“America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how they’re going to put food on their table.”—Kamala Harris
On the stage at Thursday’s 2020 Democratic Presidential-primary debate, the contrasts between the candidates have been starker than the previous night, the tactics clearer, the cross talk messier. The candidates who support Medicare for All made their case, those who oppose it made theirs, and several split—or tried to split—the difference. Michael Bennet, the Colorado Senator who came into the night polling between zero and one per cent, tried to jump right in and interrupt Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Senator, on the very first question, which was about taxes and health care. Eric Swalwell, the long-shot California congressman, tried to bait former Vice-President Joe Biden into an argument over generational differences and passing “the torch.” Biden brushed it off, though Sanders seemed interested in having that fight. Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Senator, has tried to contrast herself with her opponents by making herself the compromiser, showing herself as a third option between left and center. Kamala Harris, the California Senator, in what will probably go down as one of the news clips of the night, played not peacemaker-in-chief but rebuker-in-chief. “America does not want to witness a food fight,” she said, as the people around her argued about the future of America’s health-care system, “They want to know how they’re going to put food on their table.”
