WaPo: Winners and losers from the South Carolina Democratic debate

[SunSeeker]

Winners

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: When it comes to debate performances spanning the past two weeks, Warren’s have been the strongest. She built a case for being a general-election candidate against Trump last week by taking the bark off Mike Bloomberg. And she followed it up with a studied and detailed performance on Tuesday. Warren (D-Mass.) picked up where she left off with Bloomberg by pointing to his past support for Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and former senator Scott Brown (Mass.), whom she defeated in the 2012 Senate race. She again argued that Bloomberg had not sufficiently addressed the treatment of women at his company and went after him for doing business in China.

Joe Biden: He has regularly been a loser on this list, and he was again somewhat uneven on Tuesday night. But he’s the leading candidate in South Carolina and a player on Super Tuesday on March 3, and he seemed likely to continue to be after the debate. Biden had some good moments, including in his appeals to black voters, which will be key on Saturday and on Super Tuesday. He noted his work to secure funding for Charleston’s port, and he talked about gentrification in a way we haven’t heard much in this nominating contest so far. Biden detracted from his performance a little by — again — repeatedly complaining about not getting enough time and blaming his Catholic upbringing for his obedience to rules about the length of answers. One thing to keep an eye on, though: When asked whether he would press on if he doesn’t win South Carolina, he said he would win. At this point, he better.

Losers

Sen. Bernie Sanders: After the candidates spent much of last week’s debate focused on Bloomberg even as Sanders is threatening to take over the race, Tuesday night represented a course-correction. Warren attacked Sanders for being ineffective. Pete Buttigieg said Russia is helping Sanders, as U.S. intelligence has stated, because the senator serves its purposes. “Russia wants chaos, and chaos is what’s coming our way,” Buttigieg said. “Imagine spending the better part of 2020 with Bernie Sanders versus Donald Trump.” Tom Steyer warned about having the government “take over the private sector.” Biden mentioned the mass shooting in a black Charleston church in 2015 and noted that Sanders voted against the Brady gun-control bill five times, which prompted Sanders to acknowledge that it was a mistake. Later on, Biden and Buttigieg ganged up on Sanders for praising over the decades the good things authoritarian socialist regimes had done. It prompted Sanders to say early on: “I’m hearing my name mentioned a little bit. I wonder why.” Indeed. The question is whether it’s too little, too late by his opponents.

Mike Bloomberg: It just wasn’t much better than last week, which isn’t good. Bloomberg did little to make an affirmative case for himself, even on the electability front. And he offered mealy-mouthed rebuttals to some of the attacks against him, including again downplaying the women who complained about their treatment at his companies. Bloomberg said he was “probably wrong to make the jokes” but added, “I don’t remember what they were.” He called it a “comment or two.” When Warren pressed him, he said, “The trouble is with the senator, enough is never enough. … We did what she asked and, thank you, we’ve probably made the world better because of it.” Bloomberg has released three women from nondisclosure agreements and said his company would not use them going forward, but as Warren noted, he hasn’t released all of them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/25/takeaways-south-carolina-debate/

[Cha]

1. Mahalo, SunSeeker

[MoonlitKnight]

2. Seems fair

I won’t comment on Warren as I am biased, but she wasn’t a clear#1 like last week.

Agree Biden did well. Would also say Buttigieg.
Agree Bloomberg was the loser again. Bernie because of 5he shots he took, but he just needed to play a prevent defense and not give up any big scores to Bloomberg or Biden. So in a sense he won enough to get second place Saturday and remain the front runner.

Steyer and Klobuchar should not be on the stage.

[blm]

3. That's exactly what I saw tonight.

[duforsure]

4. I agree