Sputnik has discussed the debates with Inderjeet Parmar, professor of International Politics at the University of London.
Sputnik: Who do you feel came up with the most positive response to the first debate?
Inderjeet Parmar: Well, that's quite difficult to tell this early, as the polls aren't really out. But it looks like Elizabeth Warren, who went in with a lead, is likely to retain it.
She got a lot of air time, most of the other candidates had to respond to the kind of things that she was saying, particularly on the economy and healthcare and immigration.
What a lot of reports suggest is Castro, Julian Castro, has done very well. He's somebody who hardly anybody knows and he got a fair bit of airtime and there appeared to be a bit of a ganging up on Beto O'Rourke, who is much better known. But he suffered quite a lot in the polls lately.
Sputnik: Cory Booker seems to be one of the most successful candidates in building a social media following. Do you think he could be a contender? Or do you think this could put him in good stead for perhaps the VP position?
Inderjeet Parmar: Oh, well, it's far too early to tell. I mean, he's been kind of on the national radar for a little while.
And he did reasonably well on the guns question, for example, but it's very difficult to say exactly where anybody is going to stand after this particular round, or at least the first half of a democratic debate round. But yeah, he hasn't damaged himself. So he may still be there.
There are three groups: there's Biden, who is pretty strongly in the lead. There's Warren and Saunders, who are kind of in the second pack, and then there's the rest of them. And they're still kind of vying for position there.
Sputnik: One of the most discussed moments of the evening was when Beto O'Rourke, who you previously mentioned, and Corey Booker, both took turns to speak Spanish during the debate. How important is the Latino vote going to be in the next election?
Inderjeet Parmar: It is going to be very important, because what happened in 2016 was a large part of the Latino vote, a significant part of Latinos voted for Trump, that is largely now turning away from Donald Trump and all the strong conservative Republicans. I think that's where the kind of big debate was, between Beto O'Rourke, for example, and Julian Castro.
And it seems to be that the level of outrage in the most recent few days, with the father and child who were killed crossing the Rio Grande... that has brought that into high relief, and I think the candidates are vying to try to be critical of the Trump administration and suggest that they are offering a radically different alternative.
Sputnik: You mentioned Trump there, some fact checkers did some counting during the debate, and his name was brought up 35 times I believe, within the two-hour debate. So he dominated a lot of the conversation. Do you think that attacking Trump at this point is going to be a successful strategy for these contenders?
Inderjeet Parmar: Well, I think they have to begin at least with a critique of Trump, because he is the president and he has been setting the political agenda at that presidential level. But if you stop there, and you don't offer an alternative vision, then you could be in trouble. So it's not so much critiquing Trump.
But if you stop there, and I think that was one of the big criticisms of the Democratic Party, in the Congress, largely focusing on Trump. And I suspect that tonight when Joseph Biden is on the stand if you like, I suspect that there's going to be a far greater focus on Trump alone.
Because, you know, Joseph Biden, has a record. And his record is really one of the kind of mainstream Democratic Party in terms of war, inequality, immigration, abortion rights, and so on, and I think there's big problems for him tonight. So I suspect he's going to try to focus more on Trump.
But last night, there was a much greater focus on, you know, kind of a new Green Deal, and on health care for all, 'single payer' and greater levels of a sort of tax on inequality taxation of the very wealthy, and that kind of thing, which was a much more left kind of debate than for I would have anticipated.
And I think what that tells me really, is that the candidates, even those who have no record whatsoever of being kind of liberal on those fronts, or left on those fronts, are having to voice those kinds of sentiments, because the Saunders/Warren wing if you like, is in the upswing at the moment.
And I think the way the voters are further to left as well, we know that a majority a kind of public opinion, particularly Millennials are supportive of socialism, how they define it. So I think the rhetoric is certainly shifting closer to the left.
Sputnik: And what was the biggest surprise of the night, from your point of view?
Inderjeet Parmar: Tulsi Gabbard, she got a decent amount of air time, probably about four or five minutes in the whole of the two hours.
But she put forward a very strong anti-war message as well about Iran, for example, and warning the Trump administration and talking about the Iranian nuclear agreement, the fact that she served in Iraq, the fact she was in the military for 16 years and remains a major in the National Guard I think, I think that gave it a very powerful force.
And I think that that is one of the big things which really, among public opinion on right and left, is one of the things which doesn't generally get into presidential debates. So I thought that was a quite interesting development as well.
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