Here is the breakdown of the main points and highlights of the Wednesday night undercard debate. I say undercard because it was a bunch of palookas and Warren. No that I hold any brief for Warren. But this is smart-assed analysis, not the GOP rah-rah club.
Oh, and a special thanks goes out to NBC for being so biased for the Dems and to the candidates for being so predictable, thus making my analysis of yesterday pretty spot-on. As a general takeaway?
Warren won by playing it safe and nobody else had a breakout moment to challenge her. All had bad body language and most stood there like dumbfounded cattle. If one of them gets the nod and they hold on to these talking points and personas in November, Trump will slaughter them.
From a general election standpoint it was more than a cry for help. They publicly slit their wrists.
Ranking them in descending order of success one to ten:
1) Warren- She held her own with no gaffes and won. As she was the only top ranked player there she had no reason to risk it all. She didn’t. No one dared lay a hand on her. Her mirthless school marm persona tinged with a bit of Bolshie passion played well with the crowd and the Dem media flunkies who threw her, and the rest of the participants, softballs all night with no fact checks and no interruptions. And oh yeah, she hates private health care and they all hate the president.
Her diatribes against the “rich and powerful” were humorous, as a great number of them are the people who fund her campaign and also the efforts of every person on that stage. This is something NBC’s Chuck Todd (and his really bad frontal comb over) neglected to mention. Quelle surprise. Her staff attributes her solid evening to her routine practice of quaffing a pint of unicorn blood before every public outing.
2) De Blasio- An idiot but an effective idiot last night. He played super leftist and the crowd loved it. As predicted, he even played the black family card. Is tall and thus made a good physical impression. Told the crowd when he is president everything would be free. Strange he didn’t also promise free unicycles and tutus in case you have a pet bear. Used the camera well.
3) Castro- An unexpected top-tier performer, as Dems go. Pandered to any one and any thing he could think of including abortionists, transsexuals, all manner of gays, kids, Latins, blacks, etc. That’s right out of the Dem playbook. Though his small stature did not help him in comparison to others. He used an excruciatingly low-rent Spanish accent the entire night. Attacked Beto to some effect.
In a talking point you’ll hear again and was in evidence that night with other candidates, he tried to make martyrs out of “Oscar and Valeria,” a dad and daughter who sadly drowned unwisely trying to cross our southern border (river). The staged photo of their corpses was all over leftist media. He used their tragic deaths to score debate points. He faked choking up and tears when talking about them. What a class act.
4) Booker- As predicted, played the black card all night and race hustled the hell out of everyone there. Hates the Second Amendment and made sure all knew it. In a normal political debate he’d be laughed off stage. But these are Dems and they likely grooved to him. Aside from that, was dull and histrionic at the same time.
5) Gabbard– Needs a new makeup artist and hair stylist, one whose background isn’t in Little Miss Dixie pageants. I mean, whoa. Not good. Used her veteran status to join the Blame America First crowd. Was out of her depth. Had a laugh-out-loud dumb line on the possibility of nuclear war. Expected better from her.
6) Delaney- This turtle-like Tim Conway look-a-like greatly exceeded expectations. I really underrated him. But his common sense lines were lost on the assembled socialists. Good at hogging the mic. Going nowhere.
7) Inslee- Strained pronunciations and odd facial gestures made him the weirdest candidate of the night. As predicted, droned on about the climate change scam. Much like Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore before him, he told us we have little time left. But peculiar, we’re still around over forty years after Ehrlich said it was going to be over and twenty after Gore said we were doomed. He played the modern version of that Chicken Little game. Also played the governor card. Nothing else. Boring guy.
8) Klobuchar- Robotic, nervous, a new kindergarten teacher on her first day of class. Had a bad night. No excitement or interest generated at all. At least she didn’t come off as the harpy her staff says she is in real life.
9) Beto- A crash and burn. Looked like he was going to cry any minute. Halting speech pattern, even in his atrocious Spanish. Generally seemed clinically depressed. Actually tried the Amy Carter gambit. His total performance would be sad if it wasn’t so funny.
10) Ryan– Not ready for prime time. Wore a badly tailored suit and talked like he has a speech impediment. Made good points on elitist Dem party. Was met with silence, as predicted. Not a factor in the slightest.
This was the first fight. Stuff changes and it’s a long way until February and Iowa. But this debate was indicative of many things. We’ll see if they eventually become dispositive.
Tonight many of the second round participants, especially Bernie and Buttigieg, will go after Biden. Joe will pathetically tack left. The majority will just try to get noticed. We’ll review their game tomorrow.
P.S.- Thanks to Cody Benson for the video and my Florida Female Focus Group for their input.
