Biden bears frontrunner’s burden of being the biggest debate target

Politics & Government

Biden bears frontrunner’s burden of being the biggest debate target

By Elizabeth Koh

June 28, 2019 04:18 AM

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Biden talks about gun control during first Democratic debate in Miami

Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden talks about gun control during the first primary debate for the 2020 elections in downtown Miami on June 27, 2019.


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Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden talks about gun control during the first primary debate for the 2020 elections in downtown Miami on June 27, 2019.


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Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden walked into the Democratic presidential debates in Miami intending to highlight his record in the Senate and White House as a strength.

But nine rivals for the presidency sought to dismantle it — vote by vote and comment by comment — repeatedly during two hours of debate Thursday night. From issues ranging from from the Iraq War to race to his deal-making, at times clubby, relations in and with Congress, the broadsides at Biden were meant to knock him back as an early front-runner in the Democratic primary.

In some measure, they succeeded. Biden found himself tangling more with fellow contenders than advancing the argument he alone can unify the party. In one case, he found himself countering even his own words to argue he still has a role to play leading it.

In a cheeky moment, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell — one of the youngest candidates in the race at age 38 — quoted Biden’s comment during his first 1988 presidential run urging California Democrats to “pass the torch to a new generation of Americans.”

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“Joe Biden was right when he said it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans 32 years ago — he is still right today,” Swalwell ventured.

But Biden, smiling, fired back he was “still holding onto that torch.”

Other candidates went farther. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, arguing that the next president needs to tackle gerrymandering, the Citizens United court decision that changed campaign finance and erosions to voting rights all but suggested Biden had been absent on the job. “All of those things has happened since Vice President Biden was in the Senate,” he contended, though Biden pointed to negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in part as proof of his active role.

Bennet fired back that negotiation was a “terrible deal for America”: “We lost that economic argument, because that deal extended almost all those Bush tax cuts permanently and put in place the mindless cuts that we still are dealing with today that are called the sequester. That was a great deal for Mitch McConnell.”

And U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders, widely seen as another main heavyweight against Biden in the race, took advantage of moderator Rachel Maddow’s question about Biden’s vote for the Iraq war to note he instead “helped lead the opposition to that war, which was a total disaster.”

But the most confrontational moment of the night — and one that dominated the spin room gaggles immediately after the debate — was Biden’s clash with U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris on race and school busing.

Biden early in his Senate career opposed the practice of school busing to accelerate desegregation, and at the time he told a local paper that he did not believe “in order to even the score, we must now give the black man a head start, or even hold the white man back, to even the race,’ “ according to the Washington Post.

In raising the issue, Harris granted him some cover over recent comments he had made about working with lawmakers who had been noted segregationists.

“I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” she said Thursday night. But she added the comments were “personal” and “hurtful.”

“You also worked with them to oppose busing,” she said. “You know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day — and that little girl was me.”

There was a little girl in California who was bussed to school. That little girl was me. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/XKm2xP1MDH

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 28, 2019

As Biden turned to face her, she continued. “It cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously.”

Biden pushed back that Harris’ comments were “a mischaracterization of my position across the board. I did not praise racists.” In a veiled jab at her record as a prosecutor, he also added that he had chosen to become a “public defender” instead when he practiced law before running for the Senate.

Biden also said he opposed busing only ordered by the federal government, not busing decided locally, telling Harris “your city council made that decision.”

But Harris pointed out she was part of only the second class to integrate the public schools in Berkeley, Calif. two decades after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision intended to desegregate schools. Federally ordered busing was needed because of “a failure of states to integrate public schools in America,” she said. “There are moments in history where states fail to preserve the civil rights of all people.”

Biden, for much of the rest of the night, sought to burnish again his credentials on a host of core issues. He called himself the “only person that has beaten the NRA nationally” and “the guy that extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years.” He touted his support for the Equal Rights Amendment “from the very beginning.”

When U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called for more action on rooting out money in politics, Biden chimed in that he filed the first constitutional amendment to do so “when I was a young senator.”

He also regularly invoked and defended former President Barack Obama’s record, saying at one point on immigration that Obama did “a heck of a job” and that he would build further on the Affordable Care Act passed during Obama’s first term. He even found himself tangling with moderator Chuck Todd, who suggested Obama “could only get one signature issue accomplished” in healthcare and that “he didn’t get to do climate change.”

“I think you’re so underestimating what Barack Obama did,” Biden countered. “He’s the first man to bring together the entire world, 196 nations, to commit to deal with climate change, immediately.”

But it was Biden and Harris’ back-and-forth that seemed to be the most defining moment of the evening for its emotional tenor. After the debate, even his staff — including Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield and adviser Symone Sanders — acknowledged in response to reporters’ questions how Harris’ anecdote resonated “powerfully.”

But Bedingfield suggested that despite the confrontational moment that Biden “was not going to engage in personal attacks,” and both declined to rebut directly Harris’ comments.

“She spoke about it personally. Vice President Biden listened, and then he commented on policy,” Sanders said. “It’s not for anyone to reject or validate what she’s saying and her experience.”

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