Dem debate #2, round 1: better overall

The CNN sponsored Democratic Primary Debate #2, Round #1 last night in Detroit was, overall, characterized by better performances than the June debates.   No one had an embarrassing night, no one made a major blunder -- and yet there was some pretty sharp give and take, some clarifying disagreements.

Maybe it was a bit long at 3 hours instead of 2;  but it didn't seem so rushed and short-changed as the first one.    Half the 20 candidates were on stage;  the other half will have another three hour debate tonight.

Medical care insurance was the biggest topic, with both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on stage, plus some more moderates who oppose their "Medicare for All" plan but rather favor a more gradual approach that will not automatically do away with private health insurance.

Compared to the June debates, there was much more discussion on climate change, on systemic racism, on foreign policy and endless wars, on immigration issues, and more in general about radical structural change.   In general, it was a clash between the big change progressives (like Sanders and Warren) vs the pragmatists (Delaney, Hickenlooper,  Klobuchar, Ryan and Bullock) -- with Buttigieg, O'Rourke, and Williamson being after a different kind of radical change in our basic approach to governance and a change in its structure.

Again, Warren was probably the standout.  Buttigieg, because he was less aggressive, got less airtime -- but, when he spoke, the room quieted and people listened;  and he got great applause to some of his lines, especially when he talked about ending our endless wars and requiring Congress to authorize any future ones.

In his rather aggressive style, with a touch of arrogance that says "I know better than you," former congressman John Delaney was going after, in particular, Warren's big, give-away plans, as pie in the sky.   She drew him up short and got crowd approval from the catchiest line of the night:

Warren put it like this:   "I don't understand why someone would go to all the trouble to run for president just to talk about what we can't do and shouldn't fight for."

But other pragmatist/centrists, like Klobuchar, Hickenlooper, Ryan, and Bullock -- the geographic (midwest) centrists as well as philosophical centrists -- tend to agree more with Delaney even if not his style.

Despite the small differences in how we get there, it was an impressive group of governing knowledge displayed on the stage, all obviously with very similar goals but differences in how fast to push for change more than anything else.

Even self-help author Maryanne Williamson began to make sense and to talk more like a person with some governing ideas instead of just feel-good pieties.   If they keep up this approach to sharpening their ideas through hammering out the small differences, without making enemies of each other -- then they can still come back together at the end and unite into one party that will be necessary to defeat Donald Trump.

Ralph