Elizabeth Warren's winning zinger

Julian Zelizer: Eizabeth Warren had the best moments

Senator Elizabeth Warren had a very good debate. It seems that the challenges she has faced in the past few weeks, such as her slide in the polls and frustration with her shifting positions on Medicare for All, strengthened her resolve and sharpened her focus. Although she will certainly come under some fire for walking away even further from Medicare for All, Warren delivered a series of sharp answers about US policy overseas, trade, health care, child care and corruption.

When asked about the comment that Sanders allegedly made to her about a woman not being able to win the presidency, she didn't take the bait, avoiding an explosive fight and instead turning the conversation back to the big picture: how to win back the White House.

Warren pivoted to make a vital argument about the centrality of the women's vote to victory in 2020, reminding the audience that "The only people on stage who have won every single election they've been in are the women." It was reminiscent of 1984 when President Ronald Reagan was asked about his age during a televised debate with the younger Walter Mondale. Without missing a beat, Reagan, who some thought was too old to be president, promised that he wouldn't use Mondale's youth and inexperience against him.

It's unclear what a strong debate performance can accomplish at this point. It might be that concerns about electability are so strong that they will give Biden the victory, or that Sanders' grassroots support is so strong that Warren can't undercut his strength.

But given the fluidity that seems to exist in the electorate, it might be possible that this debate becomes a step in revitalizing the coalition that started to come together in the summer, allowing Warren to position herself as the most unifying candidate in the Democratic pack.

Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and author of the forthcoming book, "Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party." Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer.

Patti Solis Doyle: Klobuchar had the best night but may still fall short in Iowa

Tonight's debate did not shake up the race. The 60% of undecided caucus voters in Iowa will likely leave this debate still undecided. Biden had a steady performance with particularly strong answers on foreign policy and a demonstration of the ability to not only fight Trump but also heal the country. But Biden's performance was not a home run, as many of his answers were just lackluster. The same goes for Pete Buttigieg. While Mayor Pete was solid, he never achieved that memorable debate moment.

Warren and Sanders went at it on the "can a woman win?" he said/she said. Senator Warren had a great moment which will be played over and over, explaining it was only the women on stage who had never lost a race. In the end, however, both Sanders and Warren were vociferous in their certainty that indeed a woman can win the Presidency.

It was Amy Klobuchar who had the best night, with consistently strong answers on every topic and a convincing argument that she can beat Trump in a general election, but her performance is likely not enough to get her from 6% to a win, place or show in Iowa.

Bottom line, the dynamic of the caucus remains unchanged.

Patti Solis Doyle, a CNN commentator, was an assistant to the President and senior adviser to then-first lady Hillary Clinton, was chief of staff on Clinton's 2000 and 2006 Senate campaigns, and Clinton's presidential campaign manager in 2007 and early 2008. She is president of Solis Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm that specializes in serving nonprofits, nongovernmental organizations and corporations. Follow her @pattisolisdoyle.

Scott Jennings: Democrats go into pitiful crouch

I just don't get the strategy here.

The biggest bombshell of the week was Elizabeth Warren claiming Bernie Sanders told her that a woman can't be elected president, a stunning attack for one of the three leading candidates to make on another. Sanders gamely denied it, and then just stood there as the moderator appeared to ignore his denial. Then he failed to challenge Warren straight up by demanding she admit she was lying!

This is perhaps the most direct character attack of the primary (well beyond the tame wine-cave drama) and Sanders just basically stood there and took it, which must have been demoralizing for his supporters. Warren has made up other things in the campaign and yet Sanders just didn't challenge her veracity on this one at all. Stunning.

And then there's the overall lack of any meaningful challenge to Joe Biden, the national front runner. Sanders challenged him a little bit on foreign policy to open the debate but that too was fairly tame. The rest of the night people just left him alone, which is nuts when you consider that for any of the rest of these candidates to win they have to defeat Biden!

So, my takeaway is -- why do the Democrats just stand there and let things happen to themselves. Biden is ahead nationally, and nobody did anything to stop him. Warren is effectively calling Sanders a backwoods misogynist and he slinked off into a corner.

How do these folks hope to get the nomination or win the White House in such a pitiful crouch?

Scott Jennings, a CNN contributor, is a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and a former campaign adviser to Sen. Mitch McConnell. He is a partner at RunSwitch Public Relations in Louisville, Kentucky. Follow him on Twitter @ScottJenningsKY.

Paul Begala: Pulled punches, no knockouts

The dystopian show "The Man in the High Castle" depicts two parallel universes: one in which the Germans and Japanese won World War II, and one where the Allies did. The main characters bounce between these two polar opposite realities. The effect can be dizzying, and yet also clarifying.

Tonight's Democratic debate showed leadership as opposite from Donald Trump as those two fictionalized worlds. Where Trump is corrupt, the Democrats spoke of reform. Where Trump is self-centered, Democrats dared to care for kids and the poor and the working class. Where Trump is a bully, Democrats were empathetic. Where Trump is a serial liar, the Democrats stuck to the facts.

I think Democrats, especially in Iowa, will love it. Iowans, God love 'em, hate negative campaigning. That's why negative ads in the 2020 Democratic Caucus campaign are about as common as synchronized swimmers in a Sioux County cornfield. Perhaps that's why, in the all-important first half-hour of the CNN/Des Moines Register debate the candidates beat their swords into ploughshares.

The days before the debate featured supporters of Bernie Sanders attacking Elizabeth Warren, with Warren countering that Sanders made a sexist statement in a private meeting over a year ago. But when the red light came on in Des Moines, they were both on their best behavior.

It helped that moderator Wolf Blitzer (I-CNN) opened the debate on the biggest question of all: "Why are you best prepared — the best prepared person on this stage to be commander in chief?" Joe Biden owned his disastrous 2002 vote for the Bush war in Iraq. Bernie Sanders chided him for it, but didn't draw blood, allowing Biden to deftly shift attention to his partnership with President Barack Obama. Pete Buttigieg noted that some of the enlisted troops he served with in Afghanistan are so young they cannot remember when the war began.

Elizabeth Warren gave half of a great answer, excoriating generals who say "we've turned the corner so many times that we're going in circles." But she also weirdly shoehorned in an attack on "giant financial institutions." Amy Klobuchar was the only one who truly took the fight to Trump, demonstrating impressive expertise on military affairs, and heart-rending empathy on trade.

Tom Steyer came to life when he spoke about climate change. The question was about trade, but unlike Warren, who seemed to be reaching to include Wall Street in her national security answer, Steyer seamlessly and personally made an appeal to put climate at the heart of any future trade deal.

Yes, there were not a lot of punches thrown. But the dustbin of the 2020 campaign is filled with politicians who used their debate moments to attack. From Kirsten Gillibrand attacking Joe Biden for an op-ed he published decades ago to Kamala Harris hammering Biden on busing, to Julian Castro cheaply (and dishonestly) accusing Biden of not remembering what he'd said two minutes before. All three dropped out before the first vote has even been cast.

Perhaps Elizabeth Warren pulled back from her attack on Sanders because when she attacked Buttigieg in the last debate she gained nothing; in fact she stalled. In fact, Joe Biden had perhaps his best moment when, after noting that Donald Trump is viciously attacking "my surviving son," he said it was his job to not only fight but also heal." Beautiful.

The race is extremely fluid. All four of the top candidates: Biden, Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg, have at one point led in the Iowa polls. I did not see anyone break out in the debate. The candidates will have to win the old-fashioned way: door to door, farm to farm, town hall to town hall. That is a far better strategy than seeking a knockout in a debate.

Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and CNN political commentator, was a political consultant for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 and served as a counselor to Clinton in the White House.

Sarah Isgur: Warren's good night but missed opportunity

Fewer than three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Elizabeth Warren is currently sitting in 4th place if you average the last three polls out of Iowa. In a state where the old political adage is that there are only three tickets out of Iowa, fourth place is not where any candidate wants to be.

Tonight's debate was one of the last opportunities Warren had to make her case to Iowa voters. So the question isn't whether she had a good night. She unquestionably did. The question is whether she had the type of great performance that moves Iowans to change their votes from Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg.

In the last few days, the Warren campaign found itself in a back and forth with the Bernie team over his volunteer phone call talking points and what he allegedly said at a meeting over a year ago. It guaranteed her a question at the debate on whether a woman could be elected president. As expected, she was well prepared and gave a smart answer that promoted her candidacy without attacking Sanders.

But did anyone change their vote from Sanders to Warren as a result? Unlikely. And if not, it was a missed opportunity for her to make the case that Bernie Sanders is the wrong candidate from the progressive wing to expand the Democratic Party's double-digit lead with female voters. And there may not be many more opportunities coming her way before February 3rd.

Sarah Isgur is a CNN political analyst. She has worked on three Republican presidential campaigns and is an adjunct professor at George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School.

Raul Reyes: Buttigieg's tone-deaf answer highlighted a problem

Now that the field of presidential candidates is shrinking, the dynamics of the race are coming into clearer focus. And one thing was clear from debate in Des Moines: diversity matters. With Cory Booker, Julian Castro and Kamala Harris out of the race -- and Andrew Yang off the debate stage -- there was little to no substantive discussion on issues like immigration, voting rights, the Trump administration's neglect of Puerto Rico and criminal justice reform. Instead, we had perfunctory mentions of "black and brown people" throughout the evening.

This is a problem when 40% of Democratic voters are people of color. These constituencies will be vital to whomever becomes the nominee, and the candidates should not have depended on the moderators to bring such topics up; they should have been proactive in doing so themselves.

One revealing moment came when Pete Buttigieg was questioned about his lack of support among African American voters. "The black voters who know me best are supporting me," he said. He went on to mention that he is supported by black elected leaders in Iowa. His answer came off as a nice way of saying, in effect, that he has black friends. It was inadequate and somewhat tone-deaf.

Buttigieg also name-checked justice in policing, which might not have been the smartest move given that he has faced controversy for his handling of a police shooting that inflamed racial tensions in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. By now, Buttigieg should have developed a more nuanced answer to explain his lack of minority support.

That said, overall, virtually all of the candidates (including Buttigieg) acquitted themselves well during the debate. If no one had a breakout moment, no one had an embarrassing moment either.

However, Tom Steyer stood out on the stage for the wrong reasons. Addressing the camera directly was a mistake, as it made it seem as if he were ignoring the moderators, audience, and fellow candidates. Though he repeatedly touted his business experience, he did not make a strong case for himself as a presidential candidate. A billionaire talking about income inequality is a hard sell, and Steyer certainly did not close the deal.

Raul A. Reyes is an attorney and a member of the USA Today board of contributors. Follow him on Twitter @RaulAReyes.

Peter Bergen: Biden's presidential take on Afghanistan

Foreign policy had been, so far, almost absent from the Democratic debates, but the targeted killing of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani, ordered by President Donald, put foreign policy firmly in play on the Des Moines debate stage Tuesday.

And there was a fair amount of consensus among the candidates that now is the time to end America's longest war in Afghanistan.

Sen. Bernie Sanders said that Americans are sick of "endless wars."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren observed that she sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee and that American generals had repeatedly come before the committee to assert that the United States had turned a corner in Afghanistan. Warren wryly observed that in Afghanistan, we have "turned a corner so often we are turning in circles."

Former Vice President Joe Biden was the only candidate on the debate stage who has been in a position of power to weigh in on the Afghan War issue—he was an important voice in President Barack Obama's war cabinet early in Obama's first term in 2009. At that time, Obama was considering whether to "surge" tens of thousands more US troops into Afghanistan.

A decade ago, Biden advocated not for a surge of conventional military troops but rather for a relatively limited American presence in Afghanistan focused on counter-terrorism missions led by US Special Forces. Biden lost that debate, and in the end, Obama opted for a surge of conventional forces.

On Tuesday night, Biden offered a more nuanced take than the other candidates on the stage, arguing that "we can't just walk way completely" from Afghanistan and that there is a big difference between having "combat troops" in a country such as Afghanistan and maintaining a residual force of US Special Forces to advise and assist local forces.

When it came to the Afghan War, Biden offered a more nuanced position-- indeed, a more presidential position-- than the other Democratic candidates. He made the case that just pulling the plug on Afghanistan would not be smart and that there is a big difference between an "endless war" and maintaining a persistent presence in a country like Afghanistan to prevent the country being taken over by the Taliban, which would benefit jihadist groups like al Qaeda and ISIS.

With this argument, Biden established himself as more credible as a potential commander in chief than his rivals on Tuesday's debate stage.

Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. His new book is "Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos."

Frida Ghitis: Klobuchar wins, Biden doesn't lose

Two important things happened in this debate, and both work in favor of Sen. Amy Klobuchar. The first was a much-needed discussion about women in the 2020 election; the second was a winning performance for moderates over progressives, accentuated by the rift between progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

It was that scuffle between Warren and Sanders, who had entered the election with something of a non-aggression pact, that opened the door to a salutary airing of the subject of "electability," a sexist prejudice disguised as strategy.

When confronted with the claim that Sanders told Warren that a women could not win, Sanders denied it, arguing that he has always believed in women. But Warren rejected Sanders' denial, and grasped the electability matter with both hands, demanding to talk about the elephant in the Democratic primary living room, the claim that a woman can't win in 2020.

"It's time to attack it head-on," she said, brandishing a memorable and devastatingly effective fact. "Look at the men on this stage: Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are women."

That helps Warren against the men, but it does nothing to help her against Klobuchar, who underscored the impressive fact that, "I have won every race, every place, every time. I have won in the reddest of districts," in urban, suburban and rural areas.

That argument also undercuts former Vice President Joe Biden, who is marketing himself as the most capable among the candidates to win with Republicans and independents disenchanted with Trump.

Biden was an evanescent presence on the stage. He has come a long way from his early performances. He was solid, showed confidence and made some good points. Most of all, he made no big mistakes. But no one would accuse him of giving a rousing performance. As the candidate leading in the national polls, Biden didn't need to win. He only needed to hold his own, to keep from losing ground, and he did that.

The moderates: Biden, Klobuchar and Pete Buttiegieg -- always polished and impressive -- came across as much more reasonable, knowledgeable and able to make things happen in Washington and on the global stage. Their responses on foreign policy -- Iran, troop deployments, North Korea -- and trade sounded like the kind that win elections.

Moderates beat progressives. Women made gains. In that Venn diagram, only one of the candidates stands at the intersection of both categories. That is Amy Klobuchar.

Frida Ghitis, a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a frequent opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. Follow her on Twitter @fridaghitis.

Errol Louis: Klobuchar won the debate

Senator Amy Klobuchar won the debate, if we define winning as making a more clear, confident, sustained case than we've seen before.

"I have won every race, every place every time," she said, emphasizing that she has won conservative and pro-Republican districts in the Midwest. It was a direct pitch to Democrats who tell pollsters their main desire is to pick a nominee who can defeat President Trump.

Nowhere was her performance more clear and cutting than in the extended colloquy about health care. After Senator Bernie Sanders described his Medicare-for-All plan, Klobuchar said she was offering something better: "a plan, and not a pipe dream." She also told Senator Elizabeth Warren that Warren had supported a bill that would have kicked 149 million Americans off their existing insurance plans.

Of Pete Buttigieg's plans on Medicare and negotiating drug prices, she said, "I actually have led that bill for years. I have 34 cosponsors. That would allow Medicare to finally negotiate and lift the ban that big pharma got into law that says they can't negotiate for better prices [for drugs] for our seniors."

She also pointedly warned against supporting progressives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, telling voters to avoid candidates promising "grand ideological sketches that will never see the light of day."

Democrats looking for a practical, moderate challenger to President Trump will likely give the Minnesota senator a second look in the final days before the Iowa caucuses. For a candidate trying to break into the top tier, that's a win.

Errol Louis is the host of "Inside City Hall," a nightly political show on NY1, a New York all-news channel.

Aaron David Miller: All the candidates failed on America's global role

After six Democratic debates in which foreign policy and national security received short shrift, I was really looking forward to a robust discussion during the seventh, especially given the real time crisis with Iran. I should have known better. There was too little discussion of the current crisis with Iran and too little about each candidate's conception of America's role in world. Here are my depressing and sobering takeaways.

Biden's missed opportunity. He came close to articulating a strategy on North Korea. But the former Vice President missed a huge opportunity to demonstrate his experience, authority and clarity on foreign policy or why he was best credentialed to serve as commander-in-chief. It was the height of irony that the first candidate to even refer to the notion of an overall strategy was Tom Steyer -- the guy with the least foreign policy experience.

No coherent vision. Given the extent of Donald Trump's diplomatic malpractice, a huge opportunity opened up for any of the candidates to lay out a coherent vision and role for America in the world -- simply and clearly. And each candidate was offered at least two chances to do it. None did. What they did offer up -- using more diplomacy; working with allies; getting out of endless wars -- represented slogans and bumper stickers and offered not a single idea of substance on how they would approach these issues or the other serious challenges America confronts.

Withdrawal of US forces Fearful of alienating the party's progressive base, when asked about withdrawal of US forces, all six candidates expressed in varying degrees the need to withdraw US combat forces either totally (Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or partially (Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar). No distinction was made between defensive and offensive deployments or training missions. And, sadly, no candidate even bothered to identify US interests in the Middle East -- the first step toward crafting policies to protect and advance them.

Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of "The End of Greatness: Why America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President." Miller was a State Department Middle East analyst negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations.

Aisha C. Moodie Mills: The topics no one talked about

One thing's for sure, every candidate on the debate stage tonight would make a far better president than Donald Trump, who is more concerned with promoting his own interests above the country's. But it's still unclear which of them is poised to be the Democratic nominee. After seven debates, the primary race is predictably split along ideological lines with progressives pushing for deep structural change and moderates preaching pragmatism.

No winner emerged largely because the conversations were redundant, a parroting of the same talking points -- "we must stomp out corporate corruption", "we should build upon Obamacare, not scrap it" -- and the same issues -- health care, political experience, corporate responsibility, etc. that dominate each debate.

Missing from the conversation are a range of issues that would more fully showcase each candidate's point of view and speak to the hearts and interests of the Democratic base. I put out a quick Twitter poll and found that voters want to hear more about: voting rights; election protection; criminal justice reform; immigration and family separation; the future of work; curbing the rise of white nationalist terrorism; women's rights and reproductive health; gun control; federal courts; education equity; eliminating the electoral college; poverty and Income inequality; veterans issues; affordable housing; addressing police brutality; disability rights; LGBTQ rights -- and the list goes on.

More of the same will not motivate or mobilize Democratic voters and that's true for the topics at these debates as well.

Aisha Moodie-Mills, a CNN political commentator and former President & CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, was formerly a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC. Follow her on Twitter @AishaMoodMills

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