The Other McCain

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‘Stupid and Crazy’: Debates Expose Democrat Party at War With Itself

Posted on | August 2, 2019 | Comments Off on ‘Stupid and Crazy’: Debates Expose Democrat Party at War With Itself

 

After Marianne Williamson emerged as the surprise winner of Tuesday’s Democrat presidential debate, the second night’s performance on Wednesday saw Joe Biden get tag-teamed by his rivals, and Tulsi Gabbard turning the tables on Kamala Harris. Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have become dismayed by these donnybrooks:

Democratic lawmakers were left shaken and worried by Wednesday night’s bruising presidential debate, which left some fearing the fight will hurt the party and result in a damaged nominee.
Senate Democrats are frustrated that candidates are spending too much time and effort attacking each other for relatively small policy differences, while not focusing their ire on President Trump. . . .
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) blamed the debate moderators for much of the negativity.
“I think these debates are really silly,” he said. “Just the incessant focus on these relative minor divisions between candidates might make for good TV but I don’t think gives people an accurate portrayal of the stakes of this election.”
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) also voiced concern about the tone of the debates, in what could have been a signal to the candidates.
“No circular firing squads,” he said during an interview Thursday with SiriusXM’s Joe Madison.

Anything that makes Chuck Schumer unhappy is good for America. Likewise, we should be encouraged by the gloomy mood at MSNBC:

Several MSNBC personalities took aim at the 2020 Democrats for leveling several “attacks” at the Obama administration over President Trump.
“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough took to Twitter and and repeatedly slammed the Democrats for challenging policies under President Obama like Obamacare and immigration.
“Ok. Let me get this straight. Democrats hate Obamacare AND hated his immigration policies? What planet are they from?” Scarborough tweeted. “You know you have extreme ideologues running for president when @BarackObama is a punching bag for being too conservative. [For what it’s worth], President Obama is the only Democrat to twice win a majority of the vote since FDR (and is still hugely popular in the Democratic Party.) Not. Smart.”
He added, “These candidates are attacking Barack Obama’s policy positions more than Donald Trump. That is politically stupid and crazy…. Democrats who think trashing @BarackObama is a political winner, will be the political losers.”
MSNBC host Joy Reid expressed a similar sentiment on her network’s post-debate analysis.
“It was weird for me to watch about 40, almost 40 minutes of primary attacks on the Obama administration’s policies. It was odd,” Reid told the panel, later citing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attacks on Obamacare. “So it was an odd strategy to me… It’s almost as if the debate forgot who is president because the attacks on Donald Trump- I don’t remember his name being mentioned that much.”
Former Missouri senator-turned MSNBC commentator Claire McCaskill also called the repeated attacks on the Obama administration the “weirdest thing.”
“The weirdest thing to me which I’m having a hard time with is… is it a smart strategy to attack the Obama administration?” McCaskill asked. “I mean, this is a Democratic president elected twice. I think he’s the only Democrat we’ve had with the margins he’s had since FDR that did that, remains wildly popular in the Democratic Party.”

Democrat strategist and longtime Clinton adviser Paul Begala had this exchange Thursday with Jake Tapper:

BEGALA: This is my problem with the whole two-day debate. I believe many of these candidates seeking to win the nomination are setting themselves up to lose the presidency to Donald Trump.
TAPPER: By running so far to the left?
BEGALA: Yes.

 

Obama’s former chief of staff was also demoralized:

Rahm Emanuel told “WSJ at Large” on FOX Business that it’s foolish to try to paint Obama’s record negatively in order to attack his former vice president and now presidential hopeful, Joe Biden.
“The guy (Obama) is 90 something percent (in popularity ratings) among Democrats,” he argued. “The most successful progressive, prolific president who had an incredible Chief of Staff, let me say that– since the Great Society. What are they doing?”
Emanuel, who was a member of the House of Representatives Opens a New Window. before his stint at the White House, then became mayor of Chicago, said Democrats would be crazy to separate themselves from the former president.
“Every element of progressivity, from literally (Woodrow) Wilson to Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt to the Great Society and forward builds on the progress of the generations before for generations to come. This is nuts!” . . .
Earlier in the week, he sent a memo to the candidates saying, “If you win the nomination in a way that forecloses a path to victory in the general election, we will lose, and your name will go down in infamy.”

Perhaps the best news of all is that David Brooks of the New York Times — whom I hate like God hates sin — has endorsed Williamson:

Trump is a cultural revolutionary, not a policy revolutionary. He operates and is subtly changing America at a much deeper level. He’s operating at the level of dominance and submission, at the level of the person where fear stalks and contempt emerges. . . .
In Freudian terms, he’s operating on the level of the id. . . .
The Democrats have not risen to the largeness of this moment. They don’t know how to speak on this level. . . .
It is no accident that the Democratic candidate with the best grasp of this election is the one running a spiritual crusade, not an economic redistribution effort. Many of her ideas are wackadoodle, but Marianne Williamson is right . . .
“We’ve never dealt with a figure like this in American history before. This man, our president, is not just a politician; he’s a phenomenon. And an insider political game will not be able to defeat it. … The only thing that will defeat him is if we have a phenomenon of equal force, and that phenomenon is a moral uprising of the American people.”

“Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.”



 

Category: Debates, Democrats, Election, Media Bias

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