Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-ATLANTA, Georgia-Ten 2020 Democratic presidential candidates debated Wednesday night in Atlanta, Georgia, Georgia expected to be a key battleground state for the 2020 presidential election with 47 percent of its registered voters statewide Black. (Editor's' note: The 6th Democratic Debate, the final debate of 2019 for the Dems, will be held on Dec. 19 at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles).
More than 325,000 people have signed up to vote in Georgia since the midterm elections, some 45 percent of them minority, and most of them Black.
Incumbent President Donald Trump, who defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 to win the presidency in 2016,is fighting, he and his Republican comrades, to keep control of the White house, the Republicans also controlling the U.S. Senate, though Democrats regained control of the House via last year's midterm elections.
Candidates meeting the polling and fundraising requirements set by the Democratic National Committee to debate Tuesday were former vice president Joe Biden, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, billionaire businessman Tom Steyer, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
Harris, a California attorney general turned U.S. senator, and Booker, a former Newark mayor, are the only Blacks in the race, whether Republican or Democratic.
Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke and former HUD secretary Julián Castro, who both participated in all of the other debates, including the fourth debate, failed to meet the qualifications criteria and have both suspended their presidential campaigns.
Only Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg and front-runner Biden are polling in double digits nationally, the six candidates on stage last night, including Harris and Booker, polling at five percent or less nationwide.
Hosted by MSNBC and the Washington Post, Tuesday's debate in Atlanta, a largely Black major American city, went on for just over two hours with debate issues ranging from the pending impeachment inquiry in the House against President Trump, to taxes, the Affordable Care Act, campaign finance laws, foreign policy, childcare and paid family leave and the Palestinian Israeli conflict.
Also at issue, among others, were wars abroad, immigration and criminal justice reforms, climate change, voting rights, gun violence, disparities between Black women and their White counterparts, the MeTo Movement, and the Violence Against Women Act, women, like Black people, a key voting bloc for the 2020 election.
The four debate moderators were all women, with none of them Black in Black Atlanta.
The debate started on the issues of taxes and tax cuts, and health care, Booker saying he supports a $15 minimum wage and Warren saying, like Booker, that Black women, are disproportionately impacted by a the current tax breaks afforded to rich AmericanS most of them White men.
Warren said the middle class and poor people pay half of the taxes.
Sen Sanders called the nation's current system of healthcare cruel and dysfunctional,' while Biden said he supports building Obamacare and then talked on what he called "my plan."
The feud between Rep Gabbard and Clinton was addressed, Clinton previously branding Gabbard, who announced she will not seek reelection to her congressional seat next year, a Republican operative set to run a third party campaign in an effort to undermine Democrats, a claim Gabbard, who chances to win reelection in congress diminished in the midst of time away from the state to campaign for president, says is ludicrous.
Asked specifically about the issue, Gabbard surprisingly said her own Democratic Party is undermining America.
"Our Democratic Party is unfortunately not the party that is of by and for the people," said Gabbard. "It is a party that has been and continues to be influenced by the foreign policy establishment in Washington represented by Hillary Clinton, and others [relative to] foreign policy, [and] by the military industrial complex and other greedy corporate interests."
The former Democratic National Committee vice president who served in the medical unit for the National Guard in combat in Iraq in 2004-2005 before getting elected to Congress in 2012 said both Republicans and Democrats have slighted Americans on foreign policy matters, and hat they have put American men and women in harm's way with unnecessary wars.
Gabbard described what she says is a "Bush-Trump-Clinton foreign policy doctrine."
Harris returned fire and said Gabbard is nothing but a pro-President Trump turncoat who spent "four years full time on Fox News criticizing Barack Obama."
She said Gabbard has acted full time during the campaign in "criticizing the Democratic Party."
The nation's first Black president, Obama was elected in 2008 served two terms as president and Biden two terms with Obama sa vice president.
Obama was succeeded into office by Trump in 2017.
The unprecedented feud between the three women, Gabbard, Harris and Clinton, is indicative of how women have gained notoriety in national politics over the years, decades ago women traditionally disregarded as potential American presidents, and they were certainly not the highlight of any major party presidential debate.
Harris also took on disparities between Black women and their White counterparts, and gun violence as it relates to the black community.
"Black women are three times more likely to die in connection with childbirth in America," said Harris, the only Black woman in the race for president."The son's of Black women will die because of gun violence than any other cause of death."
Harris said Black women make 61 cents on the dollar compared to their White women.
She said the Democratic Party must mirror what Obama did in campaigning for president to win, and that "justice is on the ballot in 2020."
On the issue of voting, Booker, the only Black male in the race for president said, Blacks are pissed off, the Black vote falling seven percentage points from 2012 when Obama won reelection to 2016 when Hillary Clinton narrowly lost the presidency to Trump.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
