Colorado candidates battle a crowded field
Event a critical moment for Hickenlooper, Bennet
MIAMI» Coloradans John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet each attempted to draw a contrast with Bernie Sanders in Thursday night’s Democratic presidential primary debate on NBC.
Former Gov. Hickenlooper used his record in Colorado to argue that he could lead the country in a more progressive direction without a massive expansion of government such as the Vermont senator has proposed in his embrace of democratic socialism.
“The bottom line is, if we don’t clearly define that we are not socialists, the Republicans are going to come at us every way they can and define us,” Hickenlooper said.
“In Colorado, we brought businesses and nonprofits to
gether, and we got near universal health care coverage,” he added. “We were the first state in America to bring the environmental community and the oil and gas industry to address — aggressively address — methane emissions.
“And we were also the first place to expand reproductive rights on a scale basis, and we reduced teen pregnancy by 54 percent.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Bennet argued for a public health insurance option rather than the full expansion of Medicare that Sanders supports.
“I agree completely with Bernie about what the fundamental challenge we’re facing as a country is: 40 years of no economic growth for 90 percent of the American people; 160,000 families in the top 0.1 percent have the same wealth as the bottom 90 percent; and we’ve got the worst income inequality that we’ve had in 100 years,” he said.
“Where I disagree is on his solution of Medicare for all.”
Thursday’s debate, the second in as many days, marks the start of a new phase of the Democratic presidential primary. For most of the 20 candidates participating, the two-day event is the first time they have been able to introduce themselves to a large swath of voters.
More than 15 million people tuned in to Wednesday night’s debate, the first national moment of the 2020 election. Thursday, though, featured more of the toppolling candidates, with former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg joining Sanders and the two Coloradans.
For candidates polling at 1 percent, such as Bennet and Hickenlooper, the moment was critical. According to The New York Times, Bennet spoke for about eight minutes, while Hickenlooper clocked just over five. It won’t be known for several days whether either was able to make inroads with voters.
Leading up to the debate, Hickenlooper and Bennet positioned themselves as alternatives to Sanders, the former more forcefully. But neither Hickenlooper nor Bennet was able to draw Sanders into a real scrum Thursday.
Some of the most heated moments of the evening weren’t the candidates’ criticisms of each other but their attacks on the Trump administration — particularly its handling of families trying to cross the United States’ southern border.
Hickenlooper scored mild applause when he called Trump’s family policies “kidnapping.” And Bennet was cheered as he called for immigration reform, reflecting on his own mother’s separation from her parents as they escaped Europe during World War II.
Bennet, asked about the ineffectiveness of the Congress that he’s a member of, also got a positive response from the audience by invoking the name of the Republican Senate majority leader.
“Gridlock will not magically disappear as long as Mitch McConnell is there,” Bennet said. “We face structural problems that we have to overcome with a broad coalition.”