The eighth Democratic Presidential debate in New Hampshire didn't tackle a few single issues but instead covered a wide variety of issues. And maybe it was the best debate so far because of it.

Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang were on the debate stage. And while the top candidates still got a bigger % of talking time, with the 3 hour run-time all the candidates at least got a few opportunities to make their case to be the next President.

Here were the big topics that were discussed in the 8th debate, in rough order of appearance:

• Iowa Results
• Medicare-for-All
• Foreign Policy and Warring in the Middle East
• Opioid Epidemic - Decriminalizing Drugs - War on Drugs
• Gun Control
• Supreme Court - Abortion
• Criminal Justice Reform - Race - Systemic Racism
• Campaign Finance Reform - Citizens United
• Climate Change and Trade Agreements
• High Rates of Childhood Poverty

Did you watch the debate? If not or if you want to re-watch the link is right here. Which issue do you think was the most important or poignant of the night? And who do you think made the biggest impact on the night?

For me the most important topics were the war on drugs with Pete talking about his approach for decriminalizing all illicit drugs, which he clarified to mean that imprisonment would not be the reaction of the state for possession of drugs under his term if elected. And that it would be retroactive. Which then turned into a worthwhile discussion on systemic racism in America.

But if you are looking for a big takeaway, general theme of tonight.. it was who is capable of beating Trump. And it makes sense with Super Tuesday just weeks away. These candidates only have a few weeks to convince voters that they in fact are the best candidate for the job.

I think it will be short lived. We will have so many primaries and caucus results in the next 30 days that the narrative will probably change 3-4 times at least with who is really leading this. No doubt its good for Pete. But unless he carries that throughout New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina especially, the buzz will die down.

I have thought for months that Pete was for real. And he has been polling well or #1 in Iowa for a long time now, for the most part. So this doesn't surprise me. But I will be surprised if he wins any of the next 3. I think a second win will be huge for him. But I think the voting demo in the other states is quite a bit different from Iowa so carry-over factor should be kinda small.

The only real mistake I think the DNC is making is their rule where candidates cannot debate other candidates on any other platform other than the official DNC debates they organize. That seems unfair and why I get why they made that rule, its not really smart either.

If they allowed candidates to do what they want, all the responsibility for the debates wouldn't be solely on the DNC and more 'viral' candidates can garner more attention by other means as opposed to just one route - raising money and official polling.

The only harm in allowing candidates to debate outside sanctioned DNC run debates is they won't be able to control the narrative or the field as much. And I'm sure that makes them super uncomfortable. But I would much rather see a YouTube video of Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard or whatever debating on a platform still potentially millions of people would watch than only get to see these canned televised debates where you always walk away feeling like they never really went anywhere.

They are holding candidates back from taking advantage of social media and the internet is basically what I'm saying. We can now do livestream and share 3 hour debate videos in about a second.

Think this guy is right when he says that them trying to provide 3 sets of data instead the one they usually do is what's causing all of the delays. My guess is this is just a 1 day delay or so and won't amount to much. But maybe other states can learn from whatever mistakes Iowa made.

BillRyan121 Wrote:

It's hard for a lot of us to admit it, but providing coverage to everyone (not necessarily arguing for single-payer, but just guaranteed basic coverage) is far cheaper than the status quo.

I agree with this. Seems the conversation is way to myopic most of the time; we keep focusing on certain aspects of healthcare like co-pays, premiums, out of pocket expenses, prescription drugs costs, etc and fail to consider the bigger picture that should 100% include preventative care at the forefront.

Sure all of these topics are worth discussing but you can bring the overall cost of healthcare to this country down tremendously if we prevent preventable diseases and maladies from materializing in the first place with an emphasis on regular checkups, more education, more access to simple blood work tests and more attention to diet, exercise and healthy mental activities. Holistic is a dirty word for some reason but one we would be able to save billions or trillions collectively with if we dropped the red/blue drama and got serious about making the country healthier as a standard, and not just a country that fixes problems that could have been prevented or caught early for far less money in the long run.

Preventative care to me is another way of saying basic health care for all. I think its the biggest aspect of it, along with the other obvious features like not turning people down for pre-existing conditions and giving everyone very affordable options to take care of any health issues at the very earliest of stages.

They are 100% making the right decision, given the format they are working with, but I wholeheartedly disagree with the way they go about broadcasting their debates in general.

I think everyone can agree - these debates are formatted terribly. Why in the world are we treating something as serious as who will be the next possible President of the United States in the same vein as we do American Idol? They are arbitrarily time constricting these debates and sandwiching segments in between commercial breaks just to satisfy national TV formats? Why? Why does anyone feel the need to profit off of debates in the first place? This should be purely educational.

In a digital age where you can stream an all day event on YouTube for free (basically free), why do you try and cram 10-12 candidates into a 2-3 hour TV program with commercial breaks? And limit their time to talk to 90 seconds and 15 to counter?

If they REALLY cared about having real, substantial debates they would stream them live, commercial free, and have them go on for several hours. Then there would be tons of options to air those debates. You could nationally air a truncated version of the debates on TV for those without internet access, but at least give us the option to watch these candidates really air out their plans and stances with much more air time.

And then you could make it harder for candidates to qualify for the big stage, but still have a 'junior' section for the lesser known candidates still running, and stream that for free as well. This rule that candidates cannot debate each other during the campaign without the DNC's approval is a problem. If they want all that power, where is the harm in allowing those candidates to get together on a smaller stage, in a small venue, have a camera person there and stream it live and put it up on YouTube? Would take very very little effort.

Want to focus on two of the biggest swing states for the 2020 Presidential election with this thread - Florida and Michigan. President Trump won both of these states in the 2016 election. Narrowly.

Trump won Florida by just 1.2% of the vote, or just 112,911 votes of the over 9 million cast. And he won Michigan - a traditionally blue leaning state - by a margin of just 0.23% of the vote, or just 10,704 votes out of over 4.5 million cast.

Now I won't even bother posting projections this early in the election process as to who would match up most favorably with Trump in either state for the general. But I will say that currently Joe Biden is polling with a double digit lead (or close to) for both the Michigan and Florida primaries, which will both be taking place in March of 2020.

If the trend holds true and the Democrats nominate the frontrunner Biden as their candidate, at least you know those states currently agree with that verdict, if you trust primary poling results. That said, do you think Biden or any of the other Democratic candidates can take back Michigan and/or Florida from Trump in 2020?

Seems the Presidential election will come down to these two states and perhaps Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as well. But I am focusing on Florida and Michigan as Florida is one of the largest electoral wins in a race (29) and Michigan says historically leaned blue, so seems reasonable for it to switch back.

I also find it interesting that Florida just passed a law allowing convicted felons the right to vote. Regardless of it you agree with this law or not, you have to know this WILL effect the election as suddenly over a million people are now eligible to vote that were not in 2016. And Trump only won by 10 times less than that margin in Florida. I wonder how that will sway things.