Why tonight’s debate will be a circular firing squad
Tonight’s presidential debate — the last one before the South Carolina primary on Saturday and Super Tuesday on, uh, next Tuesday — is very likely to get nasty given the massive stakes.
But nasty for who?
Michael Bloomberg is going to go after Bernie Sanders on guns.
Elizabeth Warren is going to go after Bloomberg on his wealth and past comments about women.
Joe Biden is going to go after Sanders on health care and the overall costs of his proposals.
Sanders is going to go after Biden and Bloomberg as defenders of a failed status quo.
Pete Buttigieg is going to go after Sanders for his comments on Cuba and the online ugliness of the Vermont senator’s supporters.
Amy Klobuchar is going to go after Buttigieg for diminishing the idea that Washington experience matters.
And Tom Steyer is, well, Steyer.
What it all means is that there are going to be a lot of arrows flying in a lot of directions tonight in Charleston, South Carolina. While the majority will likely be trained on Sanders, the race’s front-runner, and Bloomberg, the free-spending billionaire, it’s hard to see anyone being spared.
If the debate goes in that direction — and every preview from every campaign suggests that their candidate is loaded for bear tonight — it could well be the most unpredictable of the 10 debates in the race so far.
The Point: The difficulties of managing — and thriving — in a debate where the knives are out for literally everyone are manifold. You can’t look in every direction all at one time. Which means, inevitably, you’re going to get popped once or twice. You just have to hope they’re glancing blows.
