South Carolina Debate Winners and Losers

Here is the collected wisdom of the punditry on last night's debate and its winners and losers. The information in parens after the bolded winner or loser is a comment from the linked article.

From the Washington Post: 

• Winners: Papa Joe Biden (He has regularly been a loser on this list, and he was again somewhat uneven on Tuesday night. But he’s the leading candidate in South Carolina and a player on Super Tuesday on March 3, and he seemed likely to continue to be after the debate.) and Elizabeth Warren (One wonders whether she did much to help herself — especially given that last week’s debate didn’t seem to do much for her — but after the past couple of weeks, she will at least remain on voters’ radars.)

• Losers: Bernie Sanders, aka That Guy From Vermont/TGFV (“I’m hearing my name mentioned a little bit. I wonder why.” Indeed.), the CBS moderators (this was a complete free-for-all for much of the debate, with candidates talking over one another and with no one enforcing the rules) and Mike Bloomberg (It just wasn’t much better than last week, which isn’t good. Bloomberg did little to make an affirmative case for himself, even on the electability front.) 

From The Hill:

• Winners:  Papa Joe (Above all, Biden sought to portray himself as someone with the political and strategic chops to get things done rather than merely talk about aspirations),Warren (“I don’t care how much money Mayor Bloomberg has,” she said, “The core of the Democratic Party will never trust him.") and TGFV (Sanders won on Tuesday by not obviously losing.)

• Losers: Bloomy (It wasn’t a disaster. But it wasn’t good… Bloomberg’s huge advertising expenditure might yet save him, but his debating skills won’t.), Tom Steyer (The fundamental issue Steyer has faced is explaining any real rationale for his candidacy. He has so far failed to offer a unique selling point and failed, again, to provide one Tuesday.), and CBS News (The conduct of the debate was messy at times...a flippant final round focused on "misperceptions" about each candidate...)

From CNN:

• Winners: Mayor Pete (The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor was at his absolute best in this debate...If voters were looking for a Sanders alternative who looked like he could be commander in chief in this debate, Buttigieg made a very good case for himself.), Papa Joe (He cast Sanders as a dangerous risk for the Democratic Party to take, with potentially disastrous down-ballot consequences.), Amy Klobuchar (As she has done in nearly every debate, the Minnesota senator did more with fewer opportunities than almost any other candidate on stage), TGFV (no one knocked him out), and Donald Trump (A bitter, angry shout-fest in which virtually every potential nominee's dirty laundry was aired? the president couldn't have drawn up a better debate for his chances of winning a second term.)  

• Losers: Bloomy (The billionaire businessman was better in this debate than in the last one in Las Vegas. But he wasn't good), Warren (She was totally fine. But fine is probably not enough given that Warren has yet to finish in the Top 2 in any state and looks very unlikely to do so in South Carolina on Saturday), the moderators (The five-person CBS team swung between refusing to get involved as the candidates talked over one another for 15-20 seconds at a time and stepping in at unnecessary moments to break up actual substantive disagreements between the candidates. The questions were also not great... the CBS moderators often didn't seem up to the task.) and the live audience (The clapping and booing of candidates was totally out of control. And unfortunately it affected the candidates...and will likely have some reverberations on how people watching on TV thought the field performed.)

From the NY Times Opinion gang, which scores candidates on a 10-point scale to come up with an average:

• Winners: TGFV, with a 7 (Still the Super Tuesday front-runner; took hits but still standing; left me frightened about the election) and Mayor Pete, with a 6.9 (The most effective Sanders critic; had some of the strongest lines; amazingly quick on ihs feet; strong annoying-little-brother energy).

• Losers: Bloomy, with a 4.1 (snippy when challenged; could surprise people - in a good way; your off-color humor sounds like workplace hell for women) and Steyer, with a 3.8 (if he were still in 3rd grade, they'd give him a participation award.)

From Fox News:

• Winners: TGFV (he walked into the debate as the front-runner and walked out of it the front-runner), Warren (The strategy Warren employed Tuesday night is the one she should have been using for the past month: saying that while she holds similar positions to Sanders, she can turn those ideas into reality and get the job done) and Papa Joe (His performance should reassure South Carolina voters and that will help Biden in the primary Saturday.)

• Losers: Bloomy (All the money in the world isn’t going to help Bloomberg win this race because in the end, you can’t hide the real Bloomberg), Mayor Pete (This...keeps him in the cycle of moderate voter cannibalism that could deny all of the moderates the nomination.) and Klobuchar (The New Hampshire debate is now officially a one-hit-wonder for Sen. Klobuchar) and Steyer (Tom Steyer has an endless reservoir of money to stay in the race...that hurts Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar and it doesn’t help Steyer – but it does help Sanders.)

From Vox:

• Winners: TGFV (he just needed to hold his own. And he did), IMPOTUS (If there was any single takeaway from Tuesday night’s debate, it’s that Democrats are still very far from united in their quest to beat president Donald Trump.) marijuana legislation (the majority of candidates on the stage supported legalization — and even the moderates, like Biden and Bloomberg, backed decriminalization) and New York City (NYC isn’t like all other cities; otherwise, you would have a Naked Cowboy in every city, Bloomberg said)

• Losers:  Klobuchar (Even a pretty good night wouldn’t have been enough to propel her into Super Tuesday. She needed another gamechanger, and she didn’t get one.), and the moderators (Gayle King desperately requested at one point, as Amy Klobuchar just laughed at her. It felt like a metaphor for the whole proceedings: one of the gladiators in the ring laughing off a would-be referee’s attempt to impose order on chaotic bloodsport.).

And finally, from Alternet.org:

• Winners: there were none, but there were lots of

• Losers: the candidates (The muddled, confused, and slapdash nature of the event made the candidates all look like they were struggling to get a word in edgewise. They talked over each other. The questions would insubstantial and amateurish (ironically, one of the best questions came from Twitter.) There was no cohesion to the discussion and no internal logic behind which candidate got to speak), the moderators (completely failed to manage the candidates when they talked over each other, the completely vacuous questioning, a lack of awareness of some information, including the Warren/Bloomy abortion exchange, the gimmicks of asking for misconceptions and personal mottos...), viewers (Because it was so poorly moderated, the viewers — myself included — must be listed on the “losers” side of the ledger as well).

How did your scorecard compare?