my honest opinion about that debate is that there were too many people on stage, and it prevented everybody from getting their point across. i think that's part of the reason that they interrupted each other and talked over each other - there just wasn't enough time to split up for that many people.

bloomberg & steyer both needed a platform to get a message across, and neither of them had time to do it. warren & klobuchar both needed to be able to convince voters they're not done and are serious competitors, and they didn't have time to do it. buttigieg needed to present himself as a superior alternative to biden, and didn't have time to do it. biden needed to convince people he's still worth voting for, and didn't have time to do it. and, sanders needed to defend himself against the attacks, and didn't have time to do it.

a couple of them - sanders, klobuchar - seemed to realize the importance of appearing animated. sanders was his old kranky self for the first time in a while, which was nice to see, and might help a bit.

but, i think that if you were walking into this without a clear idea of who you were voting for, nobody really had the opportunity to make a convincing case, and it probably didn't really help much.

winner: advertisers, who bizarrely got the last word in

losers: candidates, who were mostly denied the ability to get a word in at all