Looking at everything Marianne Williamson said in the debate on Thursday night, it seems less like mesmerizing lunacy than a non-threatening version of what we see routinely from major candidates in Republican debates. Instead of narrow-minded and spiteful banalities, she offered nearly contentless appeals to our better angels. I’d actually be interested in hearing her expand on her ideas, but only in the same sense that I enjoy listening to wise old hippies share their thoughts on how things should be. I’m glad that there are a lot of people like this in the world and it’s a shame that the world is harsher and dirtier than anything that exists in their dreams. Williamson seems like a nice lady but she doesn’t belong on a stage with serious presidential contenders.Yet, she’s hardly alone in that distinction and I hope people can get something positive out her presence while it lasts.
I also enjoyed listening to Andrew Yang speak. He actually has novel ideas that should be welcomed as kind of disturbances in the Force. If it weren’t for a strong performance from Kamala Harris, Yang might have actually won Thursday debate. He was the only also-ran on the stage who helped himself. From the group of one-percenters (in the polls), I think only Yang and Washington governor Jay Inslee (on Wednesday) really did much to improve their position going forward. I might have put Bill de Blasio in that category too, but then I found out he inadvertently quoted Che Guevara (“Hasta la victoria, siempre”) at a Thursday campaign stop in Miami and realized that he’s probably the dumbest man alive.
“This is the problem that we run into all the time,” Annette Taddeo, a Colombian-American state senator who spoke at the rally before de Blasio, said of the nuances of campaigning in South Florida. “The left has [some] people that are just clueless as hell.”
I don’t think it’s possible to be more clueless, that’s for sure.
It was pretty clear that Beto O’Rourke flopped in the Wednesday debate, but no one really stood out as a complete failure on Thursday. Buttigieg has some truly rough moments, but he compensated for them with some good moments. The Coloradans, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper did little more than occupy space and defend capitalism against socialism, which is perhaps needed to some small extent but is still less exciting than watching reruns of Hardball with Chris Matthews. Perhaps the most irritating performance was delivered by backbench congressman Eric Swalwell who tried to sell himself as the leader of his generation. Kirsten Gillibrand tried to land some punches and had some degree of success, but nothing she did will be remembered when people wake up in the morning.
Overall, the Thursday night debate was dominated by Harris, Sanders and Biden. That’s bad news for Buttigieg, but it was also bad news for Biden because he took a true beating from Harris over his record of opposing busing in the 1970s. The exchange will dominate all the post-debate news coverage, and for that reason alone it was a bad night for the former vice-president.
Harris showed that she’s serious about winning the nomination by her willingness to challenge Biden so forcefully. It was something she needed to do because she can’t allow him to maintain his current support in the black community and have any hope of winning primaries. She definitely knocked Biden down a peg and guaranteed that his campaign will be on the defensive going into the July 4 holiday, so she can consider the debate a success. Sanders and Warren may benefit more than she does, at least initially, but we’ll have to wait for a new round of polling next week before we’ll know if these debates changed the dynamics of the race.
What I expect to see is a slight tightening of the race, with Biden and Buttigieg’s numbers down and Warren and Harris’s numbers up. As I said above, perhaps we’ll see Inslee and Yang move up a tick above the rest of the bottom-dwellers, while O’Rourke may settle at the bottom with the other no-hopers.
What I’d consider a modest surprise is if Sanders drops to third or fourth place. I’d consider it a major surprise if Biden slipped into second place, but not quite as shocking if he finds himself in a tie for first. I’m just not sure who he’d be tied with in that circumstance.
It won’t be Marianne Williamson. That much I know.
Succinct, clearly explained, modest,and well thought out—a classic piece of Booman political analysis; thanks.
I didn’t watch either of the debates, but this, and other commentary I’ve seen, reinforces one thought about the race that I’ve had: we all *could* wake up on March 1, 2020 (day after the SC primary) to a race in which the two current front-runners, Biden and Sanders, have no plausible path to victory.
If Warren beats Sanders in NH for the role of “leading New England progressive”, and Harris (or Booker) finishes ahead of Biden in IA and then wins SC, that’s pretty much “game over” for the old white guys, isn’t it?
Obviously, that’s just one of hundreds of possible scenarios. But it already seems unlikely that Biden or Sanders will cruise to the nomination.
I watched both nights, though last night the final 30 minutes I was starting to struggle to pay attention. I think your analysis is dead on. As for Marianne Wilson, you nailed my feelings exactly with this sentence. “I’d actually be interested in hearing her expand on her ideas, but only in the same sense that I enjoy listening to wise old hippies share their thoughts on how things should be.”” It was just like listening to one of my old hippie friends. It was uncanny.
Harris was on fire, and that confrontation with Biden was simply stunning to me. Biden had some decent counterpoints, I think, but it was all lost in the viseceral emotion of the moment, and Harris’ personalization of the busing issue. She left there with at least one of his testicles in a box. Well, metaphorically, at least.
I hope the weaning of this large field can begin soon. A format like we had the last two nights is just not the sort of thing that is going to serve us well. It is obvious there are people who don’t belong there, but I take some comfort that we didn’t have any Herman Cain type nonsense being spouted.
Jeebus, now we’ve got to get up to speed on the politics of 1970s busing?! Thanks, Joe!
I think he walked himself right into this. He could have kinda, shoulda apologized but he had to work those racists since they controlled congress. Maybe he is not smart enough for this job.
Che was killed in 67. It’s not just the politics on 70’s busing, it’s also the political rhetoric of 60’s revolutionaries that needs monitoring.
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Curious no mention of Julian Castro, seemed he helped himself survive well into the next round. From my seat it seems the candidates who helped themselves the most were uniformly not 50+ white males (and I really like Inslee, hope his message carries on, but didn’t see what you saw in his performance).
I agree. I think Wednesday most helped Warren and Castro (and kept Booker’s hopes alive).
As for Thursday, Harris shined above all, and I think Biden did even more poorly than people thought at first glance. He seemed OLD (frequently couldn’t finish complete thoughts in a sentence or string together enough related sentences in a paragraph) and lacked the vitality of the others. I think Buttigieg mostly tread water but is still in it, at least as a VP or cabinet choice. Sanders was on brand but I don’t see that brand having the power it did in 2016 — he get like old (and cranky) news to me. Others on the two stages have successfully co-opted his message.
Off topic: Having a problem that every time i come to this site on my Android phone I’m logged off and have to log on again. My name and password are saved, but I have to go to the “join us” page and scroll all the way down to log in, then navigate back to the page I was trying to read. I don’t have this problem anywhere else online. Anyone else? Any tips?
My login to this site never saves on phone or computer. With my android, I have to do a lot of scrolling to find the log in.
Warren and Harris are the winners. Mayor Pete tried to survive. Maybe Joe shoulda done a little of that before telling us about Eastland and other shit. I liked Castro.
Yes. I forgot to mention Castro which is an indication that there are too many candidates and also that I was tired last night. He did do very well in the first debate and may see a bump because of it. My forgetting him isn’t a great sign for how long-lasting the effect of a good debate performance is in this environment.
Biden came across as a little (maybe more than a little) confused and cranky. Not a lot of grace in his angry and defensive responses to the prodding of other candidates. Sanders also seemed a bit out of it. Warren, Harris, and Bootyjudge (don’t ask me to remember how to spell his name) came off well in my opinion. I particularly liked a brief comment by him that I haven’t seen discussed– when asked, I think it was, which world leaders would he first try to mend fences with if elected, he responded “I have no idea who Trump will have pissed off between now and the next election” which was both funny and true. I also liked what seemed to be a genuine response to the question about the police shooting.
And Sanders had an interesting idea I hadn’t heard before — that we could, without a constitutional amendment, institute roll-over in the supreme court by moving, after a certain timeframe, lifetime-tenured judges through the court and into other positions in the judiciary. Anyone care to comment on whether this is feasible?
Is Harris in favor of bringing back busing? If she isn’t, her whole attack is BS.