I've been chuckling a bit this morning as I read the second day commentary on the Tuesday's Democrat debate. After finishing most of the columns, I have been waiting for Homer Simpson to jump out and yell "D'oh". Maybe it's best to paraphrase Winston Churchill and just say "never in human history have so many had so much to say about so little."
I've now forced myself to watch the debate. To call the performances by the Three Mousketeers (Webb, Chafee and O'Malley) poor is a disservice to the word "poor". They were truly awful. I have to say that I just don't get it. These three men were each governors or senators or both. They have run political races many times before, but they looked as if they were trying to come up with the proper answer in the third grade spelling bee at the local elementary school. Indeed, perhaps what is most striking about the entire debate is not how badly these three did, but how badly they did compared to those in the undercard debates on the Republican side. In the GOP debates, there were strong moments for most of the candidates. Some obviously did better than others, but there were none who were complete duds in the sense that they really did not get their message across. Can it really be that all the Democrats have to offer are one old woman and one older man who seemed to have trouble paying attention?
The current consensus is that Hillary won big and that this will be extremely important going forward. Charles Krauthammer, who I respect, announced that the debate was the end of any chance that someone other than Hillary would be the nominee. Of course, I have to add that Krauthammer has been say that Hillary was the certain nominee for many months, only to change that view to just the likely nominee about three weeks ago. Now he's back to his original view. There are also many pundits who have announced that Hillary's performance will keep Joe Biden out of the race. Really? Biden was going to run but Hillary did well in one debate? That's enough? Really? It's total nonsense. Biden is a politician who is convinced that he ought to be president. If he's going to run, one good or one bad debate wouldn't change the decision.
What will be most interesting in the next month is to see if the debate performance changes Sanders' trajectory in the race at all. We will have to wait to see. My guess is that the answer is no.
I've now forced myself to watch the debate. To call the performances by the Three Mousketeers (Webb, Chafee and O'Malley) poor is a disservice to the word "poor". They were truly awful. I have to say that I just don't get it. These three men were each governors or senators or both. They have run political races many times before, but they looked as if they were trying to come up with the proper answer in the third grade spelling bee at the local elementary school. Indeed, perhaps what is most striking about the entire debate is not how badly these three did, but how badly they did compared to those in the undercard debates on the Republican side. In the GOP debates, there were strong moments for most of the candidates. Some obviously did better than others, but there were none who were complete duds in the sense that they really did not get their message across. Can it really be that all the Democrats have to offer are one old woman and one older man who seemed to have trouble paying attention?
The current consensus is that Hillary won big and that this will be extremely important going forward. Charles Krauthammer, who I respect, announced that the debate was the end of any chance that someone other than Hillary would be the nominee. Of course, I have to add that Krauthammer has been say that Hillary was the certain nominee for many months, only to change that view to just the likely nominee about three weeks ago. Now he's back to his original view. There are also many pundits who have announced that Hillary's performance will keep Joe Biden out of the race. Really? Biden was going to run but Hillary did well in one debate? That's enough? Really? It's total nonsense. Biden is a politician who is convinced that he ought to be president. If he's going to run, one good or one bad debate wouldn't change the decision.
What will be most interesting in the next month is to see if the debate performance changes Sanders' trajectory in the race at all. We will have to wait to see. My guess is that the answer is no.
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