Democrats and debates

It’s way too early in the Democratic presidential contest for us to pick a horse. But the candidates vying to unify the country and lead the world after the dirty and divisive presidency of Donald Trump could learn a thing or two of late from the campaign of one Pete Buttigieg.

The South Bend, Ind., mayor is contrasting himself sharply with three rivals in important ways.

In last week’s debate, he challenged Elizabeth Warren over her failure to say how she’d pay for Medicare for All: “Your signature, senator, is to have a plan for everything — except this.”

That must have stung: Warren announced this weekend she would soon release the fine print.

Buttigieg also nimbly distinguished his own “Medicare for all who want it” from the single-payer plans embraced by just about everybody but Joe Biden.

Pete’s penchant to explain why pragmatism and progressivism are compatible extends to gun laws. On Beto O’Rourke’s “hell yes” battle-cry to confiscate AR-15s and the like, Buttigieg rightly worried about kickback that squander the growing consensus on background checks, not to mention a prospective ban on assault rifles and highcapacity magazines.

He further challenged Tulsi Gabbard on her suggestion that the U.S. presence in Syria led to the slaughter of the Kurds.

Courage pays dividends: A USA Today poll now puts Buttigieg in a close third place in Iowa, behind Biden and Warren.

Some lament that Democrats are squabbling with one another. To the contrary, these are precisely the fights they need to have now if they’re going to stop themselves from getting trounced next November.