“The senator says she's for Bernie. Well, I'm for Barack,” Biden said about Warren's support for “Medicare-for-all,” referencing last month’s debate, when Warren said she completely agreed with Sanders on “Medicare-for-all.”
At the previous debate, several progressive candidates took aim at former President Obama’s legacy on health care as a way to attack Biden on his record.
However, in a marked reversal, both Warren and Sen. Kamala Harris of California – who sharply criticized Obama in the last debate – praised the former president for the positive systematic changes to health care that came as a result of ObamaCare.
Indeed, if there was an absentee winner of the debate, it was Obama. Aside from Biden,
one of the clearest, and most concise health care arguments came from Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who has polled consistently in the low single-digits and had yet to have a strong debate moment before Thursday night.
Klobuchar said that although Sanders may have written the “Medicare-for-all” bill, she “actually read the bill,” noting that under Sanders’ plan “we will no longer have private insurance as we know it” – resulting in millions of Americans losing their private insurance.
Similar to previous debates,
the discussion of immigration had Biden on the defensive over the 3 million undocumented immigrants that were deported under the Obama administration.
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, in particular, took aim at Biden, using the moment to attack Biden for “taking credit” for positive elements of the Obama legacy and distancing himself from criticism.
“He wants to take credit for Obama's work but not have to answer any questions,” Castro said of Biden.
These attacks largely fell flat, as did Castro’s attempted jab at Biden’s age, and will surely not result in a post-debate polling spike for Castro that other candidates have experienced after attacking Biden during a debate.
“I stand with Barack Obama all eight years – good, bad, and indifferent,” Biden said in response to the immigration attacks, once again reverting to his campaign message of restoring, protecting and rebuilding the Obama-Biden record.
Aside from Castro’s attacks, throughout the entire night
Sanders was the candidate who attacked Biden the most. He went after the former vice president not just on health care, but also on corporations, Biden’s vote in favor of the Iraq war as a senator, and trade.
But while Sanders was one of the more vocal candidates, he did not deliver the performance he needed to in order to pull ahead of Biden or Warren in the polls.
Ultimately,
Biden’s impressive – though not perfect – performance was a much-needed display of strength and preparedness and will likely solidify his frontrunner status.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/doug...urprise-losers
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