Dems Second Debate: Getting the Ribbon Clerks Out of the Game

It's only then that the pros start facing off against each other for real. You might wonder whether this means that Joe Biden is, at this stage of his career, a ribbon clerk. It's a little too soon to tell, but he was unprepared and unconvincing in person, even though he managed to cobble together some cogent answers eventually. 

Perhaps the most remarkable moment came during a moment when practically all the candidates were trying to talk over each other. At that point, Kamala Harris spoke her now-famous line about the American people not wanting to watch a food fight. What was remarkable about that moment was that suddenly, all the other candidates shut up and let her speak. I wondered if, at that moment, Harris was showing that magical quality referred to as leadership. When by your mere presence you can convince that group of egotists to be quiet and listen, then maybe you have it. 

The second night of the Democratic debates was an extension of the process that began on Wednesday. Continuing the ribbon clerk analogy, who's ever heard of Eric Swalwell? I suspect that we won't be hearing too much about him in the near future. Marianne Williamson? Likewise. It was a little weird to discover that Gov Chris Christie (R. New Jersey retired) was pretty much on the same page with Stephen Colbert, me, and thousands of viewers as he appeared on Colbert's show after the debate. He gave Kamala Harris high grades. He was dismissive of one of the moderators, Chuck Todd. To my mind, Rachel Maddow was also a disappointment, as she threatened to hold candidates to their time limits both nights, yet neither she nor any other NBC moderator managed to do that at any point. 

NBC and the moderators should understand that it's not about you, it's about the candidates. Yet despite that principle, the moderators failed to deliver a cohesive product for much of the night, allowing (in fact encouraging) candidates such as Kirsten Gillibrand to keep interrupting. They also got into an extremely irritating habit of talking over the candidates during the end of their speeches. It was the way that the moderators tried to hold candidates to their time limits, but it was still obnoxious. 

A lot of people found the process of hearing from 20 candidates irritating. They have a point, but there is virtue in starting the process of removing Donald Trump early on, and the alternative approaches have downsides of their own. 

For one thing, the Democratic National Committee could have left the early vetting to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Under those conditions, we might have one or two debates carried nationally but focused on Iowa and New Hampshire issues and under the control of those state parties. We would hear about the travails of growing corn and hogs. The outcome would be that we would see three or four candidates emerge from the early balloting, and they would be the ones being featured in the full-on national debates. 

We would miss out on seeing and hearing some competitive candidates who would have been filtered out in those white, conservative places. Would Pete Buttigieg have done well enough in the Iowa caucuses to reach the national audience? Kamala Harris? This way, we get to see all of them in the early going. 

Here's my list of the ribbon clerks who failed to make a dent: Michael Bennet, John Hickenlooper, Eric Swalwell, Marianne Williamson, and Andrew Yang. To be blunt, I remember few, if any, remarks each one made. "I'm a scientist" might be about the only one. See if you can remember which candidate said that. (Hint: the initials are JH.) It's not that John Hickenlooper isn't smart or hasn't performed in office. He's just not a contender with a national presence. If he were to win in Iowa, that would change, but it's hard to imagine that Iowa voters are not affected by the national level jockeying going on right now. 

Besides Harris, to my mind the strongest performance was by Bernie Sanders, with Pete Buttigieg quieter but a close third. Joe Biden probably survived simply by being in the center of the stage, but failed to deliver an Obama-like performance. I doubt that his long ago history of opposing school bussing for racial balance will cost him a lot of votes in the heartland (might pick him up a few votes), but he did look weak facing Kamala Harris's attack. Looking weak is what you don't want to do at this point. A definite downside for Biden. 

Stephen Colbert and Chris Christie opined that the Harris attack was planned in advance and was effective. Christie pointed out that Harris will come under attack from the other candidates at the next debate, so she should be ready to defend herself. 

It's unfortunate that Kirsten Gillibrand managed to make herself irritating in last night's going. Near the end, she actually cut to one of the major issues -- the power of money in American politics -- and suggested in a word or two the solution, which is public financing of elections. 

Several of the candidates mentioned the problem of the hard-right-wing Supreme Court, but nobody went for a real solution. 

An observation: Among the 20 candidates we saw in the past couple of nights, a strong consensus has appeared for some sort of national health insurance program, whether it be called Medicare For All or something else. One candidate used a term very close to the one I used in yesterday's dispatch: Medicare For Everybody Who Wants It. What this means in practice is that a prohibition against refusing people on the basis of a preexisting condition is no longer considered legitimate amongst the representatives of a majority of the American people. This is a significant contribution from President Obama's administration.

GELFAND’S WORLD--This is a country where a substantial majority of the people are looking for Trump Relief™.

To liberals, the current administration has been an ongoing nightmare, so it's not surprising that there was strong anticipation about Wednesday night's Democratic presidential debate. It was a major relief that the campaign to replace Trump is finally here, even if we are a full 16 months away from election day. It's a chance to hope for change. 

I took the opportunity to watch the first debate in a small setting among family. My observations are affected by comments from that small audience. For the second debate, I plan to watch among a large number of anti-Trump partisans in a group setting. 

This year, the Democrats have the same problem the Republicans had in 2016 -- so many candidates it's hard to know where to put them. The solution was to limit the debaters to those with a given level of polling and financial contributors. The immediate result of the Democratic Party rules is that a lot of people who are essentially unknowns made it to the stage. 

Here are a few: Tim Ryan, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee, John Delaney, and save for a turn on the Steven Colbert show, Julian Castro. 

The remaining candidates range from one of the front-runners in Sen. Elizabeth Warren to senators Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar, to mayor Bill de Blasio and finally to former congressman Beto O'Rourke. 

As I write this, the internet sites are full of comments and score cards. Together, they constitute what we might refer to as the conventional wisdom. In summary, it goes something like this: Elizabeth Warren held her own. Beto O'Rourke got pummeled. Julian Castro moved himself up a couple of points by being aggressive about immigration reform. John Delaney will remain an unknown. Cory Booker sounded strong. Tulsi Gabbard showed some strength. Amy Klobuchar made good points. 

My take was a little different. I found Castro to be particularly irritating as he continued to interrupt and attempted to drown out O'Rourke. The commentators -- who are speaking from the standpoint of professional reporters -- found substance in Castro's remarks and mostly platitudes in Beto's comments. I agree that Beto did not hold his own in this debate, but from the standpoint of a naive viewer trying to choose a president, Castro was not the guy I would like to see taking the oath of office. 

Whatever the pros thought of Klobuchar's comments, she just doesn't look or sound the part to me. Her brag that she is the lead Democrat on a lot of bills that eventually get passed by the senate is the sort of argument that does not resonate with voters. It may represent a grand accomplishment, showing that she is capable of learning to excel in a tough system, but this is a difficult lesson to teach voters in the matter of a few seconds. 

I tend to think that this is a general rule in politics. When a candidate brags about what he accomplished as mayor (de Blasio) or as governor (Inslee), it tends to fall flat in a debate. In a critical sense, it may be the best kind of evidence regarding intent and commitment, but these arguments tend to bore people. To me, the fact that a governor talks about what he did falls flat because it takes credit for an accomplishment that required leadership in the state legislature and a favorable political climate. It's analogous to Trump taking credit for the condition of the U.S. military. 

Tulsi Gabbard would be a question mark except for the fact that she is low in the polls and probably won't go much higher. Her responses to the moderators' questions were mainly to brag about her military service. For various reasons, she is loathed by the liberals (at Daily Kos among others) based on some of her policy preferences and long-ago cult-like upbringing. I don't think we'll have to concern ourselves much about her candidacy in the future. 

Curiously, I was impressed by Bill de Blasio, although it would be unlikely for a New York mayor to survive the primary process. I was also impressed by what Jay Inslee brought to the debate. He combines executive experience as governor of the state of Washington with a commitment to fighting global warming. Since global warming is the crisis of this century, that is a hugely important message to be communicating. But very few people seem to have gotten on the Inslee wagon so far. He seems to be pushing the global warming debate into the political arena in a way that other candidates have not been willing to do. 

Some candidates serve the purpose of pushing a previously unknown or unpopular position. We have various terms in the English language to describe this concept, including moving the Overton Window. It also overlaps a bit with the idea of the stalking horse. In either case, we have a candidate staking out a position that won't win him/her the election but may ultimately serve the public interest by bringing an overdue idea into public consideration. 

I fear that Elizabeth Warren (photo left) may be serving that same purpose, whether or not she really wants to. She has been consistently pushing the Democratic Party to the left, much as Bernie Sanders did in the previous campaign. In Wednesday night's debate, she was one of two candidates who supported demolishing the private health insurance industry and replacing it with Medicare For All. 

This is a pretty aggressive position to take. Warren defended her position by pointing out how expensive the insurance industry is, but she failed to adequately defend the right of the legislature to take away peoples' right to choose for themselves whether to stay with Blue Cross or not. One commentator noted that Warren is simply matching the position taken by Bernie Sanders, implying that she is merely trying to defend herself on the left. I don't think this position will play out very well among most voters, although quite a few will be willing to grant that she is being straightforward and gutsy. Even more will understand that this is a political position that would likely not come into being in our lifetimes. 

Still, such comments are often treated as gaffes by the political commentariat. I suspect that Warren would have been better off pushing for the public option (essentially Medicare for All Who Ask For It) and leaving the private insurance industry to wither in the wake of massive public movement to Medicare. 

For a strongly positive take on Warren's candidacy, see Nicholas Kristof's article.  

Candidates who weren't known before, and will remain unknowns after this debate: Ryan and Delaney. In a way, that's too bad, because Ryan made some credible points about how the Democratic Party needs to present itself as a working man's party. 

Delaney provided the most negative image of all. What planet does this guy come from will be the standard impression, even if one or two professional journalists managed to find substance in his calling for cooperation across the aisle. 

Tomorrow we will get a chance to see the A Team in this set of debates. How will Biden, Sanders, and Harris square off? I will provide an update in CityWatch on Friday.

(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])

-cw