South Carolina Debate Reaction Thread
How’d it go? I didn’t watch.
Well, that’s not exactly true. I watched about 4 minutes and that was enough to confirm my suspicion that this dog and pony show is designed to highlight each of the candidate’s unique weirdness.
Here are the evenings moderators ranked by net worth:
Bill Whitaker ($75,000)
Major Garrett ($3 million)
Margaret Brennan ($5 million)
Norah O’Donnell ($18 million)
Gayle King ($25 million)
That debate sucked. The moderators really sucked. Here’s how I ranked the candidates tonight:
1. Warren. She came across as the calm alternative to Bernie.
2. Biden. Is it green tea extract, or something else? He was totally wired, and more or less coherent. I think he clinched SC tonight.
3. Bernie. Not his best night, although he handled being in the crosshairs fairly well.
4. Steyer. He comes across as a nice guy who wants to do good things.
5. Klobuchar. She sucked, but I didn’t hate her. Which I did for the following two. She filbusters with her Little Mary Sunshine talking points worse than anybody.
6. Bloomberg. He may have been better than last time, but he was still a stumblebum . Kinda like Biden during the first three debates. And, yep, they made mincemeat out of him again.
7. Mayor Pete. I hate him, and it’s his fault. His glibness/smartassery annoys me no end. Bernie was asked to respond to a question, and Pete wouldn’t stop talking over him. Did I mention that I hate him?
It sounds like I picked a good one to skip. The CBS moderators were terrible by all accounts.
“Many of the questions were trivial, meant to trip up rather than illuminate or simply gross. Asking the two Jewish candidates about whether to move the US Embassy in Israel back to Tel Aviv was a good example of that of gross. Asking Amy Klobuchar whether she’d bar US citizens from returning to the US to prevent the spread of Coronavirus was both dumb and trivial: a question meant to put a candidate on the spot for purely theatrical reasons.” – TPM
Bloomy gave the worst possible answer on Israel, which is to say, a half hearted non committal one. Again had the air of Mr Burns
I thought Biden had a bad night. He was feisty, but tired. He seemed cranky and lost. He’s complaining about being the only one to follow the unenforced rules show me a person who doenst have the spine for a fight against a person and party who will 100% NOT follow the rules. Victory goes to the bold, Joe.
Fuck Pete. He seemed like he was attempting to channel Obama. But he is a bratty white guy, so it didn’t work. Also his haircut looks bad.
Warren convinced me she’ll back Sanders when the time comes. She differentiated herself…. Still a competition.. But She saved her KOs for the sexist billionaire racist.
Klob made no impact on me
Steyer, same. He seems like a genuinely good dude, though, ad a billionaire, he made his money by exploitation. I have no doubt he’ll support the nominee.
So Bernie. Great answer on Palestine abd AIPAC. he needs to get on board with ending the filibuster. He’s giving Coons the tool to nullify his presidency. It’s good the audience booed him a couple times… For him. If he is also on the receiving end of loud jackassery, it levels the playing field in the narrative and makes the Bros moot.
Mike Barnacle (net worth over $1 million) on Morning Joe right now saying that Bernie is not going to attract moderate Republicans.
Gotta love our liberal media.
The debate itself was an absolute mess. Candidates constantly interrupting and talking over each other and the moderators completely lost control.
I suspect someone advised Buttigieg that he needs to attack. But when he does it he comes across as a smarmy jerk. I think he’s done.
Biden said “I wrote that bill” so many times I think no one took him seriously by the end.
Like it or not, Sanders got hit on gun control. When you constantly have to respond to others attacking you, there is no room to get your own message out and that’s what my impression of Sanders was for this one.
Bloomberg was better. He is not a good debater, he can memorize his talking points as well as the next guy but he stammers and stumbles when he has to respond to an attack.
Neutral on Klobuchar and Steier – they needed to win big and they didnt.
I didn’t think anyone won. They have got to figure out a way to turn off the mics when one candidate is recognized. It was chaos.