June 26 2019 Democrat Presidential Primary Debate 1, Night 1 ANALYSIS!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A mostly painful experience with few bright spots.

Welcome to KoopaTV's coverage of the first 2020 Democrat presidential primary debate... night one! (The debate happening tonight is still the first debate, but it'll be night two.) We have the distinct displeasure (and occasional honour) of having heard from Bill de Blasio, Tim Ryan, Julián Castro, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee, and John Delaney across two hours of identity politics, commercial breaks, and microphone errors that lead to technical issues and a very confused Rachel Maddow.

(If you need an explanation about these debates or who the candidates are, check out our brand new 2020 Presidential Debate Coverage Index.) 

(If you're looking for analysis of Night 2, click here. But Night 1's analysis is also crucial, because the best candidate is in this group.) 

They covered a wide range of topics including why President Donald John Trump is bad, climate change, abolishing private health insurance, potential war with Iran, LGBTQ+ people, gun violence,  illegal immigration, and why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is bad.

Who dominated the #DemDebate?

Cory Booker, Beto O'Rourke and Elizabeth Warren tallied up the most speaking time. https://t.co/5zVcNFYLea pic.twitter.com/SorNtOj4KE

— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) June 27, 2019

I'm not sure how I should analyse this, but I guess since this is the first debate and everyone is still learning about who all of the candidates even are, I should just go one-by-one and talk about them individually instead of the debate as a whole.

Bill de Blasio

Bill de Blasio knows he's widely disliked (at least, I think he knows that) so he used his stage presence just to be the Tough guy troll. Most of his speaking time was allotted to interrupting other random people to provide stupid and belligerent points. Based on the total speaking time, however, if he was polite we probably wouldn't have heard him talk at all.

That's not really a bad thing, though. 

The first thing he said is that there is enough money in the world to pay for the Democrats’ free stuff agenda... it's just in the wrong hands. And it's up to the Democrats to fix that.

Sounds incredibly imperialist and dangerous. 

Tim Ryan

Tim Ryan kept going back and forth between being a reasonable Mid-West working class guy concerned about the Chinese destroying manufacturing in the United States, and being a militant socialist. He got exposed as an idiot by Tulsi Gabbard and she cut short any momentum he may have been trying to get. More on that in Tulsi's section, but note that he said that the United States cannot withdraw from Afghanistan because that's what President Donald John Trump wants.

Gosh forbid you agree with President Donald John Trump on any issue. Yes, you must oppose all of his positions at all costs, even billions of dollars and many American lives.

Tim Ryan is an idiot. 

Julián Castro

Otherwise known as the resident Hispanic panderer, Julián was one of the characters that gave random Spanish bilingual answers, but he didn't seem to realise that when he gets only so many seconds to respond to questions, that giving translations counts into his time. I think Mr. Castro tried to present himself as a policy wonk when it came to all things “comprehensive immigration reform” by citing specific U.S. law code references and challenging Beto if he would do the same.

But outside of immigration, all of those chops fall apart. It seems like his sole purpose for becoming president is to enact open borders and total decriminalisation of illegal immigration, coupled with the legalisation of people who shouldn't be in the United States, which would eliminate the country overnight. But hey, then I'd become a U.S. citizen, right?

Castro Cool-ly ended the night by declaring he'll say “adiós” to President Donald John Trump, and even though I've taken Spanish for nearly a decade of my life, I never knew “adiós” has an accent mark.

If I’m elected President, I will work hard every single day so that you and your family can get good health care, your child can get a good education, and you can have good job opportunities in a big city or small town. And on January 20, 2021, we’ll say "Adiós" to Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/L2aeNotsL5

— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) June 27, 2019

Cory Booker

If Mr. Castro exists to pander to Hispanics who enjoy breaking the law, then Cory Booker's candidacy is just to pander to black voters and get the nomination while white voters are divided among the other candidates. Nearly every answer Cory Booker provided referenced black people, or his local neighbourhood of black people where seven people got shot and died last week. (Isn't one of qualifications being the mayor of said neighbourhood for an extensive time?)

When Tulsi Gabbard responded about supporting equality for the LGBTQ+ community (this article counts as KoopaTV's coverage of Pride Month, by the way) with the still-pending Equality Act (adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act), Cory Booker weighed in (unprompted) to say that Tulsi Gabbard is not personally doing enough for black transsexual people. It's one thing to care about blacks, and another to care about transsexuals, but you gotta have a totally different initiative and plan for black transsexuals.

Cory Booker is an empty tool. And apparently also knows Spanish. In an accent.

One more thing: Cory Booker constantly looked intense and high-strung. He was covered in veins trying to burst out of his head. Relax, man. You're among like-minded individuals. Maybe it's because he has to stand next to Elizabeth Warren, but they are colleagues in the Senate from the same region in the country, so he should be used to it by now... Which brings us to...

Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren is the media's favourite Democrat in this debate, for at least the first hour. Then I guess they got sick of her shrill stupidity and untrustworthy nature, so she was less prominent in the second part of the debate. Elizabeth Warren did nothing but spout statist nonsense (she and de Blasio were the only two willing to admit their goal is to eliminate private insurance). She's seen as the party's socialist intellectual, but get this: She was asked about how she would get around Mitch McConnell if the Republicans still had the majority in the Senate, and if she had a plan. Rather than be honest and answer “no”, she confidently affirmed, “I do.” and then went on this incoherent rant about how “We're a democracy” (wrong) and I didn't hear anything resembling a plan from her.

Beto O'Rourke

Beto also talked in Spanish. That's about it. He offered no reason for why anyone should elect him. He did say that as president, he'd arrest President Donald John Trump for his non-crimes. I guess that's the Democrat version of the never-happened LOCK HER UP.

Amy Klobuchar

I don't actually remember Amy Klobuchar doing anything of note, but looking back, she actually pwned President Donald John Trump when it came to prescription drug prices. That was a good moment for her. John Delaney does the “I'm bipartisan” thing better than Klobuchar, and Tim Ryan does the “I'm from a mid-West state Trump won” thing better as well.

Look at drug prices since President Trump has taken office — they've continued to rise and rise. What has the American consumer gotten out of it? Where I'm from we call that all foam, no beer #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/trBI5FLva3

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) June 27, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard

Tulsi, if you haven't noticed, was my favourite candidate from the debate. She obviously won the Beauty category, not only due to her photogenic nature (especially compared to the people standing around her), but because she was one of the few candidates that didn't look disturbing, sneaky, or untrustworthy.

I'm loving the silver strands in her hair. Very stylish.
(It's not natural; see this video of her in work-out sweats the morning of the debate.)
Also, her bright red jacket definitely made her stand out from the other candidates.

Tulsi Gabbard was clearly the most Smart candidate. She knew who was behind the September 11 attacks, unlike Tim Ryan. Suspiciously, the moderators cut her off when she was getting into Saudi Arabia...

We are in Afghanistan & Iraq where we have lost so many lives and spent so much $ that should be going into our communities here at home. This is why it’s so important to have a commander in chief who knows the cost of war. #TULSI2020 #DemDebate #Democrat https://t.co/PIdii6kLxh pic.twitter.com/oFAg4I0rS8

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) June 27, 2019

She knew to shut up and not pursue the rabbit hole of identity politics when Cory Booker attacked her for not having any lip service for black transsexuals. She also didn't try to interject her thoughts into contentious issues that might have cost her support. The moderators didn't ask her because they don't want her to get attention? That's fine. She saw no need to go out of her way to besmirch her fine reputation.

To show her commitment to ignoring identity politics, the first question she was asked in the debate was some stupid question about the mythical gender wage gap. Rather than take that question seriously, she instead talked about her signature and most popular issue, foreign policy, and how President Donald John Trump is currently staffing his Cabinet with warmongers despite his own inclination to not go to stupid and expensive Middle East wars. 

Tulsi Gabbard stands out among the crowd not only with her looks, but with her commitment to sanity and not being a clown. 

Jay Inslee

Jay Inslee is the governor of Washington. Jay Inslee is a single-issue candidate. His single issue is climate change.

When asked the greatest geopolitical threat to the United States is, Jay Inslee responded, “Donald Trump.” He got the red meat applause... and then multiple subsequent candidates after him said “climate change.”

Congratulations, Inslee. Your cheap and stupid applause line forfeited your authority on the one issue you care about. Your whole campaign got invalidated.

Jay Inslee is a buffoon. 

John Delaney

Poor John Delaney. 51 or so minutes in the debate they were talking about family separation at the border, and as they were ending it and trying to change topics to Iran, he tried to talk about his own personal experience with his grandfather and got totally shut down by Lester Holt.

Lester Holt: We're going to switch to another topic now. We got a lot to get through...
John Delaney: There's one more topic! My grandfather was actually separated from his family when he came here...
Lester Holt: We're going to talk about Iran right now. Tankers have been attacked...

According to a Delaney campaign ad, his grandfather tried to enter the United States in the 1920s, but he was detained and unaccepted because he only had one arm. His family managed to appeal, and the judge was apparently very sympathetic because he too only had one arm.

He's definitely winning Cute for his rejection. 

John Delaney otherwise presented himself as a reasonable moderate Democrat who doesn't want to take away your private health insurance but wants the private insurance to play a supplementary role for Medicare-for-All. He said something about how the Democrats should be the party of what works, not of taking things away people like.

Rankings

To summarise, here are the Super Contest winners for each category for this first debate:

• Beauty: Tulsi Gabbard
• Cool: Julián Castro
• Cute: John Delaney
• Smart: Tulsi Gabbard
• Tough: Bill de Blasio

Ludwig isn't looking forward to night 2... that's why this article wasn't published a lot sooner on Thursday. And then he'll have to write about the Democrats again... Ugh. He's rather write about Super Mario Maker 2 and he doesn't like that game one bit.