*Opposition research: It’s not a glorious or high-profile job — like campaign manager or press secretary — but man oh man does it matter to the success of a campaign to have a a really good opposition research team. Both Biden and Gabbard effectively used the opposition research dug up by their teams. And Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (New York) had a great piece of opposition research, but blew it by not holding it for the actual debate. (MUCH more on that later.) Get yourself good opposition researchers, people! They can be the difference between winning and losing.
LOSERS
*Barack Obama: Aside from Biden, there weren’t a lot of defenders on the stage of the eight years the last Democratic president spent in the White House. That was obviously a conscious choice to attempt to rob Biden of taking credit for the accomplishments of the Obama administration. But take a step back: Obama remains hugely popular among base Democratic voters. It struck me as a very strange that no one on stage not named “Joe Biden” said something like this: “Look, I love Barack Obama and admire what he did in the White House. But Joe Biden isn’t Barack Obama.” Or something like that. (Castro, it’s worth noting, did praise Obama’s handling of the economy — and got cheered by the crowd!)