July 30 2019 Democrat Presidential Primary Debate 2, Night 1 ANALYSIS!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This is the one with the least people I care about.

Welcome to KoopaTV's coverage of the second 2020 Democrat presidential primary debate... night one! Unlike night one of the first debate, we'll try to have our analysis published on the very same night, made possible by the 8 PM Eastern starting time. (As opposed to the 9 PM Eastern starting time.) Night 1's cast is Marianne Williamson, Tim Ryan, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, John Hickenlooper, John Delaney, and Steve Bullock.

(If you need an explanation about these debates or who the candidates are, check out the page-level pinned 2020 Presidential Debate Coverage Index.)

This debate and night two hosted tomorrow is hosted by FAKE NEWS CNN. Here is their ruleset:

• The candidates will be aware, via colour-coded lights, how much time they have left
• Other candidates want to be attacked so they get 30 seconds of speaking time. They have to be attacked, not just merely name-dropped
• Candidates who consistently interrupt will get less attention from the moderators/“time reduced”
• The viewers will see the questions asked on the bottom of the screen, so we can remember what the question is when the candidate pivots to another topic
• No one-word-answer questions like the first debate

We'll see if CNN follows it, but here are the talking times for each candidate, courtesy of NPR:

The Democrats rail against wealth inequality, but how about that talking time inequality?

I'm still going one-by-one for each of these candidates for this debate given their lack of name recognition, AND there's a brand-new candidate this time around.

Marianne Williamson

I get to write about the person that I've been anticipating the most in this debate...first? Well, guess the rest of the article is going to be boring.

Marianne obviously wins the Beauty award. She's looking great, especially contrasting with her competition. 

She was also feisty as CNN definitely gave her less time to answer questions, and she sassily said that she hopes CNN will get back to her this time. She's being a wonderful truth-teller, discussing the deep, dark psychic forces of corruption within the United States of America. I gotta say, likening it to Malamar is better than just saying Deep State or The Swamp.

I specifically want to see Marianne Williamson in future debates, please!

Tim Ryan

Tim Ryan was the second person discussed in the first debate's first night, too. Really makes my job marginally easier since I'm taking that article and using it as a template for this one. I'm surprised Tim Ryan bothered to show up since he has no chance of winning after Tulsi Gabbard basically ended his prospects a month ago. At the start of the debate, he refused to shake anyone's hand or put his hand to his heart during the anthem, so I assume Tulsi ripped out his soul.

Tonight, Bernie Sanders also shut down Tim Ryan when discussing healthcare. Tim Ryan interrupted (against debate rules) and said that Bernie doesn't know that Medicare-for-All will have better health coverage than union-negotiated healthcare. Bernie said he does know, because he “wrote the damn bill.” That shut up Ryan for the rest of the night. Hopefully for the rest of the election process. He's really just here to get pwned by other candidates.

Bernie Sanders responds to Tim Ryan: "I do know; I wrote the damn bill" #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/jFGjthUbe3

— Variety (@Variety) July 31, 2019

Amy Klobuchar

Honestly, I forgot she was in this. Um... what am I supposed to write about her? She didn't advance herself at all. I don't know what her constituency is.

Pete Buttigieg

BOOT EDGE EDGE.

Good for Buttigieg for stating that the age of the candidate doesn't matter—their vision does. Though I'm not convinced that Buttigieg's vision is the best one. He said some great things such as Congress needing to reauthorise use of military force instead of having it exist perpetually, but said stupid things like once again attacking Christian conservatives... this time for not wanting a $15-per-hour minimum wage, which is apparently an anti-Biblical belief? Eh?

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders, from the start of the debate to the end of it, was angry and yelling the entire time. He even got Tim Ryan to say that “you don't need to yell!” For intimidating the other candidates, Bernie Sanders clearly earned the Tough award.

Elizabeth Warren

Going into this, Elizabeth Warren is the clear villain of the line-up. She's the most insufferable of them, and she's trying to fight Bernie Sanders in a battle to see who can attract the most votes from the socialist constituency of the party. But unlike Bernie Sanders, she isn't sincere. When asked if the middle class would get higher taxes in exchange for their premiums being eliminated, she refused to answer the question directly. By comparison, Bernie Sanders has previously demonstrated his honesty and has answered “yes.”

Elizabeth Warren is more concerned about not doing anything that could benefit a Republican in some way or agrees with a Republican in any way, including decriminalising illegal immigration just so President Donald John Trump can't do anything to detain illegals. It's a dumb and tribal way of thinking.

She also loves using the verb “suck” in relation to insurance companies. The sucking I see is all of the debate time. She was the candidate that most-often was told by the moderators that she needed to follow the rules, and at one point she petulantly said, “No!” But they clearly didn't penalise her talking time, so shame on CNN.

Beto O'Rourke

I don't really know why Beto is running for president. He doesn't have a vision, just spouting incoherent strands of extremist policy, like saying he'd ban Political Action Committees from lobbying members of Congress so they can “listen to people.” Yeah, sure. For a party that loves unions for being a collective voice for action, why is there such a disdain for PACs when trying to lobby Congress?

Also, Beto keeps implying that he could win Texas if he were the nominee due to the Texas Senate Election of 2018. He seems to forget that he literally lost to Ted Cruz, of all people. Stop trying to rewrite history, Beto. Just like you rewrote your whole name. (It's really Robert.)

John Hickenlooper

Can you believe that this guy got the Smart award in the first debate? Fun times.

Hickenlooper is trying the 2015 Chris Christie “I'm a governor so I have a proven track record as an executive instead of just talking about it” tactic. I don't think Democrats care. They want morons like Elizabeth Warren.

John Delaney

It's the second John of the debate, right after the first one. Delaney started off with the first attacks of the debate, attacking Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren by name as proposing bad ideas like Medicare-for-All. (True.) And since it was in his OPENING STATEMENT, he managed to avoid giving them 30 seconds for being attacked. That's pretty smart, actually. So smart, I'm awarding him with Smart.

I also got sold on John Delaney's goofy grin when he got attacked by Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders for not being extremist enough. Cute award!

Delaney was portrayed as the chief centrist of the debate stage, which undermines several other moderates like Hickenlooper and Klobuchar. He was also the only candidate to mention the Constitution.

Elizabeth Warren vs. Grinning John Delaney, upon being asked why he's even a Democrat candidate.

Bernie Sanders vs. Grinning John Delaney, upon being told he's wrong about Medicare-for-All.

Steve Bullock

Steve Bullock wasn't in the first debate, so this debate is his debut—he's the reason why I have to do a candidate-by-candidate write-up again. Tonight, he's taking Eric Swalwell's place, since Swalwell dropped out of the race

Note that Eric Swalwell is infamous for saying, “I will be bold, without the bull.” Now he's replaced by a guy named Bullock! 

Bullock is also a gun owner and comes across like a car salesman. He doesn't want the entire America uprooted by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. And that giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants would make the problem worse.

In other words, he's yet another moderate on the stage, but hey, that's better than Swalwell.

Governor Steve Bullock of Montana is significantly more preferable than Eric Swalwell.

He actually was really casual in his speaking mannerisms, being very chummy with the debate moderators. We decided to award him with the Cool award for a slick first impression.

Rankings

To summarise, here are the Super Contest winners for each category for this second debate, part one:

• Beauty: Marianne Williamson
• Cool: Steve Bullock
• Cute: John Delaney
• Smart: John Delaney
• Tough: Bernie Sanders

CNN actually started off doing a good job moderating the debate, but then Don Lemon got to ask questions and it all went terribly from there. Typical CNN.


Ludwig has many game-related things that you'd expect a gaming website—especially one with a Nintendo affinity—should be writing about at this time. Oh well. He thought this debate went way too long, since it ended way later than 10 PM.


See here for June 2019's debate night 1.
See here for June 2019's debate night 2.
Debate #3 in September only has one night.