Editorial | Can Democrats capture Middle America in 2020 with leftist agenda?

Jun. 30--After the first two Democratic debates, and the endless cable TV gnashing over winners and losers, do Americans who want anyone but Trump as their next president see some light at the end of the dystopian tunnel?

Start with the anointed "winners" after Wednesday and Thursday's crowded sessions. That would be California Sen. Kamala Harris from the second, far more action-filled night, and, perhaps, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Wednesday night's more polite affair.

Harris's prosecutorial takedown over putative frontrunner Joe Biden seems to be the major takeaway from both sessions.

The debates touched on all the Democratic flash points: economic inequality, health care for all, racism, women's reproductive rights.

Harris's big moment came when she recalled being bused as a child in Berkeley -- confronting Biden on his opposition to busing while he was a freshman senator in the mid-1970s. At that time, Biden, recently under fire for his comment that he was even able to work with segregationists in the Senate, took a lead role in the fight about school busing, repeatedly speaking out against sending white children to predominantly black schools and black children to predominantly white schools.

Harris's attack was scripted and carefully rehearsed, but she made it an emotional moment, that would be remembered by the audience, journalists and maybe even uncommitted voters.

Biden wasn't awful, but his camp seemed to have advised him to stand by his views that busing should be a local decision rather than a federal one -- because many of his supporters think these kind of positions would be to his advantage in 2020 and show his ability to appeal beyond the Democratic base to working-class white voters who voted for Trump in 2016 and who will be needed to beat him next time around.

And that's the big question. So while many voters may have been watching something, anything, else on TV Wednesday and Thursday nights, there will come a point people will want to know who among this madding crowd is best poised to challenge Trump in 2020. Even in our state and county, overwhelmingly Democratic in party registration or inclination, there might be hesitancy toward going all in on a far-left agenda.

As for who will carry the progressive banner up the nomination hill, Warren and Sanders will have to battle it out for which one can best lead the "revolution" with ever more radical plans for refashioning government services and the economy. Sanders' cranky uncle persona of 2016, however, seems even more crotchety this time around.

The rest of the top tier of candidates to break from the starter's gate include Biden, who looked both puzzled and low wattage Thursday night (Trump, with his shtick of mean nicknames that stick unfortunately seems to have found another one; for Biden, it's "Sleepy Joe"); South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who embodied youth and realistic answers without the anger and emotion other candidates seemed eager to demonstrate on stage; and now Harris, whose early campaign had seemed to be meandering and somewhat purposeless -- until Thursday night. Harris -- former San Francisco DA and California attorney general -- has that gift of zeroing in on a target that could prove essential in taking down Trump in debates.

Of the others, well, Sen. Cory Booker by luck of the draw missed his chance to take down Biden: former HUD Secretary Julian Castro showed that he could speak -- and in Spanish! -- on immigration with more passion and clarity than the rest of the pack ... but otherwise?

Perhaps progressives will also consider that much of America will not rally around a party and a candidate who espouse the litmus-test positions on display Wednesday and Thursday night: Open borders, abortion without reservations or limits, unceasing identity politics, the end of private health insurance, free college tuition.

Will enough voters ignore the inevitable questions about how this agenda can be paid for to elect a Democrat in 2020? Or will trying to show just who is the farthest left end up elevating the one winner no Democrat wants to see emerge from the pack: Donald J. Trump.

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