Well, that’s was, um, lively, wasn’t it? My hunch that Mike Bloomberg’s presence would turbo-charge the tenor of the Democratic debates proved true. Obviously, it didn’t take Nostradamus to forsee that a guy who is the living embodiment of everything two fire-breathing progressives despise about American power politics would play the role of prime rib tartare to a pack of hungry wolves.
Elizabeth Warren is the trending meme this morning, and she was clearly up for the fight. Her repeated taunt to Bloomberg that all he had to do — right then and there on live TV — was release every ex-employee from the NDAs they signed, for whatever reason, would have been enough to make him look like the arrogant (albeit smart and arguably visionary) boss he is. But then she shifted to the country’s obscene tax structure … .
So yes, a bit of a revival for Warren. (Her fund-raising spiked during the debate.)
But my eye kept returning to the fight at the other end of the stage. Post debate, former Obama advisor David Axelrod commented that last night’s debate was as bad for our senator, Amy Klobuchar, as the New Hampshire debate was good.
Moving up in politics is exhilarating. When you get to upper tiers, it gets harder.@AmyKlobuchar‘s performance has been as bad tonight as she was good in New Hampshire.— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) February 20, 2020
As they say, the optics (and tone) were not good. In fact, they were bad. Klobuchar was clearly rattled by Mayor Pete. She looked and sounded like someone, who if they were meeting away from witnesses in a dark alley, would have stuck a shiv in him.
Klobuchar and Buttigieg both need the other to go away if they’re going to gain enough traction to slow down Bernie Sanders. I get that. But what I don’t get is how someone making such a loud and persistent point about their “experience in Washington”, their time in “the arena”, their ability to “work together” and all those other homey Midwestern values, (Amy’s from Minnesota, you know) could allow herself to lose any pretense of cool and presidential decorum responding to an entirely predictable line of attack. The one about not knowing the name of the president of Mexico.
She had the right game plan. Make a quick, self-effacing apology. Stuff happens. A matter of a simple brain fart. (Not that Amy would ever use such crude language in public.) But instead of that, as Buttigieg persisted noting her positions on committees overseeing Latin America, (i.e. “experience” in “the arena”), she got visibly, palpably prickly and personal.
By stark contrast, Buttigieg standing inches away, remained poised and on message. The cringe factor may not have hit Code Red, but it was definitely in the range of, “If You See Something Say Something.” And Amy looked defensive and angry.
Much was made of her New Hampshire debate performance as a key driver of her recent surge. But William Saletan at Slate had a compelling analysis of a Klobuchar tactic in the closing hours of that primary.
Says Saletan, “In a dramatic exchange, Klobuchar rebuked Buttigieg for belittling the Senate impeachment trial. In the debate and in subsequent TV interviews, she used his impeachment comments to portray him as unserious. It was a clever attack. It was also deceptive.”
He lays out how several times in the days leading up to the vote, Buttigieg in New Hampshire made the comment, “If you’re like me, watching this impeachment process is exhausting. It’s demoralizing. [It] makes me want to change the channel and watch cartoons.” And then quickly adding, “The cynics win if they get us to switch it off. [But] that’s how we win: To refuse to walk away. How they win, how the cynics win: if they get us to switch it off.”
Several reporters on the scenes noted that the audience understood quite well what Buttigieg was saying. “As discouraging as the impeachment process was, you can’t walk away. You have to stay involved.”
But … Amy, as part of a strategy to make Buttigieg look, you know, “inexperienced” and too callow to understand “the arena”, conveniently left off the part about staying involved and fighting through the temptation to throw up your hands and walk away.
Saletan: “Klobuchar, by taking his reference to cartoons out of context, inverted the meaning of his words. In an NBC interview, she described his message as “Let’s turn off the TV or go flip the channel and watch cartoons.” She contrasted this glib remark, as she presented it, with her own solemn responsibilities. ‘I have a job to do. I am in the arena’, she said. After the interview, Klobuchar’s communications director tweeted out her jab about cartoons.“
This sort of stuff is of course standard politics. But that doesn’t make it any less cheesy … and contradictory of “Midwestern values.” Everyone likes a fighter. Excuse me, an “arena”-tested fighter. But what we admire far more is someone who can play and win by making legitimate criticism.
… and not get flustered and pissy when your target needles you for something that plainly happened.
