WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th January, 2020) The six leading Democratic presidential candidates competed on stage in Des Moines, Iowa their seventh nationally televised debate on CNN less than three weeks before their first real test in the state's caucuses on February 3.
The most dramatic and commented clash of the night came when Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts tried to embarrass progressive Senator Bernie Sanders from neighboring Vermont in the US Northeast on his alleged claim in 2018 that a woman could not be elected President of the United States.
Sanders again denied that he told Warren in a private 2018 meeting that a woman couldn't win the presidency and insisted it was "incomprehensible" he would believe such a thing.
It would be foolish to "waste a whole lot of time" on the claim, he added since "this is what [incumbent President] Donald Trump ... wants.''
In previous debates Warren and Sanders have studiously steered clear of attacking each other but that truce ended on Tuesday night. So bitter was their exchange that they did not shake hands afterwards.
CNN's commentators claimed Warren won the exchange but she has slipped both in opinion polls and in fundraising out of the top three candidates and gave no sign during the night that she was likely to regain the ground.
Warren again played 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's feminist card but so far it has failed to work for her.
Warren has been polling particularly badly in Iowa and is seeking to reverse her momentum there.
Warren claimed she and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar were "the only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in."
However, Warren has only ever contested state elections within her home state of Massachusetts whose most recent national candidates Michael Dukakis in 1988, John Kerry in 2004 and Mitt Romney in 2012 all lost by huge margins in their presidential races. And she has yet to demonstrate significant support in Iowa.
Warren warned Democrats against "picking a candidate who can't pull our party together" but she risked alienating Sanders large and highly motivated support base.
Also, by attacking Sanders, she ignored former Vice President Joe Biden, who consistently leads the other Democrats in national opinion polls and who also remains one of the top three in fundraising.
Biden was accused by CNN analysts of being relatively quiet during the debate but he had no embarrassing moments and focused on giving a strong and well received closing presentation.
Biden presented his own credentials for being the party's candidate to challenge Trump in the November election:
"I've taken all the hits he can deliver... I've been the object of his affection for a long time," he said. "I have overwhelming support from the African-American community."
Biden stressed his "support across the board" and his eagerness to face Trump in person: "I can hardly wait to have a debate from him," he said
Biden appeared to make no mistakes in the debate and was unlikely to hemorrhage any significant support, especially in Iowa and New Hampshire where the first Primary election will be held later in February.
Rising South Bend, Indiana local mayor Pete Buttigieg came across as confident and impressive but he did not tout his national security credentials in contrast to Trump as he had been expected to do and had no impressive "knock out moments."
Warren according to opinion polls has lost support because she failed to sound credible on the problems of funding her ambitious and expensive plans for comprehensive national care.
Sanders has proposed a competing plan to appeal to the same pool of progressive voters but focused instead on going after the super-wealthy one percent who dominate the US economy and society.
Biden, Sanders and Warren all took the loudest applause at the end of the debate but none of it was overwhelming and there was no clear cut winner.
