Do or Die say Dems in Detroit

For those viewers that wanted to get a firmer grasp of what were the most salient issues for the 2020 presidential Democratic candidates, they were torn between what was on display, the differences between moderates and party progressives, or the issue of the legacy of President Barack Obama, and while some observers were baffled, or thought it “bizarre”, what was seen, and heard, showed the struggle for a platform, be it progressive, or moderate, or was it to be turned to the left, or to the center.

Personifying the center, or the old-guard, was on Wednesday night, its near personification, Vice-President Joe Biden, and the new face of Kamala Harris, who hammered away at Biden, in the previous debate, but it also showed that health care was not only a salient issue, but one that defined the two sides, and in some instances on Tuesday, showed a near willingness to see the reelection of Donald Trump by decriminalizing illegal immigration to the United States, and giving them health care.

“At the center of the back-and-forth was the question that has bedeviled the party since 2016: Will nominating a firebrand progressive from the far left energize enough voters to win back the White House? Or would doing so demolish Democratic hopes by alienating the centrist voters who cast ballots for Trump in 2016?,” wryly noted CNN.

Some observers have seen this as a race to the bottom, or a family squabble in a crowded field, with a cranky uncle, a nerdy nephew, a sassy aunt, and a jockey younger brother.

Separating the wheat from the chaff was Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, whose take-no-prisoners on a single-payer plan that costs $32 trillion dollars, and wipes out private insurance --- even while 60 percent of Americans, like what private plans they have.

As CNN reported: “Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper warned that if Democrats want to "take private insurance away from 180 million Americans" -- a reference to the fact that Medicare for All would phase out private health insurance -- while guaranteeing that every American could get a government job through the Green New Deal, then "you might as well FedEx the election to Donald Trump."

Former Congressman John Delaney, much to the consternation of Warren pointed out the weakness of the plan, and one that threatens the question of choice for millions of Americans, despite the fiery support of Sanders and Warren.

The tart response, from Warren: "I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running to the President of the United States to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for. I don't get it.”

Viewers did see a stronger Cory Booker, who along with Harris, harassed and parried with front runner Biden who seemed anachronistic, and clinging to his resume as Vice-President to Obama, whose legacy some saw, like political adviser, Paul Begalia, as a betrayal.

“While Biden said he would not share details about his private conversations with Obama, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) interjected, saying he couldn't have it both ways.

“Mr. Vice President, you can’t have it both ways,” Booker said Wednesday. “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,” reported The Hill.

While the book on the 2016 election has not been written, it’s a safe bet that the centrist model promulgated by the defeated Hillary Clinton, and its resonance in the Obama years, won’t work for a complicated future, and especially one that has been compromised by Donald Trump.

“Since Clinton's loss to Trump in 2016, Democrats have struggled with this internal debate about whether they must do more in 2020 to attract the centrist, white working-class voters who voted for Trump or if they can win the White House by embracing a bold, progressive agenda that would dramatically restructure government.”

Moving beyond the Clinton-Obama years to a different venue might be a better bet, even with a waffling Harris, who just this week, moved away from being an acolyte to the Sanders plan, to one that has found some room for private insurance, albeit in abeyance.

“But, in a Democratic Party that has been energized and shifted to the left by social movements such as Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and the resistance to Trump, many activists are eager to move beyond the policies of the Obama Administration. For all the former Vice-President’s recent efforts to fill out his policy platform with new proposals on health care, climate change, and criminal justice, he is effectively running to extend the Obama Administration to a third term,” noted John Cassidy, in The New Yorker.

In the fiercely industrial Midwestern city of Detroit, the question was this: "Can you guarantee those union members that the benefits under Medicare for All will be as good as the benefits that their union reps fought hard to negotiate?" moderator Jake Tapper asked.

"They will be better because Medicare for All is comprehensive and covers all health care needs for senior citizens, it will finally include dental care, hearing aids and eyeglasses --," Sanders said.

"You don't know that, Bernie," Congressman Tim Ryan interrupted. "You don't know that."

"I do know!" Sanders responded sharply. "I wrote the damn bill."

Ryan, undeterred, continued to make the point about union workers.

"Sen. Sanders does not know the union contracts in the United States," Ryan said. "I'm trying to explain that these union members are losing their jobs. Their wages have been stagnant. The world is crumbling around (them). The only thing they have is possibly really good health care, and the Democratic message is going to be -- we're going to go in, and the only thing you have left, we're going to take and do better. I do not think that's a recipe for success for us. It's bad policy and it's certainly bad politics."