Moderators’ tight grip on debate loosened as night wore on
MIAMI — The five moderators of Wednesday’s Democratic debate tried to cover it all – every major topic, every candidate, even every style of moderating.
The first half of the debate was a more carefully controlled, methodical look at policy differences on the economy, health care and immigration, homing in on the leading candidates.
The second half, which was clearly demarcated by a technical snafu that cost the moderators precious time, featured a looser, rapid-fire survey of a host of issues, from guns to climate change to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
The biggest hurdle for the moderators from NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo was always going to be how to get into substantive discussions with 10 candidates vying for airtime. And the panel seemed to be of two minds about how best to do that.
At times, moderators asked candidates for a simple show of hands, such as when they asked whether the Democrats would return to the Iran nuclear deal as president. In other instances, they urged candidates to get specific when they showed signs of veering into their stump speeches.
In the first half of the primetime event, the first of the primary cycle, the strategy appeared to be to zero in on the topics of utmost concern to Democratic primary voters.
Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie and José Díaz-Balart kicked off the debate with the economy, turning first to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top-polling candidate on stage, and tried to get other candidates to respond to her ideas.
Holt and Guthrie repeatedly cut in, telling the candidates when they were out of time in order to keep the proceedings moving, though Holt let New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio interject to spar with former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke on healthcare policy.
“I've let this play out a little bit because I'm fascinated to hear the daylight between you,” Holt said.
Díaz-Balart departed from the more stoic anchor role when diving into immigration, getting emotional as he described how “fathers, mothers and children are dying while trying to enter the United States of America.” He also broke with convention in asking O’Rourke a question in Spanish after the candidate showed off his language skills earlier in the debate.
The tightly run event seemed to grate on some lower-polling campaigns.
“It's clear who MSNBC’s wants to be president: Elizabeth Warren,” read a tweet from the account of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, which was attributed to the candidate’s sister. “They're giving her more time than all the other candidates combined. They aren't giving any time to Tulsi at all.”
But after Guthrie and Díaz-Balart exited and Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow took to the stage, things seemed to change, starting with the technical problems. Audio, apparently from backstage, cut into a question about gun policy, distracting the candidates and the audience.
The debate came to a standstill as NBC worked to fix the problem off stage. “We’ve prepared for everything,” Maddow said when the crew came back on the air. “We did not prepare for this.”
The moderators resumed the debate with a question on gun policy after the shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, and over the next hour, they would address topics ranging from climate change to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to the ongoing U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
The fast pace also gave some lesser-known candidates a chance for a moment. Maddow asked Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio about the Taliban claiming responsibility on Wednesday for killing two U.S. service members. Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, argued that “we cannot keep U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan” in hopes of defeating the Taliban. The two members of Congress engaged in one of the most pointed debates of the night.
After Ryan and Gabbard’s back-and-forth, Todd asked “a simple question” for each candidate to answer in one or two words: What is the biggest threat to the United States?
Todd’s question showed an effort to bring all the candidates into the mix, though inevitably, some Democratic hopefuls got more time than others. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker spoke the most at 10 minutes and 50 seconds, followed by O’Rourke (10 minutes) and Warren (nine minutes). Gabbard, whose campaign felt she was overlooked early on, got six minutes of speaking time.
But the biggest backlash of the night was against what some felt was short shrift given to climate change, which activists had lobbied the Democratic National Committee to make the sole focus of a debate. The party declined, and NBC was subsequently pressured to make sure the topic got sufficient attention at the first debate.
“Wait, are we done with the debate on climate change already? What did I miss?” tweeted TV news veteran Dan Rather after the moderators moved on from the subject. “I had just gone to the fridge to get my Diet Dr. Pepper and when I came back.. okay, I guess so much for the greatest existential threat to the planet.”
Inside the post-debate spin room, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who has made climate change his signature issue, told POLITICO that it is “an existential threat to life on this planet, and seven minutes is not enough” to debate the subject. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, too, expressed frustration that “a lot of issues,” including climate change, didn’t get enough attention.
The networks will have another stab at the subject on Thursday.
“That will do it for night one of this two-night event,” Guthrie said as Wednesday’s two-hour debate came to a close. “And guess what? We've got 10 more candidates tomorrow night.”
