My personal Performance Power Rankings:
10. Beto O Rourke: Beto finally got asked to give real answers and tried to avoid it by speaking spanish
. Watching Castro and Booker dunk on him early as he floundered was beautiful. It was a really bad look for him, made worse by the fact that he kept getting called out by peers.
9. John Delaney: He'd be worse than Beto, but nobody knew who Delaney was to begin with. Dude's constant interruptions and begging for time was annoying coupled with his answers being irrelevant next Klobuchar who presented the same sorta responses but with much better rhetoric and control.
8. Tim Ryan: I actually thought Ryan had a couple of nice moments early. Specifically his response to school shooting questions, which he folded mental health, anti-bullying and PTSD messaging into. But he jumped into the deep end debating foreign policy with Gabbard and taking the hawk's side; got dunked on; and honestly seemed a little too wired throughout.
7. Inslee: A little too heavy on the "i'm the only one to do..." and mention legislation that people on the stage have supported but can't pass because of our congressional make-up. Mentioned his green plan as the gold standard which was right, but didn't fill in the blanks of what it entails well enough imo. He wasn't bad but coming from a low position in the race, he didn't do much to help himself.
6. Klobuchar: I don't agree with any of her answers but she kept herself controlled and sold her answers half decent. She also got way more time than I felt she deserved as someone polling so low. Other candidates had to pick fights to get time and she would just get a chance to offer a bland incremental solution and answer for no clear reason other than maybe to be devil's advocate. Still, others committed own goals on themselves or got dunked on by others; or were just invisible.
5. Tulsi: She got very little time early which might explain why she struggled to separate herself from the pack early. I also got a bit frustrated that she gave a bit of a stump speech for her first answer instead of answering the question. But she also didn't give terrible answers or anything, it was just the limited time and fact that a lot of candidates offered progressive answers so she blended in. That said, she jumped to five as soon as foreign policy came out. She got the poster of the night dunking on Ryan and stood out fighting for a more peaceful approach to foreign policy. She did well with what they gave her but had less to work with than the crew I put above her. I think she helped herself though.
4. DeBlasio: Could drop him to 5 for Tulsi based on the second half. He was like Tulsi in reverse. He started really strong, hit some cats and fought hard for some good progressive values. He also seemed to realize that he was gonna get short ended on time, so he was proactive and willing to throw some heat at others. The second half was bad though, he barely got time and had some Delaney-lite moments jumping in unnecessarily. But I pump him to four because he did really well in the first half and may have gotten himself back on some progressives' good sides. He was damn near Warren's attack dog, defending similar policy but more aggressively. I kinda wish he was on stage to do that for Bernie
3. Castro: His immigration answer was my favorite bit of the night. Demanding everyone acknowledge Trump's ridiculous law change that created the detention crisis and coming back to it repeatedly was money! That got even better when he smoked Beto for it. But that wasn't the only time he did well. He gave strong messages to PoC across the board and had solid left leaning approaches all night. He looked the part of someone that could hop on a cabinet or a ticket and cook. That said, I'm not a fan of his past performance in big roles but what he's selling looks damned good if he sticks to it.
2. Booker: My dude went way left of where I'd typically expect. He gave strong answers pretty much all night. This dude really looked like he was auditioning to get offered VP by Warren or Sanders with his moves. I kinda hated his answer about the Iran deal, just a weird attempt at taking two sides on it. But overall, I think he did himself a lot of favors with his performance as someone who'd pretty much faded into no momentum. I say this as someone who lives in Jersey and like Castro, I'm not as enthusiastic about his actual performance in office as his performance in the debate last night. Though I also think he gets hit a bit harder than he deserves sometimes.
1. Warren: All she really had to do was not drop the ball and she delivered beyond that. Clarifying her stance on M4A and just leaning left all the way through was nice to see. She also gave some quality answers on gun control (research focus) and climate change (she managed to thread the needle on job creation and green energy funding beautifully). She kinda fell to the side a bit during the second half but she'd already planted her flag with some great answers and she still managed to get in some nice answers even in the half where she got less attention. More than anything else, I don't think anyone did a thing to overtake her last night. She did really well and was already starting with a big lead. So she got that.