Josh Hobbs

9/12/19

FIled under News/Politics

Last night, the 3rd Democratic Presidential Debate took place at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. This was the first Democratic Debate that had certain regulations for candidates to be accepted into the debate. The previous two debates featured two seperate night

s where each debate held at least 10 candidates. Fortunately, the regulations leading up to 3rd debate allowed the American people to get a sense of the top 10 candidates for the democratic nomination. 

Heading into the debate, the top 3 candidates were Vermont Senator (I), Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and former Vice President, Joe Biden. Following up the leaders, were California Senator Kamala Harris, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Entrepreneur, Andrew Yang.

Throughout the debate, Biden preached how we as Americans need to “refuse to postpone”, and lead the modern world in change and technological advancements. He also preached the importance of reinstating universal Pre-K up until High School, and overall the need for America to get back on track where it was during the Obama administration. 

Bernie Sanders promoted his trademark slogans and policies of needed medicare-for-all, tuition-free college, raising the minimum wage, and many other liberal ideas. Bernie took more jabs from other candidates than he had seen in the previous two debates, mostly focused on his medicare-for-plan. Elizabeth Warren focused on promoting how the path to success for the Middle Class has become “more narrow” and tilted against their favor. She focused early on how college costs have soared since she was a college student herself.

One of the headliner moments of the debate was when Bernie and Biden squared off over how Bernie would pay for his medicare-for-all system; which has been a Republican talking point for quite some time. Biden repeatedly asked Bernie “How are you gonna for that!?”, saying his plan for raising the funds left 30 trillion dollars short. Bernie responded back with several ideas he has mentioned in previous debates and rallies, such as raising taxes on the Upper Class, or dispersing funding away from federal programs like the military. 

Another headliner moment was when Andrew Yang announced in his opening statement that there would be an online giveaway to 10 American families that would receive $1,000 a month for 1 year. This had never been done before on a debate stage. Very few people knew who Andrew Yang was coming into the race, but Yang has made sure everyone knows his flagship proposal of a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American adult, or as he calls it, “The Freedom Dividend”.

Arguable the biggest clash of the night came when Julian Castro, former Obama advisor, came after Joe Biden on both healthcare reform, and immigration. While Biden has a major lead over Castro in the polls, Castro had home-field advantage in this debate giving his was the former mayor of San Antonio, and is a Texas native. Castro argued that while his healthcare plan would automatically enroll people who didn’t have private insurance into a public option when they lost their jobs, for example, Biden’s would require people to actively enroll.

“The difference between what I support and what you support is that you require them to opt in, and I do not require them to opt in,” Castro said. “Barack Obama’s vision was not to leave 10 million people uncovered — he wanted every single person in this country to be covered.”

Biden argued that people would not have to buy in to Medicare under his plan, but Castro pushed back, saying, “You just said two minutes ago that people would have to buy in — are you forgetting already what you said two minutes ago?”

The fourth democratic debate is scheduled to take place on either October 15th and October 16th, in Ohio. y then, we will have an even more clear picture of the frontrunners in the race, as more candidates are likely to drop out, and new polls will restrict the number of candidates allowed onto the debate stage.