“Our military is the finest military on earth, but we should stop asking our military to solve problems that cannot be solved militarily.”

There were high expectations heading into the latest Democrat Presidential Debate with many expecting the gloves to come off, particularly between Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

But that is not what happened at all. The gloves were on very tightly as the candidates appeared to be hesitant to take hard jabs at each other.

Warren Vs Sanders

When the question was finally posed to Sens. Warren and Sanders about the accusation that the Vermont senator told Warren that he did not believe a woman could get elected in 2016 there were no fireworks.

“I didn’t say it. And I don’t want to waste a whole lot of time on this, because this is what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want,” Sen. Sanders said when the moderator asked him if he said a woman could not win the presidency.

“Anybody knows me knows that it’s incomprehensible that I would think that a woman cannot be president of the United States,” he said.

“There was a movement to draft Senator Warren to run for president,” he said. “And you know what, I stayed back. Senator Warren decided not to run, and then I did — I did run afterwards.”

But what had many Sanders supporters incensed was when CNN moderator Abby Phillip posed the question to Sen. Warren in a way that, many believed, Sanders was essentially called a liar.

“What did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?” Phillip said to the Massachusetts senator.

CNN: “You’re saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman couldn’t win the election?”

Bernie: “Correct.”

CNN: “Warren, what did you think when Sanders said a woman couldn’t win the election?”

Reminder: CNN helped rig the primary against Bernie in 2016. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/xMxwI3Mq8h

— Alex Marlow (@AlexMarlow) January 15, 2020

“Bernie is my friend and I’m not here to try to fight with Bernie,” she said before pivoting to the role of sexism in general in presidential elections.

“Can a woman beat Donald Trump? Look at the men on this stage,” she said as the crowd applauded.

“Collectively, they have lost ten elections,” she said of the men on stage. “The only people on stage who have won every single election they’ve been in are the women. Amy (Klobuchar) and me. And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican anytime in the past 30 years is me. And here’s what I know — the real danger that we face as Democrats is picking a candidate who can’t pull our party together.”

But it did not look like anyone was coming together after the debate when Sanders extended his hand to Warren and she ignored him.

Wow, what was that between Warren and Sanders at the end of the debate?? #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/AjNNU2eXKC

— cursed-dem ?????? (@kallllisti) January 15, 2020

The Biden Fight That Wasn’t

After tensions with Iran reached a boiling point, following President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, many figured that former Vice President Joe Biden would be peppered with questions about his vote to support the war in Iraq, but it simply did not happen.

“Joe and I listened to what Dick Cheney and George Bush and [then-Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld had to say. I thought they were lying,” Sanders said politely. “Joe saw it differently.”

“There are enlisted people that I served with barely old enough to remember those votes on the authorization after 9/11, on the war in Iraq,” South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg said. “And there are people now old enough to enlist who were not alive for some of those debates.”

Biden did say that he would keep a “small amount” of troops in the Middle East to combat the Islamic State, declining to offer a full pullout.

Warren was more eager to get the troops back home but even she did not directly confront Biden on his vote.

“We need to get our combat troops out,” she said. “Our military is the finest military on earth, but we should stop asking our military to solve problems that cannot be solved militarily.”

The Verdict

There were no standout moments at the debate that one would believe are going to change the results of the Iowa Caucus.

There were no viral soundbites or quotable meme-worthy one-liners that would get voters excited enough to change their votes.

The only thing that might have happened is Warren alienating Sanders voters, if Twitter users who trended #LyingLiz and #NeverWarren are too be believed.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Iowa voters have their voices heard on Feb. 3.