Democratic 2020 candidates unite on impeachment but differ on policy in polite debate

Democratic White House contenders united in supporting the impeachment inquiry against Republican President Donald Trump at a debate on Wednesday that featured differences on policy details but few of the bitter attacks on one another that marked earlier encounters.

During the fifth debate in the Democratic race to pick a challenger to Trump in the November 2020 election, the 10 candidates aired differences on healthcare and taxing the wealthy, but kept the exchanges largely polite and instead heaped heavy criticism on Trump.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the progressive who has pushed ambitious plans to tax wealth and create a government-run healthcare plan, and Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who has been rising in the polls, escaped sustained criticism from their rivals.

Buttigieg, running to be the first openly gay president, was pressed on his failure to make inroads with African-Americans – a key Democratic constituency – and drew a parallel to his experience being gay.

“I do not have the experience of ever being discriminated against because of the color of my skin,” Buttigieg said. “I do have the experience of feeling like a stranger in my own country, turning on the news and seeing my own rights coming up for debate.”

He also defended his relative lack of experience, saying it was not traditional establishment Washington experience but “the right experience to take on Donald Trump.”

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who had questioned if a woman with Buttigieg’s experience would make the debate stage, said he deserved his standing but there was a double standard when it came to women candidates.

“Otherwise we could play a game called ‘Name your favorite woman president,’” Klobuchar said. No woman has served as U.S. president……..read more

Source: Reuters