After the Fifth Debate...

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

... have we learned anything new? Made any new choices? Agreed on winners or losers? Probably not.

In no particular order, here are some takeaways:

• Joe Biden needs to get out of the race. I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone by saying that, but it's clear to me that his ship has sailed, for a number of reasons: he is not on his game; he often sounds like he doesn't even agree with his own policies; his actually laughable comment that he was brought onto the ticket of the first black president because of his connection to the black community; his turning of a #MeToo question into a domestic violence question, which he then punctuated with repeated 'punching' comments; his recent statement that marijuana is a gateway drug, seemingly lifted out of the 40s or 50s; because his presidency will be a mess, if he's elected and the Dems don't also hold the House and take the Senate; and because even today, we're still holding him to a standard of "well, at least he didn't make it any worse." Love you Joe, but it's time to go.

• I don't understand what -or who - is keeping Tulsi Gabbard on the stage. And no, don't tell me it's Russian bots. 

• For the first time, I felt like paying attention to Tom Steyer, and I'm not sure how that makes me feel. I actually sat up straighter when he mentioned term limits, but then he said something after that which I can't remember now, that made me wonder why I sat up straighter.

• Elizabeth Warren had the most time, but I don't really remember what she said other than corruption corruption corruption. Unless that was I Wrote the Damn Bill, I have trouble telling them apart. I still do not believe that the way to fix the country is to burn it down and hope a phoenix rises from the ashes - and I'm honestly not sure that she really thinks that's necessary, either. I think she's going to tack back to the middle if she wins the nomination, and I think that's going to really antagonize people. 

• "I Wrote the Damn Bill" was his usual self. Should he be the nominee, we can be sure he'll stay planted so far out in left field that there'll be nothing he can to do get anything done with Congress. If I were smart, I'd pay more attention to his policies, and I'll try to do that before the next debate. Honest I will.

• Amy Klobuchar continues to impress me with her Midwestern sensibility and her understanding (missed by the left fielders) that we don't need to pay for things like college for rich kids - we really don't, and we really shouldn't. She's made more than a few appearances on the Sunday shows trying to get her message across, and I'm not sure what she'll need to do to really get things to move. Thoughts on that?

• Mayor Pete needs to do better on the 'people of color' thing - he sounded a bit forced, I thought, when he gave his 'from the heart' comments about understanding how discrimination impacts people, but he has to quickly get out of his own way on this. There a few things no voter wants: to be patronized, to be taken for granted, and to be ignored come to mind right off the bat. He needs to go talk with people, not in a 'focus group' setting, and not just visiting a church on a Sunday. He needs to be in the neighborhoods on a weekday, at night, on a Saturday morning, and listen - not talk, listen. Understand. Feel. Hear. And only then, talk. And not about being gay. 

• I'm pretty sure some of the pundits who do debate winners and losers are watching a different debate than I am. 

• I was pleased, generally, with the questioners, who did not grandstand, did not giggle like schoolgirls, and who generally treated the candidates as adults. For the most part, they let questions be answered, and didn't focus so much on the "your name was mentioned so you can respond" stuff that turned the other debates into quagmires. And they got in some questions that we haven't heard before.

• I want to hear more from Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Andrew Yang. That's not likely to happen in these debates, and it's not likely to happen on the Sunday Shows - we need a 'Now for Something Completely Different" moment, I feel. I've shared an idea in the past on how to make the debates more informative, I have yet another idea on how to make the debates more 'debatey' and more valuable.  More on that soon.

One final note? Using Matt Taibbi's  Rolling Stone debate drinking game words, I'm pretty sure I'm still drunk.