All the happy talk that tonight's debate between Biden and Sanders would go after Trump sunk under the tape running in Bernie's head and Joe Biden's inability to change the topic.
It's time that the debates be taken from media moderators and turned over to people who know about the topics in question and who are not interested in creating headlines but creating clarity.
Sorry, Bernie is not giving up the idea he has a path to the nomination. Nor is he interested in drawing Biden to support his positions. Bernie is not Joe's friend as advertised.
Quoting Tom Perez, DNC head: "did you watch tonight’s debate? I did, and it made me damn proud to be a Democrat. The candidates engaged in a thoughtful, substantive discussion on the issues that matter most to our country and our future. They made it clear that, regardless of the outcome of this primary, our country will be in far better hands with our eventual nominee than with Donald Trump."
Sorry Tom, I don't think tonight's debate proved any such thing; Bernie would not be a better hand. Nor did Joe shine. Bernie following Trump into office would be more of the same except from the left: inflexible, uncompromising, and totally living in his own head.
I watched it, albeit not very closely, for most of the first hour. It confirmed my impression that Bernie is a better debater. I am not sure whether there is a correlation between being good at debating and being a good president.
ReplyDeleteJoe did well for the first 20-30 minutes, and then started to get thrown a little off balance and onto the defensive when Bernie started going after his record in the Senate. Another impression that the portion I saw confirmed is that Joe doesn't have a lot of stamina. He sort of runs out of gas as these lengthy and stressful events run on, and he becomes more blustery and less articulate.
One of the great flaws in our contemporary politics is that the decades of accomplishment of career public servants seem to be as much (or more) liability as asset. Our previous two presidents, Obama and Trump, have had very limited (in the one case) and no (in the other case) previous public service experience It seems it's better to run with a blank slate. Bernie's, I understand, is a good deal blanker than Biden's.
Bernie's attacks on Biden, during the portion I watched, were essentially sins against progressive orthodoxy: Biden voted in favor of the Iraq War, and he has supported the Hyde Amendment over the years. Those are moderate/centrist positions that could help Biden in the general election. Whether Bernie scored some palpable hits that would Biden in the primaries, we'll have to see.
Btw, speaking of primaries: Illinois votes in a couple of days. This will give me one of the very few excuses I have to emerge into the the world. Our local newscasts are reporting that many election judges, who are community volunteers, are bailing out because of fears of Covid-19. I'll provide a report on Tuesday if there is anything to report.
We are up tomorrow, too, and we have election volunteers un-volunteering, although probably not at your rates. The acting election supervisor (the real one having been fired, probably illegally, by the governor) was strenuously trying to train replacements over the weekend. This being the famous Palm Beach County, emergency action by a neophyte election supervisor bodes ill all around.
DeleteIt also will be St. Patrick's Day.
My wife has a normal doctor's appointment this morning. We'll probably follow that up with corned beef at our favorite Irish restaurant today in honor of tomorrow. And tomorrow we'll figure out whether to face the disaster of the election or to let others decide which old man we can run against the other old man. All the candidates I was interested in are gone now, and it seems like just a sad exercise in inevitability. Chuck Todd will probably make something of it if we skip tomorrow. But he will be wrong.
I was disappointed in the debates last night, eventually turning them off.
ReplyDeleteLike Margaret I had drunk too deeply of the media/ Democratic party establishment fantasy that somehow Biden would win over the Bernie supporters and that Bernie would say that Biden would the right man for the time.
Really unrealistic given the circumstances of the Virus. Biden spoke well that we cannot undertake a revolution amid the Virus, which with its effects will likely last for months, maybe even years.
However Biden’s replay of the situation room under the Ebola crises just underscored that we will have Trump until at least January and the disaster at that time may be far worse than Obama inherited from Bush. Some of the necessary changes at that time may be far more sweeping than we can imagine now. Restoration to the Obama era may be impossible.
Joe may save the day if he chooses Warren for his running mate. She would certainly appeal to the progressive wing of the party. If she had out performed Bernie in the primaries, I would have switched to her. She is certainly good at the details of progressive reform. She also proved she is a very good attack dog in the debates. She might engage in an extensive twitter fight with Trump that would allow Biden to emerge as the President of all the people who declines to engage Trump with media fights.
What I have missed so far in the debates and all the media is the Democrats making everything into a Republican problem rather than just a Trump problem. The Democrats have to get back the Senate. Unfortunately their strategy seems to be lure Republicans who are dissatisfied with Trump into voting for Biden. There is evidence in the primaries that this is working. However they also have to make the case with Republicans that too many Republicans have collaborated with Trump rather than corralling his worse instincts. Republicans need to vote Democratic not simply split their ticket.
It is up to Biden and the Democratic centrists to win this. They can get the progressives with Warren as VP. They can put all their money, time and talent into campaigning for Biden as I did for Bernie. (If they choose Warren I will think that was well worth it). But if they spend time complaining about Bernie as a spoiler they will lose the election to Trump.
We streamed the first hour, and then Raber said he couldn't stand it anymore and went away to read his Raymond Chandler story.
ReplyDeleteAfter the first commercial break, the streaming cut out, so I went back to The Death of Ivan Ilych.
The debate was like listening to a couple old geezers in a coffee shop arguing about who did what 30 years ago.
Bernie's right about a lot of things, but his vision for a green, socialist America isn't gonna happen right now. He looked worn and tired. And the more he talked, the more out of touch he seemed.
The reality is that the Bernie Bros need to stop waiting for a savior from on high and start the revolution themselves by forming some labor unions.
It looks like it'll be Biden. I'll vote for Biden but I don't look forward to hearing Republican talking points from a so-called Democratic candidate. I'll be making a choice between two Republicans, one of whom is emotionally unstable with ADHD. Bernie is right, though. The present coronavirus crisis shows we need universal, comprehensive health coverage. This isn't the Big One, but the next one may be.
ReplyDeleteBritain has what Bernie wants, but the Conservatives have been starving it since the Great Recession, so it is no readier than our patchwork for he Big One. Proving only that whether they call themselves Republicans or Conservatives, there will always be a party for people who don't want anybody else to use any of their god-given money.
DeleteBoris, of course, claims the British system is greater and stronger than ever and that he has the situation under control. Proving only that when a mendacious egoist trips over a fire hydrant, he'll always say he was just testing the water.
Here is Vox News' take on the debate. They always choose some winners and losers. This time their winners were Biden, Social Security, "distancing", and the Green New Deal. Losers were Trump, and "diversity" (I would more call it identity politics). About distancing being a winner, I would say it was coronavirus. Not by any means that it has us down and out, but nothing gets one's attention like getting whacked upside the head. We have officially been whacked.
ReplyDeleteSanders got in some hits on Biden re: social security. It is worth noting that it was a different conversation then, "It feels hard to believe now, but for much of the Obama administration’s tenure, the Democrats in the White House were trying to cut a “grand bargain” that would include at least some cuts to Social Security." I didn't see it at the time as the Obama administration being "against" social security. That was back when they used to worry about the deficit. No one does that anymore.
I would add one thing as a winner: the progressive cause. Not a winner in the sense of everything they want, but in the sense of moving the needle. Even if Sanders or Warren (who dropped out, but may have an opportunity as a vp candidate) don't win the nomination, Social Security and the social safety net are established as values to defend, not reduce.
I didn't watch the debate, but I'm not seeing anywhere that abortion politics was mentioned. I'm going to count it as a "winner" if both parties shut up about that and focus on issues they can actually do something about.
DeleteThe Hyde Amendment came up....General obfuscation...!!
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