First Democratic Presidential Debate, Part 2 of 2

I thought the second part of the first 2020 Democratic Presidential debate was better than the first part, in that more of the ten on stage had standout moments. My assessment follows, in descending order of what I thought were the best performances:

Harris was clearly outstanding and the best last night. She was powerful and eloquent on health care and immigration. She was strong on the need to curb racism, including an attack on Biden for working with Southern racist Senators. I liked her intention to take executive action on banning assault weapons (though Swalwell was even stronger on this issue), and she had the best closing statement.

Gillibrand did a lot of good for herself on the need to curb gun violence, and on the danger of compromising on women's rights. I think she'll rise in the polls as a result of tonight's performance.

Among all the crucially important issues that beset us, I put reducing gun violence, a.k.a gun control, at the top of the list. I therefore agree completely with Swalwell putting gun control at the top of his list. His plan to buy back assault weapons makes good sense, and he captured the stakes in this issue well with his observation that we need to "love our children more than our guns."

Bennet was correct to speak about Nazi concentration camps in his denunciation of the camps for immigrants at our Southern border, and he was right to stress the need to win back the Senate in the 2020 election (as Booker did last night).

Sanders had a strong closing statement, and he was passionate as always on the need to equalize wealth in America.

Buttigieg was powerful and articulate on the need to end police racism, but Swalwell did him one better by challenging him to fire the police chief of South Bend.

Biden took a long time to come alive—too long—and responded pretty well to Harris's attacks (but he should have kept talking). He was excellent on the evil of putting children in cages, strong on the need to get our troops out of Afghanistan, and right to hold gun manufacturers responsible (but why let the NRA off the hook?). His closing statement was okay—which is about the best you could say about his overall performance.

The other three either outright crazy (Williamson), too focused on a single issue (Yang), or nothing special (Hickenlooper). I don't expect any of them to be on stage for the next debate.

But I'll be back here with another review.