WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th March, 2020) The last two remaining major candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders, squared off in their first direct man-to-man debate in the long US election campaign.
But an increasingly desperate Sanders failed to upset Biden with repeated attacks.
Both men committed to having women as their vice presidential running mates. Biden said forthrightly he would certainly choose a female vice presidential candidate.
Sanders was slightly less decisive but said he almost certainly would as well, a comment that pointed to Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Tulsi Gabbard as the most likely choices.
"My very strong tendency is to move in that direction," he said.
Sanders is trailing Biden by 690 delegates to 841 after Biden's sweep of 10 out of 14 Primary states on March 3, Super Tuesday.
Biden emphasized that Sanders had based his candidacy on being able to turn out a new generation of young voters in unprecedented numbers, but so far they had not turned up.
"The energy and excitement that's taken place so far has been for me... The fact is, I'm winning overwhelmingly among Democratic Constituencies across the board," Biden said.
Four more major states with a total of 577 delegates are due to hold their primaries despite the coronavirus crisis on Tuesday, March 17.
Biden is currently projected to win three of them in Ohio, Illinois and Arizona although Sanders is projected to have strength in Florida.
Sanders eventually, after being repeatedly pressed, committed to supporting Biden in the November general election against President Donald Trump if Biden won the party's nomination.
"Joe, I will be there for you," he said.
The spiraling coronavirus crisis across the United States dominated the debate agenda on Sunday night, hosted by CNN and Univision and moved at the last moment from Phoenix Arizona to Washington, DC, where it was held without any live audience.
Both men, Biden, 77 and Sanders, 78 stood throughout the two hour debate and remained energetic and alert.
But Sanders was repeatedly recorded by the camera as scowling when in repose while Biden remained smiling and relaxed throughout.
Sanders repeatedly tried to expose Biden as not being progressive across the spectrum of key issues but Biden, who served for 36 years in the US Senate and then another eight years as vice president almost always had chapter and verse facts to refute him.
Despite growing concerns in the US media about Biden's alleged memory lapses and supposed confusion, he was confident and fluent throughout except for one stumble, saying "SARS" when he meant coronavirus, but which he immediately caught and corrected.
Biden focused on an immediate much larger response to the coronavirus threat which both men agreed was an unprecedented national crisis.
"People are looking for results, not a revolution," he said.
However, Sanders returned to his favorite theme of demanding a full scale reorganization of the US health care system during the emergency while Biden insisted virus challenge had to be focused on instead.
