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Welcome back once again to our year-end "McLaughlin Awards," named for the awards categories we lifted from the McLaughlin Report years ago. We've added a category here and there over time, but it's still the same basic list.
Tonight we saw the sixth in the series of Democratic presidential debates, and my first and strongest impression is that I for one am glad the field is being narrowed. Seven on the stage was enough, in other words, for me.
Republicans are getting increasingly more desperate to distract everyone's attention from the continuing revelations of President Donald Trump's corruption and abuse of power by the impeachment inquiry. In fact, they've reached the "pound the table" stage, as evidenced by yesterday's rather juvenile stunt which shut down a planned House committee hearing for five hours. For those unfamiliar with the old legal adage, here are two versions of it, the first from Alan Dershowitz: "If the facts are on your side, pound the facts into the table. If the law is on your side, pound the law into the table. If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table." Earlier, Carl Sandberg went at it from a more defensive angle, but his end result is the same: "If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like Hell." This is precisely where the Republicans now are, since the both the facts and the law are (to put it politely) not on their side. So they're deploying their last-ditch mode, pounding the table and yelling as loudly as possible.
I have a proposal for a new rule for the Democratic presidential debate moderators, going forward: no repeat questions should be allowed. It's a pretty simple idea, really. The moderators would be barred from asking the candidates questions that have already been asked in previous debates. After all, there are plenty of other subjects that have yet to be talked about, so why should voters be subjected to these re-run debate segments, over and over again?
As usual, what follows are my snap reactions to the fourth Democratic presidential debate, held earlier on CNN. But this time I'm opting for a somewhat simpler format. I'm only giving personal reactions to five of the 12 candidates (which does include the three frontrunners). Then I'm going to give some reactions grouped loosely together, under categories such as "good argument / good delivery" or "amusing moments." We'll have to see whether this is a time-saver or not, in the end.
Mitch McConnell is upset. He's in a tizzy because mean people keep calling him "Moscow Mitch." Mitch does not like this. He does not like it one tiny bit. In fact, Moscow Mitch is in a snit.
I'm sorry if that sounds a little like a very bad Dr. Seuss rhyme, but that's about the size of our political discourse these days, like it or not. And McConnell is doing nothing to elevate things, because he has taken to accusing his detractors of practicing "McCarthyism."
Barring any surprise last-minute polls, the stage is now set for the third round of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary debates. Note that singular "stage" in there, because for the first time the debate will only take place on a single night, with 10 candidates appearing together onstage while 11 others got shut out in the cold. Yes, the time of the Great Winnowing is upon us.
The 2020 Democratic presidential field shrunk today, as John Hickenlooper dropped out of the race. He becomes the fourth such candidate to do so (after Richard Ojeda, Eric Swalwell, and Mike Gravel), but even with four gone there are still a whopping 23 candidates left in the running.
Whew! The second Democratic presidential debates are now officially in the history books. Thankfully, this will likely be the last marathon two-night debate round, as the third debate is likely to cut the field so significantly that those who qualify might all be able to fit on a single stage.
Last night was indeed a throwdown in the Motor City, with 10 Democrats sparring on one stage. My overall impression of the first round of the second debates was that this was, in many ways, the debate that I've been personally itching to see for at least four years now. It was a direct confrontation between the "moderate" or "centrist" wing of the Democratic Party versus the "progressive" or "Democratic" wing of the party. It rarely descended into personalities, and instead remained a purely ideological battle of different visions for how to lead both Democrats and the entire country into the future. We almost got such a debate last time, with Bernie mixing it up with Hillary, but there was far too much personality getting in the way of the purely ideological debate. Also, both the country and the Democratic Party have moved significantly since 2016, so the ground for this debate has shifted.