With the South Carolina primary and the make-or-break slate of Super Tuesday contests looming, seven Democratic candidates took the stage in the Palmetto State for a sloppy, poorly moderated, no-holds-barred debate Tuesday night.
And while front-running Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and hard-charging former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg drew the most flak, the two-hour Charleston clash served as more of a circular firing squad, with no Democratic White House hopeful emerging unscathed.
On the word ‘Go,’ Sanders swung at billionaire Bloomberg in a response to the night’s opening question, about his electability as a self-described democratic socialist at a time when the US economy is humming.
“The economy is doing really great for people like Mr. Bloomberg and other billionaires,” said Sanders. “For the ordinary American, things are not so good.”
Bloomberg — in desperate need of a rebound performance after a disastrous debate debut last week in Las Vegas — returned fire with a shot at Sanders’ viability as a candidate.
“Russia is helping you get elected [as Democratic nominee] so you’ll lose to [President Trump],” Bloomberg said, referencing the US intelligence community’s reported belief that the Kremlin’s thumb is once again on the scale in 2020.
Staring down the camera, Sanders addressed not Bloomberg, but Russian President Vladimir Putin: “Hey, Mr. Putin. If I’m president of the United States, trust me, you’re not going to interfere in any more American elections.”
The debate only grew uglier and more chaotic from there, with the candidates running roughshod over CBS News moderators Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell’s entreaties for them to abide by the time limits.
“I guess the only way to do this is to jump in and speak twice as long as you should,” griped an exasperated Joe Biden, the race’s flagging former front-runner, during one of ex-South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg’s many sermonizing responses.
“Why am I stopping? No one else stops,” mumbled the former vice president at another point as he cut short his answer to stay within the time limits.
When King called him a “gentleman,” Biden observed, “Gentlemen don’t get very well treated up here.”
Indeed, the stage at the Gaillard Center was no place for gentlemen or ladies on Tuesday night.
Biden nailed Sanders for voting against a gun-control bill that the former VP had championed, all but saying that Sanders had blood on his hands for a 2015 mass shooting at a black church by a white-supremacist near the debate venue.
“I’m not saying he’s [Sanders] responsible for the nine deaths, but that man would not have been able to get that weapon had the waiting period been what I suggested,” Biden said — as Sanders muttered a sarcastic, “Thank you.”
Sanders gave as good as he got, though, as he reveled in his role as the field’s current top dog.
“I’m hearing my name mentioned a little bit tonight,” he teased at one point. “I wonder why?”
Sanders also got in another shot at Buttigieg’s ties to deep-pocketed donors, saying, “Americans don’t want candidates to be running to billionaires for huge amounts of funding.”
Buttigieg responded by calling the claim untrue — but then saying, “If you are watching right now and you’re a billionaire, I will raise your taxes. But if you’d like to defeat Donald Trump, please go to peteforamerica.com and donate the legal maximum of $2,800.”
Sanders’ fellow far-left candidate, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, kept the pedal to the metal in her attacks on Bloomberg about the rampant misogyny over which he allegedly presided at his business-news empire, Bloomberg LP, and his use of ironclad nondisclosure agreements to keep female employees from speaking out.
Describing her ouster from her job as a 21-year-old teacher for getting pregnant, Warren sniped, “At least I didn’t have a boss who told me to ‘Kill it.’ ”
The remark, which drew scandalized ‘oohs’ from the audience, was in reference to a claim made in the 1990s by an ex-Bloomberg LP employee that Bloomberg told her to “Kill it” — referring to the fetus she was carrying — when she revealed her pregnancy.
“I didn’t say it,” Bloomberg insisted — before adding of the accuser, “I’m sorry if she heard what she thought she heard.”
Bloomberg was again caught in an awkward, stumbling retreat when Warren pressed about his use of nondisclosure agreements and, in particular, offensive remarks he only obliquely admitted to making.
“I don’t remember what they were,” he sputtered. “If it bothered them, I was wrong.”
But in the face of Warren’s relentless push, Bloomberg finally snapped back, “The trouble with this senator is enough is never enough.”
In a display of questionable political prioritization, Biden even picked a fight with also-ran billionaire Tom Steyer — back after not even qualifying for last week’s Nevada debate — over his investment in scandal-scarred private prisons.
While each of the candidates got in — and took — their licks, the fiercest fighting was at the political and economic poles, with moderates Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar positioning themselves as mainstream alternatives to Sanders’ far-left ideals and Bloomberg’s party-hopping pragmatism.
“I like Bernie. We came in together to the Senate,” said Klobuchar. “But I do not think that this is the best person to lead the ticket.”
She also offered, however, a fleeting glimmer of unity amid the crossfire.
“If we spend the next four months tearing our party apart, we’re going to watch Donald Trump spend the next four years tearing our country apart,” she said.
The South Carolina showdown, the third and final debate of a grueling February, was the last before the state’s primary Saturday on and Super Tuesday three days later — with 14 states are in play.
Those candidates still in the race will take the debate-stage again on March 15 in Phoenix