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On the Democratic Debate
Esta noche, vi el debate presidencial Demócrata. Lo siento … Tonight, I watched the Democratic presidential debate. Bilingual statements in broken Spanish (and broken English) were a theme, as were dire warnings on climate change, attacks on Trump, and a general thrashing of Beto. In summary, I’ll second the President:
BORING!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2019
Whether you supported Trump in the primaries or not, at least he made the debates interesting. None of the ten candidates on tonight’s stage lit a fire in the public imagination or gave them a reason to sit through the two-hour event.
Standing behind the lecterns were Cory Booker, Julián Castro, Bill de Blasio, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Tim Ryan, and Elizabeth Warren. If you asked “who?” after at least five of those candidates, you weren’t alone.
Ohio Rep. Ryan promoted the need for a working-class party that doesn’t pander to the coasts or play identity politics. It was nice knowing you, Congressman. Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney also hewed centrist, stressing his business experience. However, one eagle-eyed viewer was distracted by his resemblance to a popular cartoon character.
#DemDebate pic.twitter.com/AeNPOR7wU5
— jon gabriel (@exjon) June 27, 2019
O’Rourke looked like a child lost in a department store; his clammy fear wasn’t helped by the haymakers thrown by NYC Mayor de Blasio and former San Antonio Mayor Castro. Beto has devolved from last year’s media darling to this year’s punching bag. He doesn’t know what to make of it.
Like Beto and Julián, Booker also flaunted his rudimentary understanding of español while stressing inner-city poverty and, oddly, trans politics. Seems a rather niche issue to repeatedly return to. Castro one-upped him in the pandering department, however, scoffing at the idea of mere reproductive rights since he wants “reproductive justice” for trans Americans. Whatever the hell that means.
Washington Gov. Inslee focused exclusively on the “climate crisis,” while Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard made waves among the non-intervention set. She wasn’t queried about her apparent respect for Syria’s Assad, yet demanded America bring back her fellow servicemembers and keep them here. (She also won the Google primary.)
Minnesota Sen. Klobuchar attempted a zinger by calling Trump “all foam and no beer,” which fell as flat as week-old can of Hamm’s. Her workmanlike performance was dull but avoided falling to either extreme of her party.
That leaves current media favorite Elizabeth Warren who stood centerstage. The NBC hosts gave her a remarkable amount of time early in the proceedings, but as the debate dragged on she was less and less visible. I forgot she was on stage for the last 30 minutes.
Since few voters made it the whole two hours, I doubt that will hurt her much.
Published in General
Care to make a wager where your Big 3 will be come Nov 2020?
That pretty much says it all about the Dem (Dim) slate, doesn’t it?
Would you say that there were a plethora of pinatas last night?
It’s why I keep thinking some outsider not yet on the board has a good chance. There are many choices here for Democrats but none of them are particularly good politicians. I see no Bill Clinton or Obama in that list and the man leading the list is taking his third shot at this.
They (Bullock, Hickenlooper and Delaney) will likely be rejected by the Dems who are more committed to being liberal than winning.
That is…an interesting formulation.
If the words “Latino” and “Latina” are so problematic how about we just stop using them altogether.
Indeed:
What does “Latin American heritage” even mean? It’s not a race, Latin Americans can be of pure European, African, or Native American ancestry, though most are some mixture of the three. It’s not a nationality, how much do Mexicans, Jamaicans, Brazilians, and Argentinians really have in common?
Why bother to coin an awkward, unpronounceable word for a concept so nebulous and insubstantial?
Because when you invent a new class of victim, a lawyer gets his wings.
I seem to remember a lot of talk on our side about losing gracefully.
Well it’s a switch for once. Republicans have been the party fine with losing rather than violating their purity.
I’ve worked with numerous Brazilians who emphatically do NOT like being classified as Latin American or Latino. In their mind those groups are 100% Spanish speakers.
I’ve known Americans of Mexican extraction who don’t think Cuban-types count.
Outstanding, @robtgilsdorf. Of course in reading this I immediately began extrapolating: Whenever you invent a new cause of action, a lawyer gets his wings. And this explains the difference between conservative and progressive lawyers: Conservative lawyers want to help their clients manage their affairs within the confines of the law; progressive lawyers want to create new law for their clients. Progressive lawyers become progressive judges, and so new law is “discovered.” Sadly, too much of what is “discovered” is not real and thus the law evolves to embrace things that are not part of the real world. But they are the “law”, nonetheless.
In short, progressive lawyers want wings, conservative lawyers want ordered liberty.
Because then we’d have to go back to referring to all people with that complexion as ‘Mexicans’- and that makes people feel microagressed even more than imperialism.
Well it’s a switch for once. Republicans have been the party fine with losing rather than violating their ‘purity’ (sic).
A slight edit to more boldly clarify your point. Carry on!
I’d rather call them ‘Americans’, assuming they are Americans in fact and inclination.
Trump was #1 in the polls in July 2015. https://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-jumps-to-1-in-latest-national-gop-poll/
Out of this band, Elizabeth Warren is the one who scares me the most. Not because I consider her to be the most likely to win, but because she would probably be the most destructive to the economy if she did win. To Warren, there seems to be no word more vile than “profits” in the entirety of the English language. She doesn’t just want to raise taxes on businesses; she wants to crush them, see them driven before her, and hear the lamentation of their stockholders.
It makes a heck of a campaign slogan. “The city I was mayor of is a crime-ridden hellhole. Let me do for America what I did for Newark.”
She’d be a disaster from her temperament alone. And yes, her contempt for the real world of business, versus the fake world of “I have a brilliant plan for us all with other people’s money”
Biden is now appealing to his black friend, Barack, to use his baritone racial-cred to call off Kamala and Corey.
“Some of my best running-mates are black!”
He needs the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy to put in a good word for him.
First of all, if Trump committed cannabilism, twould be a great sin of cultural appropriation.
Secondly, gun violence is always the fault of the lax gun laws in those deplorable NRA-run states across the border. Or some other nonsense reason we can blame on Republicans.
Yeah, you don’t find many states more hostile to gun ownership than New Jersey, yet Corey Booker is forced to dodge bullets like Hillary Clinton in Bosnia. Maybe more gun control isn’t the answer?
Joe won’t live long enough to get that endorsement in the primaries. Maybe if Joe survives the primaries and gets the nomination (I doubt it) he’ll get a nice long speech that will be all about Barack with the final line: “And Joe was right there…uh, around me…when I did all these wonderful things.”
And not just because the guns magically ‘walk’ across the border.
It’s that their violent ethos leaks negative vibes into the other states making their citizens more shooty.
And it looks like we have our first 2020 democrat dropout ….
That’s amazing. It’s like a rat swimming from a ship that never even managed to leave port out to a sinking ship.