlled Senate; when asked how they would persuade the country to support Mr. Trump’s ouster, the leading Democrats all explained instead how they would approach the task of defeating him in November.
Mr. Buttigieg nudged voters’ attention to the general election, arguing, “No matter what happens in the Senate, it is up to us in 2020.”
A sterner voice of skepticism came from Mr. Yang, the former tech executive mounting an underdog campaign, who described impeachment as a distraction from more important economic issues. Suggesting Mr. Trump’s acquittal in the Senate was a foregone conclusion, Mr. Yang likened it to “a ballgame where you know what the score is going to be.”
Democrats, he said, should focus instead on offering a “new positive vision for the country.”
Yet for all of the unity against Mr. Trump, the contest was also punctuated by heated arguments that highlighted clear philosophical and ideological differences within the party. Most notably, the tensions that had been building for weeks between Ms. Warren and Mr. Buttigieg over campaign funding and transparency reached a boiling point, playing out in a strikingly sharp and at times personal exchange.
“So the mayor just recently had a fund-raiser that was held in a wine cave full of crystals,” Ms. Warren said, adding that “billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States.”
Mr. Buttigieg protested: “You know, according to Forbes magazine, I am literally the only person on this stage who is not a millionaire or a billionaire. So, this is important. This is the problem with issuing purity tests you cannot yourself pass.”
“Senator,” he added, “Your net worth is 100 times mine.”
“I do not sell access to my time,” Ms. Warren rebuked him.
Their exchange was curtailed by Ms. Klobuchar. Sensing an opening to cast herself as above the fray and focused on party unity, she jumped in with some humor.
“I did not come here to listen to this argument,” she said. “I came here to make a case for progress. And I have never even been to a wine cave. I have been to the wind cave in South Dakota.”
The ideological clash between Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Warren continued over which Americans should qualify for free college. Mr. Buttigieg said that “if you’re in that lucky top 10 percent, I still wish you well, don’t get me wrong, I just want you to go ahead and pay your own tuition.”
“I very much agree with Senator Warren on raising more tax revenue from millionaires and billionaires,” Mr. Buttigieg added. “I just don’t agree on the part about spending it on millionaires and billionaires when it comes to their college tuition.”
Ms. Warren, who supports free tuition at public colleges and canceling most student loan debt, was ready with a quick rejoinder: “The mayor wants billionaires to pay one tuition for their own kids. I want a billionaire to pay enough to cover tuition for all of our kids.”
Fault lines emerged throughout the debate on matters of the economy, with two candidates — Ms. Klobuchar and Mr. Sanders — diverging on the merits of Mr. Trump’s new trade deal with Mexico and Canada, which the House approved only hours earlier.
Once again, Ms. Klobuchar produced an agile debate performance of the kind that has kept her in the mix so far as an underdog, with a clear message that pairs her Midwestern background with a moderate legislative résumé.
Mr. Trump provided a backdrop for the forum, and not only because of his newly embattled status and his anticipated victory on trade. In a series of exchanges, on issues such as climate change, press freedom and American relations with China and Israel, the candidates held him up as the embodiment of all they would not do with the presidency.
The Democrats were particularly unsparing with regard to the president’s foreign policy record, calling him an ally to tyrants and a figure of fun on the international stage. Ms. Klobuchar alluded to Mr. Trump’s tempestuous departure from a recent NATO summit after a video surfaced of several foreign leaders joking about him. “He is so thin-skinned that he walked, he quit,” she said, adding, “America doesn’t quit.”
Several of the leading candidates vowed to take a more coordinated and forceful approach to dealing with China, including on human rights. Mr. Biden said he would seek to levy United Nations sanctions against the Chinese government for rounding up Muslim Uighurs in camps, while Mr. Buttigieg said he was open to the possibility of boycotting the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
“We’re not looking for a war,” Mr. Biden said, “but we’ve got to make clear: We are a Pacific power and we are not going to walk away.”
A note of caution on the subject was sounded by Tom Steyer, the billionaire former hedge fund investor who has been self-funding his campaign. The United States needs Chinese cooperation on a range of urgent issues, including climate change, Mr. Steyer said, proposing to “work with them as a frenemy.”
The composition of the debate stage itself was up for debate. When a moderator noted that Mr. Yang was the only member of a minority group on the stage, Mr. Yang described that distinction as “both an honor and disappointment.”
“I miss Kamala and I miss Cory, though I think Cory will be back,” Mr. Yang said, referring to Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who failed to qualify for the debate, and Senator Kamala Harris of California, who recently withdrew from the race.
If the lack of racial diversity onstage was a source of embarrassment to some Democrats, the subject of gender came up repeatedly, thanks in part to former President Barack Obama. A moderator prompted Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders to respond to Mr. Obama’s recent comments that the world would be better off run by women, rather than by “old men not getting out of the way.” Mr. Biden responded lightly, “I’m going to guess he wasn’t talking about me.”
But gender is likely to remain a central dynamic in the final phases of the race. When Ms. Warren was asked to address the reality that she, like Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders, would be the oldest president ever inaugurated, her reply drew loud applause: “I’d also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated.”
6 Takeaways From the December Democratic Debate
NY TIMES
If hour one of Thursday’s debate was a substantive if sedate affair, hour two had significant and even sizzling moments for Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Amy Klobuchar. Those three candidates are in a fierce battle in Iowa, where the leadoff presidential caucuses are just six-and-a-half weeks away. Here are six takeaways from the December debate:
The Warren-Buttigieg fight turns into a heated exchange.
Tensions between Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Warren, which have been brewing for six weeks, finally boiled over. And once a political squabble like this boils over, it is awfully hard to turn down the temperature.
The two had a pair of fights, one on each of their turfs. Ms. Warren targeted his campaign fund-raising tactics — pivoting from a friendly question about whether women should have more influence in politics — and Mr. Buttigieg assailed her free public college plan.
“The mayor just recently had a fund-raiser that was held in a wine cave full of crystals and served $900 a bottle wine,” Ms. Warren said.
Mr. Buttigieg was ready. Ms. Warren, he said, is herself a millionaire, and one who transferred millions of dollars she had raised for her Senate account while holding the same closed-door, high-dollar fund-raisers she now disdains.
“This is the problem with issuing purity tests you cannot yourself pass,” Mr. Buttigieg said.
Ms. Warren retorted: “I do not sell access to my time.”
“As of when, senator?” Mr. Buttigieg shot back.
The later clash over free college was less heated and less personal, but both sides will view it as beneficial. For Ms. Warren, the fight helps her shore up her left flank and prevent liberal supporters from decamping to Senator Bernie Sanders. Mr. Buttigieg can use the argument to bolster his contention that a centrist argument is the way to win a general election.
Both of them see some benefit in drawing contrasts with the other, and in Iowa they are competing for a similar group of high-information, highly educated voters. As long as those dynamics remain in place, expect the Buttigieg-Warren fighting to continue apace.
Biden’s Houdini act
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. may still be the Democratic leader in national polls, but you wouldn’t know it from Thursday’s debate. For the third consecutive face-off, he often faded into the background — and that could be a good thing for him.
Mr. Biden was the subject of remarkably few swipes, insinuations or even tough questions from the moderators. He ranked fifth in speaking time out of seven candidates — four to five minutes less than Mr. Sanders, Mr. Buttigieg, Ms. Warren and Ms. Klobuchar.
At one point, Mr. Biden literally took a step back from his microphone as rivals went back and forth, covering his face to suppress what appeared to be a laugh over an exchange he was not involved in.
It wasn’t until the final stretches when Mr. Sanders and Mr. Biden debated over foreign policy and health care but even then it was mostly civil. “Put your hand down for a second Bernie,” Mr. Biden instructed.
“Just waving to you, Joe. Saying hello,” Mr. Sanders replied.
Mr. Biden got to talk about his record on foreign affairs. He pledged to bring combat troops back from Afghanistan. And he took swings at President Trump — his favorite target — whom he accused of “dumbing down the presidency beyond what I even thought he would do.” And he got off a one-liner about President Obama’s recent remarks about older men not stepping aside.
“I’m gonna guess he wasn’t talking about me,” Mr. Biden said.
Any debate where a polling leader departs relatively unscathed is a good night. And for the third straight debate, Mr. Biden did just that.
Klobuchar has another good night
Little infuriates Ms. Klobuchar more than the suggestion — often made by her — that she is being ignored compared to her higher-polling rivals.
So the Minnesota senator will be thrilled at the amount of attention and speaking time she received in the debate. Only Mr. Sanders got more time, despite Ms. Klobuchar’s standing at fifth or sixth place in many polls.
And Ms. Klobuchar made the most of it, engaging in substantive discussions about political experience with Mr. Buttigieg and health care policy with Mr. Sanders. Unlike in past debates, she appeared confident and relaxed, delivering a new joke about how she stands the same height as James Madison (5 feet, 4 inches).
Now the task for Ms. Klobuchar is to turn her recent well-reviewed debate performances into increased support in Iowa, the state where she placed the fate of her campaign. On Friday she’ll begin a four-day, 27-county Iowa tour designed to build momentum to try to launch her into the campaign’s first tier.
Sanders goes largely unchallenged
Mr. Sanders is a top candidate whom nobody wants to attack.
While Ms. Warren, Ms. Klobuchar and even the billionaire Tom Steyer took unprovoked shots at Mr. Buttigieg, nobody went after the Vermont senator, whose standing in the race has only risen since his October heart attack.
Mr. Buttigieg went after Ms. Warren on free college tuition even though Mr. Sanders holds the same views. Ms. Klobuchar couched a disagreement with the Sanders single-payer health care proposal by saying that as president, she’d work to enact his legislation cracking down on the pharmaceutical companies. And Mr. Biden offered no real retort when Mr. Sanders brought up the former Delaware senator’s vote to authorize the Iraq war.
The only people onstage who challenged Mr. Sanders were the moderators, by pushing him on questions about race, transgender rights, whether a woman should be president and if his health care proposal is realistic. Each time Mr. Sanders pivoted back to signature issues, like pushing for a political revolution to support working-class Americans. But it didn’t always work: His initial attempt to pivot back to climate change, when asked about diversity in the Democratic field, was met with derision from some audience members.
Yang makes the most of the least speaking time (again).
The entrepreneur Andrew Yang spoke nearly 10 minutes less than the top speaker, Mr. Sanders, and once again spoke the least. But he delivered not only some of the evening’s most memorable lines (“I miss Kamala and I miss Cory, although I think Cory will be back”) but he regularly and deftly pivoted back to his core message of a $1,000 universal basic income.
“What we have to do is we have to stop being obsessed over impeachment, which unfortunately strikes many Americans like a ballgame where you know what the score is going to be,” he said in his first answer, “and start actually digging in and solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place.”
After six debates, the ever-tieless Mr. Yang has clearly found his footing. He invoked his own family twice in resonant ways, saying he has relatives in Hong Kong where there have been mass protests and unrest, and that he has a child with special needs. “Special needs is the new normal in this country,” he said, adding, “We have to stop confusing economic value and human value.”
Of course, it helped that no one onstage seemed to see any advantage in challenging him. Still, Mr. Yang’s plain-spoken answers — he directly said the government should pay to help Americans move out of places impacted by climate change — cut through on a stage filled with political hemming, hawing and hedging.
On gender, forgiveness and double standards
The moderator’s closing question was quirky: Would you prefer to ask for forgiveness or give someone a gift? Ms. Warren and Ms. Klobuchar — the only two women onstage — were the only ones to say they would ask for forgiveness. They said they would seek it for, essentially, working too hard and caring too much about the American people. The men chose gifts.
“I know that sometimes I get really worked up,” Ms. Warren said. “And sometimes I get a little hot. I don’t really mean to. What happens is when you do 100,000 selfies with people you hear enough stories about people who are really down to their last moments.”
Or, as Ms. Klobuchar put it, “I would ask for forgiveness any time any of you get mad at me. I can be blunt. But I am doing this because I think it is so important to pick the right candidate here.”
It was a striking moment that spoke to the different standards that many Americans apply to men and women who run for office, and to the ways that the women and men onstage chose to present themselves.