Gloves-off, Warren revives campaign with debate jabs
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign demise were greatly exaggerated. She clearly won Wednesday night’s brutal bash hands down. The Democratic debate in Las Vegas was Michael Bloomberg’s to lose and he did so — badly. He just couldn’t or didn’t take advantage of the spotlight that he knew would be on him. Maybe he should have played his TV spots back to back — they tell more about him than his performance. Bloomberg had to have known his stop and frisk policy, subprime mortgage blame claims and purported discrimination against women would be on the table.
High school debate champ Warren took a page out of former Fox News host Megyn Kelly’s playbook, who famously began a 2015 question to Donald Trump “You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”
Warren repurposed Kelly’s lead-in, saying “I’d like to talk about who we’re running against: a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians.
And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump.”
Whether it’s the treatment of women or people of color, to be honest all of the candidates have engaged in offensive words, practices and policies they need to apologize for.
Joe Biden has the most, in my opinion, to atone for as one of the authors of the 1994 Crime Bill he conjured up with Bill Clinton that is still doing harm to communities of color. I can tell you for a fact that black and brown people are tired of hearing “I’m sorry.” They want to hear what candidates plan to do about the disparities and unfair treatment so it doesn’t happen again, and their plans to change conditions for the better. Too bad Bloomberg missed an opportunity to share his building wealth plan for black and brown communities, it’s a decent one.
Some say Biden is fading and Bernie Sanders is soaring — despite Bloomberg’s sly zinger to cut Bernie down a peg or two by subtly confusing socialism with communism. Watch for Trump to make great hay over that lack of distinction. The trouble is, to the average person, there is no difference between the two — or not much of one. Both are un-American.
So what should we expect going forward?
Nevada is another caucus state. I am not much for caucuses to be honest and not just because of the debacle in Iowa. They are much too prone to manipulation and they get to set a tone, out of synch with the rest of the country. In my opinion the Democratic Party needs to rethink the caucus style.
I predict the newest flavors of the month Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg will fade as the crew heads to the “black belt” (predominantly black states).
Bloomberg, despite his egregious missteps with blacks during his time as New York City mayor, does have black support to build on.
Sen. Warren enjoys black support in her home court. She would not have won her Senate seat without it. The question is will that be transferable to states that consider Massachusetts an anomaly. One of her best power players is Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. Campaigning through states with a large black populace is not new for Pressley — she did so for Hillary and is always a standout.
Biden still owns substantial goodwill from his association with Barack Obama as his vice president, which is why he is furious with Bloomberg for using photos of President Obama in his commercials ad nauseum. We’ve been hearing Joe do a lot of talking about that association with Obama though we haven’t seen any of his commercials yet with Obama, or even an endorsement from Obama. Oh, yes, Biden asked Obama not to endorse him. I find that hard to believe.
Sanders has created a multi-cultural, multi-racial movement among the new generation — that by itself might count big time — but will not take the place of corralling a substantial black and brown vote.