Joe Biden could have sat this cam­paign out, retired, and been fond­ly remem­bered by the Amer­i­can pub­lic as Barack Oba­ma’s goofy yet love­able vice pres­i­dent. Instead, he chose to run for pres­i­dent one last time, and as a result guar­an­teed that he’ll be remem­bered for his actu­al record.

The debate indicated that cracks are forming in the Obama-Biden administration's invulnerability to Democratic criticism.

Thurs­day night was a rough one for Biden. It was always going to be, not just because the can­di­date — who has assid­u­ous­ly avoid­ed unscript­ed media appear­ances since announc­ing his run — has a poor record of suc­cess as a cam­paign­er. Biden’s deep-root­ed role as a cen­trist ​“neolib­er­al” Demo­c­rat has sad­dled him with a long, check­ered his­to­ry for his oppo­nents to pick apart.

And pick apart they did. Thurs­day’s debate saw sev­er­al of Biden’s rivals assail him for a record that sits uneasi­ly with the more pro­gres­sive direc­tion of today’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. And Biden — who entered the night as the clear fron­trun­ner — didn’t do him­self any favors by fre­quent­ly stum­bling over his words and even mak­ing non­sen­si­cal statements.

The first crack came on the sub­ject of immi­gra­tion. As Biden boast­ed of his immi­gra­tion record (“We all talk about these things, I did it!”), mod­er­a­tor Jose Diaz-Balart remind­ed him that ​“the Oba­ma-Biden admin­is­tra­tion deport­ed more than three mil­lion Amer­i­cans,” prompt­ing a cam­era cut to a con­fused-look­ing Biden. This top­ic opened up space for Sen. Kamala Har­ris (D‑Calif.) to crit­i­cize not just Biden but the lega­cy of the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion, explain­ing that she had ​“dis­agreed with my pres­i­dent” on the issue of unjust deportations.

Biden’s defense of his record on immi­gra­tion was whol­ly uncon­vinc­ing. Biden said he would ​“surge imme­di­ate­ly bil­lions of dol­lars worth of help” into Cen­tral Amer­i­ca to tack­le the root caus­es of peo­ple flee­ing, before ref­er­enc­ing a ​“bipar­ti­san agree­ment” he had secured at the very end of Oba­ma’s sec­ond term. Biden was like­ly refer­ring to a plan insert­ed into the admin­is­tra­tion’s 2016 bud­get request that came to be known as ​“Biden’s billion.”

The trou­ble is, by fun­nel­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars to abu­sive secu­ri­ty forces in the region, and by set­ting aside fund­ing for Cen­tral Amer­i­can gov­ern­ments to pre­vent migrants from reach­ing the U.S. bor­der, Biden’s bipar­ti­san agree­ment both fueled the root caus­es dri­ving peo­ple to flee and ramped up the cru­el­ty they faced. This was not a first for Biden. He had, in his own words, been ​“one of the archi­tects” of the Clin­ton-era Plan Colom­bia enact­ed in 2000, which com­bined increased mil­i­ta­riza­tion in Colom­bia with open­ing the coun­try up to for­eign invest­ment. The plan result­ed in not just height­ened vio­lence, but eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal exploita­tion, fur­ther dri­ving peo­ple out of the coun­try, and was repli­cat­ed in the Oba­ma-era Alliance for Pros­per­i­ty for Cen­tral Amer­i­ca 15 years lat­er, also spear­head­ed by Biden.

Dur­ing his time as vice pres­i­dent, Biden didn’t engage in the kind of warm and fuzzy bro­mides about pro­tect­ing immi­grants that we heard Thurs­day night. As late as 2014, Biden bragged that the Oba­ma-Biden admin­is­tra­tion was ​“enhanc­ing the enforce­ment and removal pro­ceed­ings” against migrants, and warned that any­one mak­ing the trip should ​“be aware of what awaits them” because it ​“will not be open arms.” Indeed, one need only read the stom­ach-churn­ing details of an ACLU law­suit over the treat­ment of migrant chil­dren from that year to under­stand that he was being seri­ous. Biden paid lip ser­vice to ​“hav[ing] to deal with the root caus­es” then, too.

The next major hit Biden took was over his oppo­si­tion to bus­ing and defense of his friend­ly rela­tion­ships with racists and seg­re­ga­tion­ists. It was Har­ris, again, who took Biden to task over these posi­tions, with Biden hit­ting back that he ​“did not praise racists, that is not true,” and that he ​“did not oppose bus­ing in America.”

Nei­ther of these state­ments is true. Biden’s oppo­si­tion to bus­ing is, at this point, well-worn ter­ri­to­ry, but it’s worth cycling through some of his state­ments on the mat­ter: the claim that bus­ing was ​“the atom bomb of anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion weapons”; ​“the sin­gle most dev­as­tat­ing issue that could occur to Delaware”; that he’d made it ​“rea­son­able for long­stand­ing lib­er­als to begin to” oppose it as a pol­i­cy; that it was a ​“lib­er­al train wreck.”

That last claim came not in the 1970s but in his 2007 autobiography.

Biden’s state­ment that he has­n’t praised racists is clear­ly debunked by his recent defense of his pos­i­tive rela­tion­ship with dyed-in-the-wool seg­re­ga­tion­ist Sens. James East­land and Her­man Tal­madge. But that’s not all. In his 2003 eulo­gy for seg­re­ga­tion­ist and noto­ri­ous sex­u­al preda­tor Strom Thur­mond, Biden called Thur­mond ​“a brave man” who ​“tru­ly want­ed to help.”

Even cen­trist Michael Ben­nett got in on the action, reject­ing Biden’s pre­dic­tion that Repub­li­cans will expe­ri­ence a sud­den change of heart and wish to work with a Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­dent once Trump is out of office. Ben­nett also exco­ri­at­ed an Oba­ma-era deal on tax­es Biden boast­ed of mak­ing with Mitch McConnell as a ​“com­plete vic­to­ry for the Tea Party.”

“It does sound as if you haven’t seen what’s been hap­pen­ing in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate over the last 12 years,” remarked mod­er­a­tor Chuck Todd.

But it was the sec­ond exchange with Har­ris on the issue of race that began a grad­ual unrav­el­ing for Biden through­out the night. Attempt­ing to defend his record on civ­il rights, Biden rat­tled off a series of poli­cies he’d been involved in before abrupt­ly stop­ping of his own voli­tion, say­ing, (per­haps alle­gor­i­cal­ly), ​“My time’s up, I’m sorry.”

Biden lat­er appeared to defend the pow­er­ful and increas­ing­ly far-Right Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion (NRA), say­ing the ​“ene­my is the gun man­u­fac­tur­ers, not the NRA.” In response to a ques­tion about what sin­gle issue he would pri­or­i­tize upon win­ning the pres­i­den­cy, he odd­ly answered, ​“make sure that we defeat Don­ald Trump.”

Of course, Biden was­n’t the only can­di­date to mis­rep­re­sent his record on stage. Har­ris claimed the man­tle of police account­abil­i­ty by men­tion­ing her sup­port for police body cam­eras, which like­ly came as news to civ­il rights activists in her home state of Cal­i­for­nia who crit­i­cized her in 2016 for oppos­ing mea­sures for greater police over­sight. And Kirsten Gilli­brand (D‑N.Y.) cast her­self as a tough-on-Wall Street politi­cian, despite her well-doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry as a loy­al ally to bank­ing interests.

But Biden’s mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions, and the crit­i­cism he faced for his polit­i­cal his­to­ry, are par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant giv­en his now two-month-long reign as the fron­trun­ner for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion. Biden’s dom­i­na­tion of the ear­ly polls has been cit­ed by com­men­ta­tors rang­ing from Jonathan Chait to Michelle Gold­berg as evi­dence that the desire for change and bold pro­gres­sivism among vot­ers has been over­stat­ed since 2016. The attacks Biden faced last night, and his impulse to put a pro­gres­sive spin on some unsa­vory parts of his his­to­ry, sug­gest such argu­ments have been far too hasty.

The 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry cam­paign will be long, and one sin­gle debate isn’t like­ly to upend the can­di­dates’ stand­ing. But Thurs­day offered a pre­view of what may well be in store for Biden in the months ahead: the longer he stays in pole posi­tion, the more his record will be exca­vat­ed and the more attacks he’ll face from his rivals.

But the debate also indi­cat­ed that cracks are form­ing in the Oba­ma-Biden admin­is­tra­tion’s invul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to Demo­c­ra­t­ic crit­i­cism. As long as Biden stays in the race, his oppo­nents will have more space to point out its flaws with­out going after the beloved for­mer pres­i­dent him­self. This may prove the most last­ing lega­cy of Biden’s campaign.