Big night for Dems? It's debatable

B) Busy watching U.S. vs Panama in CONCACAF Gold Cup Soccer.

C) Not thinking about the presidential election until a year before the presidential election.

Last one just doesn’t work, I’m sorry. Thanks to Donald Trump, Americans have been obsessing about the next election since 2016. Remember? You were stalking around the house yelling, “He’s lying about the popular vote!”

The candidates Wednesday did a great job of stuffing a lot of information into 60-second answers. In his first answer, Beto O’Rourke managed to speak in Spanish, make a long list of his agenda and avoid the actual question about whether he’d support a 70% tax rate on the highest-income earners.

The debates are being held in Miami, possibly because the Democrats are worried Florida resents losing the national nominating convention to Wisconsin. At minimum, it will kind of make up for the party’s refusal to hold a separate debate on global warming, since it gives everyone lots of time to contemplate what happens when a state sinks into the ocean.

Twenty candidates over two days is quite a crowd. But a few still had to be culled from the herd due to their pathetic lack of support. This is not something I want you to fret about. When a party puts John Delaney, Eric Swalwell and Marianne Williamson in a presidential event, you cannot possibly complain it’s being too picky.

Those who made the cut will, of course, go down in history. The nation is not going to forget anyone who qualified for a presidential debate. Today you’re a regular politician, tomorrow the new George Pataki.

Democrats can take pride in the diversity of the field — six women will be on stage over the two nights, which is a heck of a lot more than the old record of, um, one.

Feel free to note still somewhat less than 10.

The candidates come from 14 different states — not counting the ones who just moved into new residences in Iowa. Canny debate watchers wanted to make sure Julián Castro of Texas was onstage, and not his identical twin. I once interviewed Rep. Joaquin Castro, back when Julián was still mayor of San Antonio, and he admitted at least one instance in which the two of them had switched places to accommodate a tight schedule. Or at least I think it was the congressman. You never really know.

When the first round is over on Thursday, try to decide whom you liked best and send him or her a small contribution. Help get rid of big money and show Donald Trump what real swamp-draining looks like. That message is not necessarily going to come from the Democratic National Committee, which is celebrating the debates in Miami with a fundraising lunch for big donors at the home of the founder of Lumber Liquidators.

People, help prove that it’s possible to run for president without the help of a wood-floor baron or hedge fund owners. Candidates have to file their quarterly report on donations soon. “By mid-July we’ll see if anyone has a massive increase,” said Brendan Quinn of the Center for Responsive Politics.

If none of the candidates knock you off your feet this week, there’ll be another round of debates at the end of July. Meanwhile, you can practice just memorizing who’s in the race.

There are lots of advantages to being able to list all the Democratic candidates, only one of them being able to impress your friends. Or, if you turn this into a habit, send them fleeing from the room.

When I have trouble sleeping, I mentally recite the list of all the vice presidents. But I’ll bet the Democratic candidates would work even better. Although really, none of them are going to match Franklin Pierce’s running mate, William King, who died of tuberculosis after six weeks in office. Before that, King was a longtime senator who many believed was the lover of future president James Buchanan. I am just telling you this to encourage you to memorize lists.

About the debates: A lot of Democrats just want to figure out who’d be the most attractive candidate in a race against Trump and will settle for anybody who seems reasonably adorable. Still, you want to know who stands where on matters like health care. Only Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio raised their hands for “Medicare for All” on Night 1, but almost everybody else managed to make their own policies sound pretty close.

But the last thing we need is negative thinking. Presidential nominations can be as crucial as presidential elections. I’ll bet there were a billion times this year when you looked back on the last Republican primaries and told yourself, “God, if only we’d gotten Ted Cruz.”

OK, maybe not so much. But even Ted Cruz would have held press conferences.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.