Dems the breaks: Reviewing the debates
The Democratic debates last week were absolutely fascinating, one part sober discussion of the issues, one part bar scene from the first “Star Wars” movie, one part a trip down the rabbit hole at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, one part trip down “cute photo” lane, and one part Spanish soap opera (without subtitles) on Telemundo.
On Wednesday, the first night, you had each Democratic candidate for the presidency waxing eloquent about the need to support policies that protect and preserve life, including comments about gun control, universal health care, aid to immigrant children, criminal justice reforms, the eradication of hate crimes and all of the other things that create the toxicity that undermine our ability to promote “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
But then, to a person, they all took a sip out of their teacups at that Tea Party, cleared their throats, looked directly into the camera and announced their absolute support for abortion rights.
To a person, when asked, the Democrats all promised that they would protect Roe v. Wade.
It was the strongest, loudest most unambiguous show of support for abortion rights that we’ve seen in a long time from the party that once embraced the slogan “safe, legal and rare.”
And that’s why I had my Through the Looking Glass moment.
Then there was that “Que Pasa, USA?” moment when first Beto O’Rourke (whose real name is Robert,) then Corey Booker and then Julian Castro started speaking Spanish to the surprise of the rest of the gringos on the stage, including the one who used to be part Native American, and mesmerized us with their linguistic skills while completely failing to answer the substantive questions posed to them.
Then you had the most egregious moment of all, which we had to wait for until Thursday night, when Kamala Harris decided to go through her old photo albums and dig out an adorable picture of herself in pigtails, waiting for that bus that would take her to another school clear across the other side of her hometown in California.
This wasn’t just a random “look how sweet I was” moment.
This was a deliberate attempt to use emotion, a fictionalized version of history and the race card to go after an opponent who obviously needed to be taken down if the “perfect” candidate is going to take the White House.
Harris was angry that Joe Biden had, earlier in the month, talked about working across philosophical lines with segregationist senators earlier in his career in D.C.
She also didn’t like the fact that he’d opposed federally imposed school busing in the 1970s. Harris accused Biden of “pandering” to racists.
She made sure, on Thursday night, to say that she didn’t think he was a racist, damning him with faint praise.
But she still took his busing views completely out of context, and tried to paint him as exactly that, a racist, when she went after him and gave us her sweet little biographical story about being a kid on a bus in pigtails.
Biden opposed plans that came down from an isolated federal government that had no understanding of what was going on in the cities and towns of America, including his hometown of Wilmington. Biden was not making a case for segregation. He was trying to say that states need more of a say in how their children will be educated, and how they are going to be getting to the places that educate them.
Overall, the debates were interesting, enlightening and worthwhile. I have to say that even though I disagree with pretty much every plan she has, Elizabeth Warren performed incredibly well.
So did Julian Castro, even with his “telenovela” moment. So did Mayor Pete, Narberth native John Hickenlooper and Joe Biden, even with his usual verbal gaffes.
To my mind, Trump will have his work cut out for him, despite what his followers say and think.
I just have one suggestion for the members of my former party: Don’t let Stevie Nicks Williamson be twirling up on that stage for the next debate.
The lady who just kept talking about love, love, love belongs at the Star Wars bar, not anywhere near serious contenders for the White House (I know it’s a low bar but ….)