Debate: Should 2020 Democrats go big or get real?

DETROIT (AP) — Should Democrats be going big or getting real? That’s the question that dominated the Democratic presidential primary debate as progressive favorites Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders fended off attacks from lesser-known moderates. The display amounted to a sometimes testy public airing of the party’s anxieties about how far left is too left and how to beat President Donald Trump. Here are the key takeaways from the debate:

EVOLUTION VS. REVOLUTION

The battle lines were clear at Tuesday’s debate from the opening remarks. This was the pragmatists against the front-runners seeking transformational change.

Over and over, moderate candidates like Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and former Rep. John Delaney argued Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ plans — from “Medicare for All” to the Green New Deal — are unrealistic and would scare off voters.

Bullock bemoaned the candidates’ “wish-list economics.” Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar dismissed free college even for wealthy families as unworkable and touted her ideas “grounded in reality.”

Hickenlooper called for “an evolution, not a revolution,” on health care.

The attacks weren’t shocking in a debate that featured the progressive standouts Warren and Sanders onstage with a handful of lesser-known moderates looking to seize the spotlight. But the two senators’ unified front in fighting them off was notable. Though they are jockeying for some of the same voters, Warren and Sanders didn’t bother going after each other. They largely beat back the moderate critique of their call for sweeping, systemic change with similar arguments.

Sanders argued his health plan is “not radical” and achievable. Warren said the country’s problems can’t be solved with “small ideas and spinelessness.”

PLAYING INTO TRUMP’S HANDS?

Donald Trump loomed large over the Democratic debate stage. Repeatedly, the candidates mixed their policy plans with political strategy, arguing over whether their party’s leftward push will only open them up to GOP criticism.

On topics from Medicare for All to immigration, Warren and Sanders found themselves under attack as their more moderate competitors told them their policies only played into Trump’s hands.

The notion of taking away private insurance from millions and a Green New Deal that “makes sure that every American’s guaranteed a government job that they want” is “a disaster at the ballot box,” Hickenlooper said.

“You might as well FedEx the election to Donald Trump,” Hickenlooper said. Delaney wondered, “Why do we have to be so extreme?” Even self-help author Marianne Williamson chimed in to say she does “have concern about what the Republicans would say.”

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg tried to end the unusually public display of anxiety, declaring that “it is time to stop worrying about what the Republicans will say.”

“If it’s true that if we embrace a far left agenda they’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists,” Buttigieg said. “If we embrace a conservative agenda, you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists. So let’s just stand up for the right policy, go out there, and defend it.”