Overall this was an incredibly boring debate. Lack of diversity was apparent, the questions were bad, and there didn't seem to be any fire in anyone except for Steyer.
Agree with all of this. The moderation was terrible: the questions were highly redundant, only a few topics were covered, they didn't have a good strategy for handling candidates who went over their time (the plan seemed to be to just keep talking over them and hope for the best), and they didn't do a great job at rationing hardball/softball questions evenly between candidates. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of "the moderators were biased against candidate X" claims, but honestly they just seemed generally incompetent?
I hear you on the lack of diversity too, especially since Yang had evolved into such a strong (and entertaining) debater and Booker was probably the only candidate never to truly flub a debate, even if he struggled a little distinguishing himself on policy. I really wish it were possible to trade in Steyer and Buttigieg and get them back.
That said, Steyer seemed surprisingly sharp tonight, compared to his past performances, which ... Isn't saying much I guess? Still, given how much I usually resent him being on stage, and the fact that he's only there because of the millions he's spent on advertising, I was shocked that I didn't look at my phone every time he opened his mouth tonight.