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The Democratic Debate
Oct. 14th, 2015 11:32 amHad a very jolly time watching the Democratic debates last night. Doris, my hostess, is an old Leftie from waaaaaay back, and actually ran for Congress in the 20th District back in 2004.
She lost.
The 20th District is solidly Republican.
(I live two miles away from Doris in the 19th Congressional District, FDR’s old district. Also Republican but not by as wide a margin.)
“I got 96,000 votes,” she told me. “Sweeney got 190,000. He’d been Bush’s go-to guy for undermining the Florida recount back in the 2000 Presidential election. They poured a ton of money into his campaign. I raised $30,000.
“Two years later, he got hit with a huge domestic violence scandal and subsequently got popped with a DWI. Lost to Kirsten Gillibrand. Even so, it was a tight race.”
“I love Kirsten Gillibrand,” I said. “Doesn’t she have some kind of intriguing backstory?”
“I don’t think so. She was Philip Morris’s corporate defense attorney when the Justice Department was bringing racketeering charges against the tobacco companies. She raised millions in campaign contributions.”
“Huh,” I said. “I thought her husband got shot.”
“You’re thinking of Carolyn McCarthy.”
“Right,” I said.
###
The debate itself was surprisingly interesting and underscored why it would be ridiculous for anyone to vote for a Republican candidate in the coming Presidential election. The Democratic candidates are not obstructionists. They’re seriously interested in working together.
The New York Times pinned the “Winner!” label on Hillary Clinton. Big surprise, right?
But, honestly, who gives a fuck about who a group of white males in an increasingly irrelevant media outlet think?
And anyway, define, “Win.”
Bernie Sanders was the potential candidate that had prospective voters scurrying to their computers so they could read more about him, according to Google statistics released this morning.
And anyway “Winning” and “Losing” were irrelevant distinctions, at least pertaining to the debate I watched. I was really impressed by how cordial and, yes, supportive the candidates were of one another even on points of disagreement.
I continue to think Bernie Sanders is unelectable, but I’m more and more regretful of that fact. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a point-on-point agreement with all the points in someone’s political platform before. No, he’s not a particularly charismatic speaker. And he looks sort of messy. You kind of look at Bernie and think, Oh, Grandpa! You put your shirt on inside out again! Even if his shirt is outside in. And with that pronounced dowager’s hump, you kind of want to leap through that fourth wall and drag him off to a chiropractor.
But so what?
I loved that when asked about the greatest national security threat, Sanders didn’t waste time nattering about ways to restore America to its position of world preeminence, but came right out and said, “Global warming.”
I do have to say, though, that one of Bernie Sanders’ key points got muddled a bit by his insistence on fiery rhetoric. And that is, he kept talking about the repeal of Glass-Steagall as the reinstitution of “casino” banking. Unfortunately, in the current political climate, every mention of “casino” is going to summon up the image of Donald Trump, a kind of ghastly, floating spectral hairpiece.
What Bernie Sanders was actually talking about there was the erosion of Glass-Steagall – which occurred under Bill Clinton’s watch, by the way, along with the ghastly NAFTA trade agreement whose most palpable effect, 20 years after, is a substantial erosion of the American manufacturing sector and American jobs. (Perfectly predictable at the time!)
Without the restraining influence of the Glass-Steagall protections, commercial banks and their affiliates are free to package securities into ever more bizarre and speculative financial products. This is what led to the 2008 financial collapse.
I wish Bernie Sanders had used clearer language there.
I thought Hillary Clinton came off very well in this debate, too. I particularly liked her response to the always annoying Anderson Cooper when asked whether she wanted to respond to Lincoln Chafee’s nattering about credibility:
“No,” Hillary said. She all but rolled her eyes.
Thing is, there are so many bodies buried in Clinton’s past lives that I kind of suspect she’s unelectable, too.
Which leaves Joe Biden. Who was very, very smart to sit the debate out. Biden's known for shooting himself in the foot whenever he's trying to pretend to speak extemporaneously.
Biden’s definitely the Dems’ best bid for the win. Unless Bernie Sanders succeeds in catalyzing a tsunami of voters.
Snort.
Fat chance of that.
She lost.
The 20th District is solidly Republican.
(I live two miles away from Doris in the 19th Congressional District, FDR’s old district. Also Republican but not by as wide a margin.)
“I got 96,000 votes,” she told me. “Sweeney got 190,000. He’d been Bush’s go-to guy for undermining the Florida recount back in the 2000 Presidential election. They poured a ton of money into his campaign. I raised $30,000.
“Two years later, he got hit with a huge domestic violence scandal and subsequently got popped with a DWI. Lost to Kirsten Gillibrand. Even so, it was a tight race.”
“I love Kirsten Gillibrand,” I said. “Doesn’t she have some kind of intriguing backstory?”
“I don’t think so. She was Philip Morris’s corporate defense attorney when the Justice Department was bringing racketeering charges against the tobacco companies. She raised millions in campaign contributions.”
“Huh,” I said. “I thought her husband got shot.”
“You’re thinking of Carolyn McCarthy.”
“Right,” I said.
###
The debate itself was surprisingly interesting and underscored why it would be ridiculous for anyone to vote for a Republican candidate in the coming Presidential election. The Democratic candidates are not obstructionists. They’re seriously interested in working together.
The New York Times pinned the “Winner!” label on Hillary Clinton. Big surprise, right?
But, honestly, who gives a fuck about who a group of white males in an increasingly irrelevant media outlet think?
And anyway, define, “Win.”
Bernie Sanders was the potential candidate that had prospective voters scurrying to their computers so they could read more about him, according to Google statistics released this morning.
And anyway “Winning” and “Losing” were irrelevant distinctions, at least pertaining to the debate I watched. I was really impressed by how cordial and, yes, supportive the candidates were of one another even on points of disagreement.
I continue to think Bernie Sanders is unelectable, but I’m more and more regretful of that fact. I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a point-on-point agreement with all the points in someone’s political platform before. No, he’s not a particularly charismatic speaker. And he looks sort of messy. You kind of look at Bernie and think, Oh, Grandpa! You put your shirt on inside out again! Even if his shirt is outside in. And with that pronounced dowager’s hump, you kind of want to leap through that fourth wall and drag him off to a chiropractor.
But so what?
I loved that when asked about the greatest national security threat, Sanders didn’t waste time nattering about ways to restore America to its position of world preeminence, but came right out and said, “Global warming.”
I do have to say, though, that one of Bernie Sanders’ key points got muddled a bit by his insistence on fiery rhetoric. And that is, he kept talking about the repeal of Glass-Steagall as the reinstitution of “casino” banking. Unfortunately, in the current political climate, every mention of “casino” is going to summon up the image of Donald Trump, a kind of ghastly, floating spectral hairpiece.
What Bernie Sanders was actually talking about there was the erosion of Glass-Steagall – which occurred under Bill Clinton’s watch, by the way, along with the ghastly NAFTA trade agreement whose most palpable effect, 20 years after, is a substantial erosion of the American manufacturing sector and American jobs. (Perfectly predictable at the time!)
Without the restraining influence of the Glass-Steagall protections, commercial banks and their affiliates are free to package securities into ever more bizarre and speculative financial products. This is what led to the 2008 financial collapse.
I wish Bernie Sanders had used clearer language there.
I thought Hillary Clinton came off very well in this debate, too. I particularly liked her response to the always annoying Anderson Cooper when asked whether she wanted to respond to Lincoln Chafee’s nattering about credibility:
“No,” Hillary said. She all but rolled her eyes.
Thing is, there are so many bodies buried in Clinton’s past lives that I kind of suspect she’s unelectable, too.
Which leaves Joe Biden. Who was very, very smart to sit the debate out. Biden's known for shooting himself in the foot whenever he's trying to pretend to speak extemporaneously.
Biden’s definitely the Dems’ best bid for the win. Unless Bernie Sanders succeeds in catalyzing a tsunami of voters.
Snort.
Fat chance of that.
