When one candidate enjoys an enormous lead in the polls in a field of two dozen, he’s bound to be a target on the debate stage — the one person everyone has an incentive to take down a peg. And so it was that in Miami on Thursday night, in the second half of the first Democratic debate, former vice president Joe Biden became a punching bag.
It started with Rep. Eric Swalwell taking a dig at the 76-year-old Biden’s age by calling on him to “pass the torch” to a younger generation. Then Sen. Michael Bennet hit Biden for bragging about his role in striking a budget deal with Mitch McConnell in 2011. Bennet called it a “complete victory for the Tea Party,” a “great deal” for McConnell, and the key to Republicans permanently extending tax cuts passed during the administration of George W. Bush.
But most stunning of all was the extended clash between Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris over Biden’s recent remarks harking back to the good old days of senatorial deal-making with segregationists — an exchange that quickly evolved, at Harris’ direction, into an argument about Biden’s opposition to bussing during the 1970s. Biden’s defense was reasonable — he had no objection to states and localities choosing to integrate schools by bussing students between urban and suburban school districts but merely opposed federally mandated bussing by the Department of Education. It didn’t matter. Harris came off as clear, passionate, and personally invested in the issue. (A child of a Tamil Indian mother and Jamaican father, Harris was bussed to school as a child in Berkeley, Calif.) Biden looked and sounded defensive, back on the ropes.
It’s how he looked and sounded all night long.
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See Also:
(1) Kamala Surprises, Biden Flakes, and Dems Tear Each Other Apart in First 2020 Debate
(2) Trump says Democrats ruined their presidential chances by promising health care to illegals
(3) First Debate Proved The Democratic Party Has Gone ¡Loco!
(4) Kamala’s Killer Instinct, Biden’s Glass Jaw, and Williamson’s Mesmerizing Lunacy
(5) Cruz on Dem Debates: ‘The Clown Car Is Broken — There Is No Brake and It Only Steers Left’
