Category: Debates

Pence Trounces Harris in VP Debate; Commission Wants ‘Virtual’ Debate Next?

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The highlight in Wednesday’s debate, of course, was when a fly landed on Vice President Mike Pence’s head. I had turned the sound down low on my office TV, because I was working on an American Spectator column on a different topic, but I’d occasionally check the Twitter reactions and glance over at the TV, where the closed-caption conveyed the words. So about two-thirds of the way into the event, I looked and saw a dark spot on Pence’s snowy-white hair. “What is that? A fly?”

So it was, and it stayed there about two minutes, during which Pence didn’t even notice it. The man has no flinch reflex. Cool as a cucumber, and he utterly dismantled Kamala:

Mike Pence dominated in that debate. He was calm and cool. Rock-solid. Kamala Harris’s body language and voice reflected her nervousness—a stark contrast to her previous debate performances during the Democratic primary when she was still in the race. But neither her body language, her failure to answer questions, nor her constant reliance on fake stories as lines of attack were the key tell that she lost.
The liberal media conceded Pence’s victory by describing Pence’s debate performance. And their go-to explanation was to attack the vice president by accusing him of “mansplaining.”
“Pence’s mansplaining, interrupting, condescending and general smarminess is at an 11 tonight,” tweeted faux conservative S.E. Cupp of CNN. “No wonder suburban women have left the Republican Party in droves.” . . .
It is demeaning to women everywhere (not just in politics) when every time a man debates a woman he is inevitably accused of “mansplaining.” It sends the message that women aren’t up to the task of debating with men. And to her credit, ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz disagreed with Stephanopoulos’s assertion that Pence was “mansplaining.”
“When I hear people … talk about mansplaining and talk about these things with Kamala Harris and [say], ‘A man shouldn’t interrupt her and it’s going to look bad,’ Kamala Harris is a vice-presidential candidate. She should be able to stand up for herself,” Raddatz said. “Yes, it’s history-making. Yes, you can talk about her history and who she is and she’s a woman of color there, but a man can interrupt another vice presidential candidate. It is up to that candidate to talk back, to interrupt themselves, or to hold on to that debate in any way they could.”
And the bottom line is that had Kamala Harris won the debate the liberal media wouldn’t be jumping in and accusing Mike Pence of “mansplaining.”

Now, perhaps not coincidentally, Team Biden wants to change the game:

Citing health concerns, the Commission on Presidential Debates on Thursday said that the second debate between President Trump and Joe Biden would be a virtual one, with the candidates in “separate remote locations.” President Trump quickly announced that he was out.
“I heard that the commission a little while ago changed the debate style, and that’s not acceptable to us,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo Thursday morning. “I’m not going to do a virtual debate.”
“I am not going to waste my time on a virtual debate. That’s not what debating is all about, you sit behind a computer and do a debate. That’s ridiculous, they cut you off whenever they want,” he added.
The debate commission sent out a press release Thursday morning announcing the rule change, citing the need to “protect the health and safety of all involved with the second presidential debate” scheduled for October 15.

This is obviously bullshit, intended to protect Biden’s lead in the polls. Even though I don’t for a minute believe that Biden is on pace for a historic landslide — which is what you’d have to believe if you trust the polls — it is clear that this “virtual debate” idea was suggested by Biden’s campaign with the full knowledge that Trump would reject it.

No more debates, no more chances for a disastrous Biden gaffe. In essence, then, the Biden campaign is trying to “freeze” the race, to prevent any further spontaneous events that might change the campaign trajectory which they believe favors their candidate.

Whether there will be any future debates is now in question, but it appears there definitely won’t be one on Oct. 15.




 

Biden and the ‘White Supremacy’ Smear

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There is exactly zero evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a “white supremacist,” but the absence of evidence did not prevent the Joe Biden campaign from smearing the teenager who defended himself against an Antifa mob during the Kenosha riots.

Kyle Rittenhouse’s lawyer Lin Wood is not happy about this:

After last night’s debate, the Biden camp put together a video that they then tweeted out indicating President Trump and Kyle Rittenhouse are white nationalists. This is not true and now a defamation claim is being prepared against Joe Biden.
In last night’s debate the moderator and Joe Biden’s tag team member, Chris Wallace, pressed President Trump to condemn violence in American cities by white nationalists. The two cities where Wallace said white nationalists were active were Kenosha and Portland. President Trump responded by saying all the destruction over the past few months comes from the radical left. . . .
After the debate, candidate Biden used this exchange in an advertisement, wrongly accusing the President of being a white nationalist and indicating Kyle Rittenhouse was as well . . .
Now it looks like Biden has a lawsuit coming based on his defamation of the young 17 year old in Kenosha who was involved in the death of two men from the Antifa/BLM riots while acting in self defense.

You know who else got smeared last night? The Proud Boys:

The crucial moment in Tuesday night’s debate was near the end when Joe Biden invited President Trump to throw the Proud Boys under the bus, and the president refused to do it. The president was asked by moderator Chris Wallace “to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland.” Trump replied, “Sure, I’m willing to do that,” but then added that “almost everything I see” in terms of violence “is from the left-wing, not from the right-wing. I’m willing to do anything.… I want to see peace.”
After further back-and-forth, Trump said, “Give me a name,” and Biden said, “Proud Boys.” To this, Trump replied: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by, but I’ll tell you what, somebody’s gotta do something about Antifa and the Left, because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem.”
Because I personally know both Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and the group’s current chairman Enrique Tarrio, I was pleased by that response. . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.




 

Biden: Incompetent AND Incontinent?

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Guess which candidate needs an extra potty break?

On Tuesday morning the Trump campaign requested a new rule for the first presidential debate: that a third party inspect both candidates for electronic devices or transmitters. President Trump had already consented to such an inspection, and the Biden campaign had reportedly agreed to this days ago, but Ebony Bowden of the New York Post reported moments ago that they are now declining.
The Trump campaign has since confirmed this flip-flop.
“Joe Biden’s handlers several days ago agreed to a pre-debate inspection for electronic earpieces but today abruptly reversed themselves and declined,” Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Trump campaign, said in a statement. “Biden’s handlers have asked for multiple breaks during the debate, which President Trump doesn’t need, so we have rejected that request. On top of the refusal to take a drug test, it seems pretty obvious that the Biden team is looking for any safety net they can find in the hours leading up to the debate.”

“Allegedly,” I hasten to add. All this pre-debate drama will cease to matter once the game kicks off in about three hours:

The debate – the first of three between Biden and Trump — kicks off at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday and is being hosted by Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio. The showdown’s being moderated by “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace.

How will Biden do in the debate? Guess you could say, it Depends.




 

Democrats Engage in Angry Shouting Match in Charleston, South Carolina

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The worst debate in the history of American politics:

The CBS News moderators came under fire on social media Tuesday as the Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina grew heated, with crosstalk often drowning them out.
Meghan McCain compared the debate’s atmosphere to the contentious discussions she faces on “The View,” saying, “these moderators need to get this under control.” . . .
Former Vice President Joe Biden in particular spoke over moderators attempting to cut him off on several occasions, insisting, “I am not out of time. You spoke over time, and I’m going to talk” and later asking, “Can we just speak up when we want to? Is that the idea?”
Later, as Biden attempted to break in again, moderator Gayle King quipped, “I promise, Mr. Vice President, we are going to get to you,” with Biden responding, “You keep promising me that, but you never get to me.”

Some commentators declared that Joe Biden had his strongest debate performance to date, but what I noticed was he kept shouting at the top of his lungs, as if being loud was whole point — aerobic shouting. Meanwhile, almost everyone directed their fire at Bernie Sanders, except Elizabeth Warren, who spent much of the night attacking Mike Bloomberg, who isn’t even on the ballot in South Carolina. Jim Geraghty might have explained that strategy best:

 

In general, the debate was a colossal waste of time, and time is the valuable commodity that Democrats can’t afford to waste now:

Time is running out for the Democratic Party and, by this time next week, it will probably be too late for them to turn back. More than a third of the delegates to their national convention will be chosen next Tuesday, when 14 states including California and Texas hold their primaries. One the one hand, this means that the party’s agonizing struggle over its 2020 presidential nomination may soon be effectively over. On the other hand, if Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders claims a decisive victory next Tuesday — which now seems likely — the “Anybody But Bernie” faction of the party will be pushed to increasingly desperate measures in their efforts to deny him the nomination. . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.




 

How Bad Was It?

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It was bad — very, very bad:

Mike Bloomberg’s millions in campaign spending flew right out the window Wednesday night.
The billionaire’s self-bankrolled presidential bid was torn to shreds in the opening minutes of Wednesday’s Democratic debate as his opponents skewered him for his checkered past on sexual harassment and his record on stop-and-frisk.
Each candidate on the Las Vegas stage attacked Bloomberg right out of the gate, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren made the former Big Apple mayor visibly squirm and roll his eyes in frustration.
“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against, a billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians,’” she said from the Paris Theater.
“And, no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.”
Bloomberg, 78, started to surge in national and state polls after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars of his personal fortune into a slick campaign with catered campaign events and wall-to-wall TV ads.
Former Vice President Joe Biden attacked Bloomberg for “throwing close to 5 million young black men up against a wall” while mayor of New York City and said he only stopped after President Barack Obama intervened in his stop-and-frisk policy.
Ex-South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg called Bloomberg and Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders the “two most polarizing figures on this stage,” while Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar accused the media mogul of hiding.
“I actually welcomed Mayor Bloomberg to the stage. I thought that he shouldn’t be hiding behind his TV ads, and so I was all ready for this big day,” she said.

While watching the candidates take turns pummeling Bloomberg, I was working on a column about the idiot pundits who are always wrong:

One of the most amazing things about American journalism is the continued employment of political pundits whose penchant for failure would disqualify them from being hired in any other field. All the experts who were wrong about the 2016 election are now confidently making predictions about the 2020 election, as if their credibility were undiminished by their previous mistakes.
Last week, for example, ex-Republican pundit Max Boot — panicked by the sudden meltdown of Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign, which he had failed to anticipate — issued a desperate appeal to prevent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders from winning the Democratic nomination. “Please, Democrats, do the smart thing and coalesce quickly around one of the three moderates — Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, or Michael Bloomberg — who are still standing after the first two contests,” Boot begged on Twitter in the aftermath of the New Hampshire primary, adding, “The future of our democracy may depend on it.”
Really? Is “our democracy” in such dire peril that it can only be preserved by one of the three Democrats whom Max Boot has named? Or is it rather the case, as I suspect, that Boot is chiefly concerned about rescuing his own damaged reputation? . . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator.




 

DNC Sold Out to Bloomberg ‘Because He’s Got a Billion F***ing Dollars!’

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Michael Moore at a Bernie Sanders rally Friday in Iowa:

They are removing the rule to be on the debate stage, where it says you have to have so many people donating to you — otherwise instead of 27 people on the stage we’d have 270 people on the stage. You had to show you had a certain number of Americans that would give you a buck, that’s all the rule said, to show you have support. And that’s how they determine who would be on the debate stage.
Today they removed that rule because Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire, the Republican Mayor of New York City . . . They removed it so that he could be in the next debate. He doesn’t have to show he has any support among the American people, he can just buy his way onto the debate stage, and I’m going to tell you what’s so disgusting about this.
I watched the debate in Iowa here two weeks ago — the all-white debate — and the fact that . . . the DNC will not allow Cory Booker on that stage, will not allow Julian Castro on that stage, but they are going to allow Mike Bloomberg on the stage? Because he’s got a billion f***ing dollars!
I’m sorry. Those days are over. Those days are over.

 

The question of why the DNC suddenly decided to change its debate rules has a couple of answers: First, and most obviously, Bloomberg has given big money to the DNC and has promised to spend as much a billion dollars of his own money to beat Trump, no matter who gets the Democratic nomination. Allahpundit explains the second answer:

There’s a chance that Bernie wins easily in Iowa and New Hampshire, with Biden underperforming dismally. If that happens the media will be ruthless in attacking Biden as a chronic underachiever in presidential contests, the guy who just can’t get it done. The stink of campaign death will be on him even though he’ll limp on to Nevada and South Carolina. But establishment Dems will be panicking and looking for a longshot centrist option who might somehow be able to hold off Sanders. That’s Bloomberg, a guy who’s already bought his way into the top tier nationally and who seems willing to pay any price to promote himself. He may well be the only Democrat who can outspend the Sanders money machine, and he can do it by an order of magnitude. If Biden flames out early Bloomy may be the only game in town for centrist Democrats on Super Tuesday. Go figure that the DNC wants to start introducing him to the primary electorate as soon as possible at the debates.

In other words, Bloomberg is the fallback candidate for the “Anybody But Bernie” Democrats, who cheated Sanders out of the 2016 nomination, and are determined to cheat him again in 2020. As we discussed Saturday night on The Other Podcast, there is a parallel between the left-wing populism of Sanders and the right-wing populism of Trump. Both candidates ran against the party establishment — Bernie against the Clinton machine, Trump against the Bush/RINO/neoconservative crowd — and it’s possible that some “Bernie bros” hated Clinton so much they actually voted for Trump in November 2016.

Populism, rooted in a belief that the elite are decadent and depraved, is a powerful force in a society where political authority appears to be controlled by a corrupt cabal of insiders. As much as I abhor Sanders’ socialism, I am very sympathetic to his supporters in their resentment of the DNC establishment. Really, what are Democrat insiders so afraid of? Is it just because they think Sanders will lose? As if Biden would win? The idea that Creepy Uncle Joe would be a formidable opponent to Trump is a dubious proposition, and I think Democrats are more afraid that nominating Sanders would cost them the support of the fat-cat lobbyists who provide so much of the DNC’s revenues.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)




 

Elizabeth Warren’s Media Helpers Try to Revive Her Campaign at Bernie’s Expense

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Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate was so white that Antifa would punch it in the face, and moderators for CNN made it clear who they favored among the six white Democrats assembled on the Des Moines stage. We haven’t seen the memo from CNN chief Jeff Zucker, but it was obvious that the assignment was to (a) attack Bernie Sanders and (b) boost Elizabeth Warren. Perhaps many Sanders supporters — who saw their candidate get cheated out of the 2016 nomination by DNC insiders working for Hillary Clinton — will now agree with President Trump’s assessment of the media as “the enemy of the people.”

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass:

What CNN did to Bernie Sanders in the Iowa Democratic presidential debate — stabbing him with the gender card on behalf of a weakened Elizabeth Warren — was cheap and unfair.
And it was shameful. . . .
What happened on CNN in Iowa was bad for journalism. But it sure was good for Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden.
Sanders, the authentic candidate on the left in this cycle, as he was in the last, was surging in the Iowa polls. Warren, also on the left, was fading, desperate and in full panic. She began waving her gender card on that dangerous Intersectionality Highway where Democrats, addicted to identity politics, often crack up.
Just before the debate, CNN ran a story portraying Sanders as misogynist who thinks a woman couldn’t be elected president. That’s ridiculous. He doesn’t believe that.
And at the CNN debate, moderator Abby Phillip took Warren’s gender card, fashioned it into a knife and stabbed Sanders just weeks before the Iowa caucuses.
“Sen. Sanders, CNN reported yesterday, and Sen. Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018 you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?” Phillip asked of Sanders.
“Well,” Sanders said, “as a matter of fact, I didn’t say it.
“I don’t want to waste a whole lot of time on this, because this is what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want,” Sanders added. . . .
Before Sanders was shivved, Democratic establishment candidate Biden looked lost and frail and unsure.
Biden was like some elderly Uncle Joe retiree in line at 4 p.m. for the early bird dinner with the free Jell-O.
But who remembers that after Warren pointedly refused to shake her “friend” Bernie’s hand? Biden wasn’t even touched by CNN’s debate moderators. His questions were wrapped in pillows.
You might think all this is a coincidence, but then, you might be a moron. . . .

Obviously it was not a coincidence: The CNN moderators were there to trash Sanders, support Warren and — by ginning up conflict between these two left-wingers — thereby help “moderate” Joe Biden in the Iowa caucuses, by preventing Bernie from surging to a solid victory on Feb. 4.

It’s media malpractice like this that causes people to believe in conspiracy theories — the fix is in and the game is rigged — because it doesn’t require any evidence to see what is happening in front of our eyes and realize that it could not be happening by mere coincidence. No, some actual human beings at CNN decided that this would be the script for the Iowa debate, and it’s plainly obvious that CNN is against Bernie Sanders just as much as it is obvious that CNN is against Donald Trump.

Elizabeth Warren to Bernie after debate:
“I think you called me a liar on national TV”

Was this narrative of Bernie being a sexist who doesn’t believe a woman can be president manufactured by the “fake news” media? It doesn’t matter — Bernie’s supporters recognize it as a dirty trick. Whatever it was that Bernie actually said to Warren in that meeting, the timing of the story in the run-up to Tuesday’s debate was clearly not a coincidence. The people in charge at CNN want Biden as the 2020 nominee, and anyone can look at the polls as an explanation of what happened Tuesday.

 

In early September, according the Real Clear Politics average of Iowa polls, Biden had a commanding lead in the state, 28.5%, with Warren and Sanders neck-and-neck in second place at 18% and 17.5% respectively. A month later, Warren moved into the lead (23% to Biden’s 18% by Oct. 1) but then, over the next six weeks, however, Warren faded badly while Pete Buttigieg surged to first place in Iowa. Then in December, Buttigieg began fading, and Bernie moved into first place as Warren dropped into fourth place. Who benefits from CNN’s promotion of Warren at the expense of Sanders? It’s not just Warren they’re helping, it’s Biden — the Democratic establishment candidate in the same sense that Hillary was the establishment candidate four years ago.

As I say, this kind of blatant manipulation by the media feeds into the paranoid mentality of the left-wing populists who support Sanders. Regardless of who wins Iowa, Bernie’s supporters now have more reason than ever to believe that a corrupt establishment is attempting to prevent their candidate from winning. If the only way Biden can get the nomination is to have CNN and other establishment media do his dirty work for him, what will that mean for Democrats in November?



 

Warren Fades; Democrats Worried UPDATE: Cory Booker Drops Out

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With the final pre-Iowa debate looming Tuesday night, the 2020 presidential campaign is looking shaky for Democrats. Unless you believe Joe Biden can beat Trump — and I’m not sure Biden can even make it to the end of February — any Democrat has got to be worried about Bernie Sanders, the avowed socialist, becoming their 2020 nominee.

For most of last year, the way for Democrats to avoid this Biden/Bernie dilemma was obvious: Elizabeth Warren was, on the one hand, wired into the party establishment and, on the other hand, willing to go whole-hog on the kind of anti-“Corporate America” theme that Sanders represents. Also, as an identity-politics bonus, Warren was female and thus could appeal to the women still butthurt over Hillary’s defeat.

Alas, things started going bad last fall for the Warren campaign, which was forced to fire national organizing director Rich McDaniel amid accusations of “inappropriate behavior.” Warren, who had actually been leading in Iowa (in early October, she had a 5-point lead on Biden in the Real Clear Politics average of Iowa polls), began fading quickly, and by early December was in third place behind Sanders and Pete Buttigieg in the RCP Iowa average. Meanwhile, two billionaires — Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg — began pouring millions of dollars into their vanity campaigns, with the result that Steyer now leads Warren in the most recent polls of two early states, Nevada and South Carolina. (Hat-tip: Lawrence Person’s BattleSwarm blog.) Considering the reports that Warren is having fundraising trouble, she may be doomed, and meanwhile Bernie is still chugging along, which brings us to another problem now confronting Democrats:

Only white candidates have qualified for [Tuesday’s] Democratic presidential debate, the first time in this election cycle that no minority contender will make the stage. It’s a dynamic that critics say threatens to undercut the party’s rhetoric of inclusivity.
The race for the 2020 Democratic nomination kicked off last year with a historically diverse pool of candidates, including two black senators, a black mayor, a Hispanic former Cabinet secretary and an Asian businessman. Since then, all have either dropped out or failed to qualify for a spot on the stage, determined by poll numbers and donations.
Now the specter of an all-white debate in the mostly white state of Iowa is prompting concern among party activists.
“Both the way the primary is set up and the way debates are done are a problem,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, a racial justice organization. “The system they have designed has suppressed the most loyal base of the Democratic Party.”
He added: “Anyone with an understanding of civil rights law understands how the rules can be set up to benefit some communities. The Democratic Party should look at the impact of these rules and question the results.”

Yeah, baby — “the most loyal base” is being “suppressed” — that paranoid sense of betrayal might not turn many black voters into Republicans, but it sure as heck sounds like an ill omen for Democrats when November rolls around. “Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen . . .”

UPDATE: Breaking just now:

Obviously, this proves that the Democrat Party hates black men.