Moderate candidates for president ganged up on two liberal front-runners Tuesday night in the first of two Democratic primary debates in Detroit this week.
From the outset, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper attacked policies backed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Hickenlooper – and other candidates hovering around 1% in presidential polls – said Medicare for All and the Green New Deal would be losing issues for Democrats in the general election against President Donald Trump.
“You might as well FedEx the election to Donald Trump,” Hickenlooper said. “I think we have to focus on where Donald Trump is failing.”
Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal, which Warren has endorsed, would provide public health care to everybody in the country and abolish private health insurance. Hickenlooper said he doesn’t want to impose public health care on people who prefer their private insurance. Instead, he favors a public option that may lead to Medicare for All if enough people choose the public option.
“If we’re going to force Americans to make these radical changes, they’re not going to go along,” Hickenlooper said.
The statement prompted a physical reaction from an annoyed Sanders.
“Throw your hands up!” Hickenlooper said in response to the gesture. “I will!” Sanders replied.
Sanders added that in the 2016 primary, he defeated Hillary Clinton in the battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump eventually won those states, helping him secure the presidency.
Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, encouraged Democrats to focus on the ideas themselves, and not how Republicans will frame them.
“If we embrace a far-left agenda, they’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists,” Buttigieg said. “If we embrace a conservative agenda, you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists.”
Hickenlooper tried to woo voters by relying on his record as former governor of Colorado and mayor of Denver. Many of the progressive ideas Democrats are putting forward on issues like gun violence, Hickenlooper said, he has already achieved in Colorado.
“We decided we were going to go out and take on the (National Rifle Association) and we passed – as a purple state – we passed universal background checks. We limited magazine capacity,” Hickenlooper said. “We did the basic work that for whatever reason doesn’t seem to be able to get done in Washington.”
Candidates polling near 1% such as U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, former U.S. Rep. John Delaney of Maryland and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock employed the same strategy as Hickenlooper by attacking Warren and Sanders. The tactic may have backfired as the two liberal front-runners were given ample time to respond to critiques. Warren spoke the most of any candidate with about 18 and a half minutes of talking time, while Sanders spoke for 17 minutes and 45 seconds. Hickenlooper spoke the least, with just under nine minutes, according to The New York Times.
Hickenlooper will need to make up ground in the polls and gain campaign contributors in order to make the next round of debates in September, as he has not surpassed thresholds required to qualify.
Sen. Michael Bennet took part in the second round of debates in Detroit on Wednesday night, when candidates challenged the establishment front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden.
The first debate, though, was encapsulated by an exchange between Delaney and Warren.
“I think Democrats win when we run on real solutions, not impossible promises,” Delaney said.
Warren, whose steady stream of specific policy proposals has driven much of the conversation in the election so far, gave a sharp response.
“I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” she said.
James Marshall is a student at American University in Washington, D.C., and an intern for The Durango Herald.