Y'know, the democrats didn't do half bad last night, granted the ten person line up was cumbersome, the technical gaffes embarrassing and the podium gabble sometimes incoherent, but some good ideas and better candidates shown thru all the same.
Jay Inslee: Obviously, one's expectations are set low when we are talking about a candidate seemingly mired in the cheap acts, but damn me if Jay Inslee didn't convey decision & insight even if he was seemingly monomaniacally focused on Climate Change as the cause of all our ills. He even looks like a US President, which means he definitely looks like Vice President. Not sure if he has the right "Electoral College Transcript" but he was impressive last night all the same.
Bill di Blasio: I am not sure why the Mayor of NYC is running for President, other than the fact that like almost everyone else in Manhattan he has a deep unrepentant grudge against Donald Trump? Be that as it may he is another one who conveyed decision & brains last night, and like the Above Cited Governor of Washington, he looks the part. Alas the last Mayor of New York to run for President was John Lindsay, he didn't do too well at the end of the day...but then, di Blasio is shut out of the Governor's Mansion and the US Senate, this is likely his last and only hurrah outside of NYC.
Cory Booker: The Senator for New Jersey wants it, and he wants it bad. Of course, he is running as "Obama 2.0.1" but that is a winning routine all the same. Booker threw some sharp elbows last night, wasn't afraid to talk himself up and he knows there is a huge possibly decisive national constituency out there waiting for him, if he can only bootstrap himself off the mid card.
Julian Castro: Who knew Obama's HUD Secretary would come to a democratic debate, loaded for bear? If Jay Inslee regards climate change as destiny's fulcrum, then surely Castro is serenely assured that a humane immigration policy is literally the answer to all our woes. Moreover he wasn't afraid to mix it up with the other candidates, Like Booker he seems to be running as "A Pugnacious Barack Obama". Castro as well senses a vast potential constituency out there if he move up into the double digits.
Elizabeth Warren: I swear to Ghod, the Senior Senator from Massachusetts had nine of her interns faithfully impersonate her fellow candidates as part of her debate prep, she seems unnaturally at home in that chaotic atmosphere, she literally had "time in her head". Ah, but then her goals were fewer, Warren was mainly there to display passion, decision and erudition, all this came thru in spades. The Senator is playing a very long game in all things, she is grinding away waiting for Biden to Peak and Sanders to founder, if that happens she can surge and surge convincingly in NH even late in the game.
On the other hand, Beto O'Rourke got his ass kicked last night, he looked unshaved, unprepared and he sounded very nervous, this is a bad start indeed for a much touted candidate, Julian Castro skated rings around him on immigration. I don't think the campaign has degenerated into a zero sum game...yet, but clearly being "the big candidate from Texas has become a gladiatorial contest with first blood to Castro. Delaney and Ryan, on the other hand came in as cheap acts, and departed the hall as cheap acts sad to say. Ryan at least, has nowhere to go, a stalwart Ohio politician learns from youth how to wait patiently by the phone for that Vice Presidential Call...but Sherrod Brown has a lock on that possibility, so all thats left for Ryan is a kamikaze run at the White House. Both men will be out of the race before Thanksgiving, the value of their respective endorsements seems minimal at the moment.
Klobuchar made some sense, Gabbard might be the flag waving-est candidate since John McCain, but I also suspect they may be mired on the mid-card, they'd be standouts any other year, but women candidates just aren't that remarkable anymore.
If I had to predict tonight, I suspect the lack of sustained fire at Donald Trump will inadvertently put a target on Joe Biden's back, Bernie Sanders must recapture his old legionaries (who are prone to drifting away to Warren whom most of them desperately wanted to run back in 2016 anyway), slagging the Former VP seems like an important step in that process.
But I could be wrong...:)
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