What the Editorial Board Really Thought of the Democratic Candidates

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/opinion/endorsement-democratic-candidates.html

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On Sunday, The New York Times editorial board endorsed Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar for the Democratic presidential nomination. In the words of Kathleen Kingsbury, the deputy editorial page editor, “The endorsement process is an opportunity to ask hard questions and engage candidates in the kind of prolonged back-and-forth that reveals insights readers aren’t always privy to but have a right to know about.”

To reach their decision, the board sat down for extended conversations with nine of the Democratic candidates. I asked some of the editorial board members about that process, and how the interviews might help voters make up their minds as the primary approaches.

Alex Kingsbury: I was, and remain, impressed that Bernie Sanders refused to answer the question (asked of all candidates) about who broke their heart. It may have been one of the few questions that a candidate simply refused to answer. His was the correct answer in that there are some things that even political leaders need not address in public. But it takes a certain kind of person not to answer a question, especially in a journalistic setting. Most often, the rule is, “Answer the question you wished had been asked,” which is what almost everyone does. Points to Senator Sanders for knowing when not to play ball.

Michelle Cottle: I wasn’t expecting Pete Buttigieg to admit that he feels as though he has “less room to be emotive” than some other candidates.

Binyamin Appelbaum: I was surprised that the former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick continues to defend Ameriquest, one of the nation’s largest subprime lenders in the years before the financial crisis. The company’s predatory lending practices resulted in thousands of foreclosures, not to mention huge settlements, but when I asked Mr. Patrick, who served on the company’s board, whether he still thought of Ameriquest as a good company, he praised its good intentions.

Lauren Kelley: Mayor Pete telling us he hadn’t heard of the Mayo Pete meme. How is that possible?

Mara Gay: We asked all of the candidates who had broken their hearts. Senator Elizabeth Warren said her first husband did. Knowing the context behind their divorce — she has said he didn’t support her career ambitions — I found the answer to be brave. It takes courage to tell these stories, especially as a woman running for president. It’s clear she has guts.

Nick Fox: When Joe Biden was discussing a meeting with tech leaders about protecting intellectual property, he said that “one of the little creeps sitting around that table” had “told me he was an artist because he was able to come up with games to teach you how to kill people.” It’s not often that you hear a pol refer to some of the most powerful American business owners as “creeps.” Not that I have any problem with that.

AK: I was more impressed after meeting Elizabeth Warren for the endorsements. I’d met her several times before as a journalist in Massachusetts. She’s come a long way as a politician. Mayor Buttigieg was more impressive in person than on TV. Tom Steyer less so. I found Andrew Yang the most enjoyable in terms of his willingness to say what was on his mind.

MC: Yes.

BA: My pre-interview impression of Andrew Yang was heavily colored by his debate appearances, which felt to me like a high-concept comedy routine in which almost every answer ended up in the same place: his proposal to send every American a monthly check. In person, however, I found him very impressive. He was both thoughtful and empathetic, not to mention genuinely funny. I think his platform is flawed, but I have a lot of respect for him — and I hope he finds a way to remain involved in public life.

LK: I didn’t have much of an opinion about Cory Booker going into our interview with him. I came out of the room thinking he was a much better candidate than his poll numbers indicated.

MG: I was unprepared for Andrew Yang’s thoughtfulness around his universal basic income proposal. The measure is regressive, and far too small a response to the income inequality seen in the United States today. But when Mr. Yang spoke about his vision for the proposal as a way to reignite entrepreneurialism and breathe new life into communities that have long ago lost manufacturing jobs, it was inspiring. He brings an energy and compassion to the race I found infectious. I was expecting a “bro,” but found someone far more interesting.

NF: As were many of my colleagues, I was impressed by Mr. Yang’s thoughtfulness and by how much I enjoyed meeting with him. But I was also shocked by how obliviously ill-prepared Deval Patrick was.

AK: Since I was asking about foreign policy, I found the thinness of the responses nearly disqualifying for every candidate besides Joe Biden. (Senator Warren had a few strong ideas, too). If any of these candidates answered questions about health care, say, the way they talked about Afghanistan, they’d be laughed off the debate stage.

MC: It’s always interesting to see how candidates handle criticism — of themselves, their policy ideas, their campaign strategies. It can help give you a sense of their temperament and how rigid they are.

BA: Most of the candidates make a convincing case that their heart is in the right place, but few have a convincing grasp on the nature of the job they’re seeking. It’s fine to talk about legislation, but the president’s primary power is as regulator-in-chief. Elizabeth Warren’s understanding of regulatory power, and how to use it, is one of her strongest qualities.

LK: This isn’t a specific line of questioning, but I found it most revealing watching the candidates respond to questions that they weren’t prepared to answer. Some of them spat out a campaign slogan and changed the subject, while others turned the problem over in their head and gave a thoughtful answer. (And some did both!) I think that if you want to be president, you really need to be able to do the latter. The presidency is basically four to eight years of dealing with urgent and unexpected crises, right?

NF: I don’t know about “fitness,” but what I thought was most telling was the way they dealt with questions about inequality, which will be central to the Democratic campaign and the general election. Some were surprisingly vague about actual policy plans, particularly on taxation.

AK: See above.

MC: No hard and fast litmus tests. But I tend to be skeptical of candidates who avoid policy or strategy specifics and parry questions about how they’ll approach the job with vague promises to “change Washington” or “remake the system.”

BA: The interviews are just one way in which we evaluate candidates; I guess I can imagine exchanges that would be, as such, disqualifying, but I’m not sure we had any. The candidates I regarded as plausible presidents when they entered the room, I still regarded as plausible presidents when they left.

LK: I didn’t; I think you know a disqualifying answer when you hear one.

MG: None. I tried to walk in with an open mind.

NF: A lack of seriousness and depth. A reliance on platitude, slogans and pandering.

AK: I would have liked to interview Tulsi Gabbard and Michael Bloomberg. Both declined. I don’t really consider Ms. Gabbard a Democrat, in the same way that Bernie Sanders isn’t really a Democrat. But she is only one of two people (including Mr. Sanders) who is a viable option for truly antiwar voters. I’m not one, but I find it discouraging that Senator Sanders and Representative Gabbard are the only true antiwar options.

MC: Kamala Harris. We came so close!

BA: I’m glad we were able to interview Cory Booker before he dropped out. His grasp of the nation’s problems and opportunities resonated with me, as I hope that some of his plans — notably his proposal for baby bonds — are picked up by other candidates. The person I most wish we had interviewed is still in the race: Michael Bloomberg, who declined to come speak with us.

LK: I was bummed that we didn’t get to talk to Kamala Harris or Julián Castro. They were both interesting candidates with creative ideas about how to protect reproductive rights. And I think they would have been fun to talk to.

MG: Kamala Harris dropped out of the race moments before she was scheduled to meet with us. It was disappointing because I would have liked to ask her about what she was hearing from voters on the campaign trail, and her theory about why her candidacy didn’t gain the traction it needed.

NF: Julián Castro obviously didn’t have a chance, but I would have liked to have gotten a better sense of who he is. He is going to be a player. Mr. Bloomberg’s refusal to meet with us — in his own city — did not speak well of him.

AK: Anything that’s on the record is a service to voters, in my view.

MC: Ninety minutes of extended questioning is bound to knock the candidates off their talking points and stump speeches at least a couple of times. Though it was harder with some than others.

BA: I think there are several plausible candidates in this field, each with strengths and flaws. We made a choice, but more than that, I hope we helped to clarify the trade-offs confronting Democratic voters, and I hope that helps people make their own choices.

LK: We had the luxury of time with the candidates — many of them revealed more about themselves in that room than they’re able to on a debate stage or in a stump speech.

MG: I hope we can convince voters to challenge their assumptions about who is electable and why. And I hope that in pulling back the curtain a bit on the endorsement process, we can give Americans a better sense of the role of editorial boards, and newspapers in general, in a democratic society. That hasn’t been super-transparent in the past. I hope this helps remove some of the mystery.

Do you have thoughts on the editorial board’s endorsement? Email us at debatable@nytimes.com. Please note your name, age and location in your response, which may be included in the next newsletter.

Read the editorial board’s interviews with all the candidates.

Curious about how other readers reacted to the endorsement? Here are two collections of responses.

Listen to the pop-up podcast about how the editorial board made its decision.

Here’s what readers had to say about the last edition: The spat between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Richard from Massachusetts: “Frankly I am going to support both Sanders and Warren and am not in the least interested in this spat. … Everyone understands both sexism and the gender issues around the election of the first female POTUS. That issue has little to do with either of these candidates. What I want to see is both of them work to defeat Biden, Buttigieg and especially the billionaires.”

Beulah from Massachusetts: “I’d like to point out that a Washington Post story corroborates Sanders’s account of their conversation. In future coverage of this controversy, I’d like this acknowledged, because it is part of the story.”

Bill from New Zealand: “There is a woman who could easily win the general election if she could just get past the primaries. Her name is Amy Klobuchar. I like Warren, but the issue is not whether a woman can win or not. It is whether Warren can win. I don’t think she can. I also don’t think Bernie can.”