If Tuesday night’s debate had taken place six months ago, the questions and answers would have been dominated by Russia, Russia, Russia. But with the accusations that President Trump was a traitor exposed for the hoax they always were, the left had to come up with a new slogan. Enter racist, racist, racist.
Democrats and their media handmaidens apparently insist that their team march to a one-word mantra of six letters that begins with an “r.” That way they can turn on a dime and nobody will really notice. Brilliant!
Except that people notice because repeatedly calling the president a racist is obviously a fig leaf designed to hide a lack of substantive arguments. Even the partisan audience in Detroit didn’t seem impressed with the name-calling, perhaps because it was coming from 10 white candidates.
By the same token, the audience might simply have been confused by the speed-dating format. In a warm-up speech, the party’s national leader, Tom Perez, tried to justify the hectic pace by saying that it would give viewers a sense of all 10. I don’t think Perez would have won many votes with the audience afterward.
There simply wasn’t sufficient time for serious debate on any worthy topic, with the CNN panel interrupting after a few sentences. The result was too many soundbites, and debates are supposed to be the thoughtful alternative to soundbites.
That said, there was enough coherence to notice a pleasant surprise. To wit, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had a battle on their hands trying to justify their promises of endless free stuff.
They were the only top-tier candidates on the stage and while their plans mostly set the agenda, they were forced to play defense for much of the two hours.
Medicare-for-all was all but ridiculed by five of their opponents. Granted, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Gov. Steven Bullock and former Gov. John Hickenlooper, Congressman Tim Ryan and former Congressman John Delaney are also-rans at this point, but they consistently injected notes of common sense into the fray.
Frankly, I didn’t expect so much from it, nor did I expect it would be as effective as it was. After all, the party is clearly headed left in a fury, determined to put as much distance as possible between itself and Trump, even if that comes at the expense of the concerns of middle-class, Middle American voters.
For one night at least, viewers got to hear opposing points of view. Bullock, for example, called the Warren-Sanders plans “wish-list economics” and Hickenlooper called them “radical.” Klobuchar said she worried that some in her party were “more interested in winning an argument” than the election.
Delaney, the most vocal and consistently sensible, scoffed at the top-tier candidates’ approach as “political suicide.”
He said if the nominee advocated for Medicare-for-all, free college tuition and other similar giveaways, “it will get Trump re-elected.” He then rattled off a list of previous Democratic nominees who got slaughtered — George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis — with the clear implication that they had all gone too far left.
In fact, Delaney was so persistent that Warren at one point wondered why anyone would run if all they were concerned about were things that can’t be done.
“I am not afraid,” she said into the camera, “and Democrats cannot be afraid.”
It was her best moment and showed why she is steadily climbing in the polls while Sanders is slipping, though he is slightly ahead of her in most surveys. They are friends and, for much of last night, were allies pitted against superior numbers of critics.
Indeed, it was almost like a tag team. Sanders was in the thick of it early in the evening, while she dominated late. Warren’s hatred of corporations — banks, Wall Street, insurance companies — is palpable, and she repeatedly talked of insurers “sucking billions” out of the economy. There is about her a militancy that leaves me cold, but I’m hardly her target audience.
Of the other three candidates, guru Marianne Williamson was the most spirited and seemed to be having the most fun, while the evening did nothing to interrupt the steady decline of Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg. Both appeared to be drained of any fire in the belly and gave every impression that they recognize the end is near.
Not so long ago, they were taken seriously as possible nominees and were raking in big donor bucks. Watching them fade so quickly and early, it’s fair to wonder what all the excitement was about.