John Podhoretz of the New York Post thought Wednesday’s Democratic caucus debate in Nevada was the best debate in human history. It’s a sign of something that I’m inclined to agree with him, even if it’s probably for different reasons.
I think Podhoretz just enjoyed watching the Democrats fight, especially because they were landing haymakers against each other. For him, it’s the guilty pleasure of an anti-Trump conservative. I agree that the entertainment value was sky high, but the worth I got out of it was more cathartic.
It really exposed my feelings about these candidates, all of whom displease or disappoint me to a degree I hadn’t fully understood until I saw how much I enjoyed watching them be pummeled.
But it was deeper than that. As much as I enjoyed watching Michael Bloomberg get carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey or Sanders take incoming over the behavior of his supporters and staff, and as satisfying as it was for Buttigieg and Klobuchar to drop their Mr. and Mrs. Nice act and let their raw ambition shine, what I really enjoyed was seeing the candidates let their emotions and values drive their performance.
Like most everyone else, I’ve grown tired of watching Sanders deliver the same old lines in debate after debate, but having Bloomberg beside him as the personification of everything he loathes really brought out a fresh passion in him and let us see how deeply he believes in what he’s saying. Bloomberg’s presence did much the same thing for Warren, who unleashed every bit of bottled up outrage she had in her reservoir. And she spared no one on the stage. Podhoretz compared her performance to Machine Gun Kelly, and that’s pretty accurate. However, her aim was excellent.
She brought an immediate energy to the stage which rubbed off on Joe Biden. He appeared fully awake for this debate for the the first time, and was much more assertive and confident in making a case for himself. Having Bloomberg as a foil seemed to finally give him the focus to explain his candidacy’s rationale with convincing passion.
The constant bloodletting on the stage was ill-suited for Buttigieg who has been making progress by sounding nice and reasonable compared to his opponents. But he evidently blames Klobuchar’s surge in New Hampshire for denying him a victory there and he went after her without mercy. At one point, she turned to him and asked, “Are you mocking me here, Pete?” He most certainly was, and it was more revealing than another night of the scripted platitudes he usually provides.
Klobuchar was thrown badly off script, and the result was that people got a much clearer picture of what she’s like in real life. Her temper flared as she struggled to explain why she couldn’t name the president of Mexico, which isn’t surprising given what her staff has said about her insecurities.
Ms. Klobuchar’s exasperation often appeared connected to two factors: an abiding fear of being embarrassed in front of colleagues or in the press and the conviction that she works harder than her staff.
Having her intelligence and base of knowledge mocked on national television caused her to drop her mask, and it basically killed the credibility of her scripted closing argument about more uniting the Democrats than dividing them.
A lot of the commentariat was somewhere between disconcerted and horrified by the overall incivility of the debate, but I thought it was tremendously revealing. More than any debate I can remember watching, we got to see behind all the posturing and strategizing that usually makes debates nothing more than performative art. It takes a monumental amount of ambition and self-conceit to think you should be president and it’s a good thing to see people drop the nice act and bring out the knives in an effort to win. But it was more than just seeing the candidates act like they really care about their campaigns. When they let their emotions rule them for a change, they gave us a better picture of the kind of issues and values that drive them.
Telling politicians to “just be yourself” is rarely the best advice, and several of the candidates on the stage Wednesday night did themselves no favors. But the voters got more than they bargained for, and they’re better equipped to make a decision on whom they want to support.
Isn’t that best outcome from a presidential debate?
I guess I fail to see how it’s in any way a good thing the Democrats are now fielding a group of candidates, “all of whom displease or disappoint me to a degree I hadn’t fully understood until I saw how much I enjoyed watching them be pummeled.” So now we’re facing the choice, not of “which candidate is best positioned to defeat Trump”, but “which candidate is least unappealing”? And we’re to consider that a positive development?
After all the fun and games I thought the only three still standing were Warren, Sanders and Biden although a little shaky. At last all the others got knocked on their asses. And Sanders finally got to say what he wanted. The old man done it right. And Warren wasn’t taking any shit from Bloomberg. Welcome to a down home democratic brawl y’all.
The development was in my self-awareness, but I’ve been despondent about this race for more than a year now, based more on overall Democratic strategy for this election than on the particular candidates. They’re reactive and have allowed the party to become white collar. Now they’re stuck with this and want to sell socialism to their white collar base. It’s a crazy strategy, and I guess I have to give up soon and just hope it works.
I’m in the same boat. If we differ it’s just in my sense that the future is always deeply uncertain and it’s impossible to know what’s ultimately the best outcome. That’s true even if Trump’s reelected, though that’s absolutely not what I want. I’ll work like hell to prevent it but, if it then happens anyway, I’ll turn my energies to the next cycle.
I agree with Jonf, Martin and Parallax. To the blogger formerly known as Booman I would say: thanks for being so analytical, because I think you’re right for the most part. I have skipped most of the debates, and I was a little dubious about this one, but Bloomberg was the deciding factor. I too enjoyed it, far more than I thought I would, and the only difference is that you have explained why: It was an actual debate. As for Jonf, yeah, you said it so I don’t have to.
And as for ML, well this is the one thing Martin said that I don’t agree with, and there’s no valid answer to a question that proceeds from a false premise. And why do I not agree? Because of what Parallax says: For one thing, all we’ve been hearing lately is how unrepresentative of the country IA and NH are, then we let them shape our perspective on who’s going to be the next president. I get it, people don’t like uncertainty, pundits least of all., and there’s more uncertainty in this race than we’ve ever seen. But isn’t this all the inevitable hangover from 2016? — the election of Trump and the non-election of Hillary. The kind of “certainty” we believed we had then, we can well do without. That’s why there are so many candidates now, all running against the Master of Chaos himself. I actually am more comfortable with the uncertainty of 2020 than I was with the “certainty” of 2016.
Let me close with my own personal perspective. Warren was fantastic in the debate. I like her and I like Sanders; I don’t like any of the others. Oddly enough, I do find a certain personal appeal in Biden, but I definitely don’t want him as president. Of course I’ll vote for anyone against trump, but as for actual enthusiasm, I would be happy with either Warren or Sanders, and I think the best outcome would be either one of them winning and the other as runner up. Sure, in the heat of the campaign their differences must come out, but to me they are complimentary.
I think the whole Bernie Bro thing is largely a fiction. Some of his supporters are annoying, and I should know because I’ve seen it up close in very local politics I’m involved with. Yet some of everybody’s supporters are annoying, and the incalculably vast majority of Sanders supporters I find not annoying but inspiring. (As a New Yorker, by the way, I am very proud of AOC.) And I would not be so dismissive about Bernie’s Russian Bots; WHOEVER is the Democratic front-runner is going to have to deal with provocateurs, dirty tricks, and Bots galore, whether Russian or not, and Bernie, at least, is aware of that.
I pretty much agree with your whole take on things. At this point I’d be okay with Biden, but the only two candidates I have actual enthusiasm for is Sanders and Warren. I like Warren better, but I actually feel Sanders probably would have a better chance at winning.
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