The Latest: Pre-debate Biden ad deflects criticism of Obama
Posted Sep 12, 2019 9:54 am.
HOUSTON — The Latest on the Democratic presidential debate (all times local):
11:50 a.m.
Just hours before Thursday night’s debate in Houston, former Vice-President Joe Biden went up with a digital ad aimed at deflecting criticism of President Barack Obama’s administration.
Biden is shown saying in footage from a campaign event that Obama “was a president our children could and did look up to.” Biden says he was “proud to serve as his vice-president, but never more proud than the day we passed health care.”
Other Obama administration accomplishments appear on-screen, including “protected dreamers” and “led on marriage equality.”
After a debate earlier this summer in Detroit, Biden said he was “a little surprised” at the flak he took from fellow Democrats about Obama’s legacy, pushing back against criticism of the Affordable Care Act and Obama-era immigration policy.
Some Democrats in early voting states like South Carolina, which holds the first primary vote in the South next year, have listed Biden’s proximity to Obama as among their top reasons for supporting him.
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8:36 a.m.
The top Democratic presidential contenders will finally be on one debate stage Thursday in Houston as Joe Biden tries to solidify his early lead over Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg (BOO’-tuh-juhj) will look to reclaim some lost momentum.
The ABC News debate has 10 candidates altogether and will air on a broadcast network with a post-labour Day uptick in interest in the race. That could give candidates their largest audience yet as the campaigning heads into the fall.
It’s also the first time Warren and Biden will appear on the same stage.
But the campaigns say that doesn’t necessarily mean the three-hour debate will end up being a direct clash between the progressive Massachusetts senator and the more centrist former vice-president.
The Associated Press
