Tuesday night’s Democratic primary debate began with a CNN-produced sizzle reel of candidate sound bites, the national anthem, and a commercial break. It was ten minutes before any candidate spoke, and a half hour had gone by before the opening statements were over and an actual question was introduced. What followed were two hours during which the lefty front-runners on the stage—Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—beat back chippy attacks from the half-dozen moderate challengers around them. John Delaney, a centrist former congressman whose idea of good news these days is a poll that finds him at one per cent support, must be thrilled with how the night went. CNN’s moderators kept finding ways to bring him into the discussion. In fact, the first question of the night, which CNN’s Jake Tapper put to Sanders, was, “What do you say to Congressman Delaney?”

Rather than challenge Sanders and Warren (and Pete Buttigieg) to debate their differences, CNN opted to make it a night of front-runners versus long shots. For the latter—Delaney, Tim Ryan, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, John Hickenlooper, Steve Bullock, and Marianne Williamson—Tuesday was perhaps the last chance to generate a breakthrough to keep their campaigns alive. CNN made the most of their desperation. Bullock, the governor of Montana, got dragged into an argument with Warren about nuclear weapons in which he got so worked up that he wound up calling for a return to “nuclear proliferation,” before correcting himself and calling for “de-proliferation.” Bullock announced his candidacy late—in May—and just managed to qualify for this debate. Surely, nuclear-weapons policy wasn’t the issue he wanted to discuss.

The value of objectivity has been questioned in many corners of American journalism in recent years. Debate moderation—as high-profile and consequential a task as it is—has remained a redoubt of the classic, view-from-nowhere style. On Tuesday, CNN’s moderators—Tapper, Dana Bash, and Don Lemon—betrayed no opinions except a desire to make it personal. Tapper asked Hickenlooper, “I’d like to hear what you say about Senator Warren’s suggestion that those people on the stage who are not in favor of Medicare for All lack the political will to fight for it.” Bash asked Klobuchar, “Who on the stage is making promises just to get elected?”

Health care got three-quarters of an hour, though the discussion mostly focussed on taxes for the middle class. Then the candidates were rushed through foreign policy, gun control, trade, and climate change. The trade discussion offered glimmers of substance, but the nuclear-weapons exchange between Warren and Bullock segued into a discussion about the age of the candidates. The moderators were sticklers, repeatedly interrupting the candidates, reminding them to follow “the rules,” which on Tuesday meant one-minute answers, fifteen-second rebuttals, and fifteen additional seconds “if a moderator asks for a clarification.” Nominally, the candidates agreed to these rules in the interest of order. In practice, the rules mostly served to speed up the drama.

There will be debates every month until the primaries start, and some experimentation with format is coming. Both CNN and MSNBC are planning climate-change “forums” or “town halls” with the candidates—the word “debate” is jealously guarded by the Democratic National Committee, which declined to host a climate-change forum of its own. These events hold the promise of being looser and more expansive than what was broadcast on Tuesday night. They will be welcome.