Heading into September, a Recap of the Summer Debates

I watched the summer debates very carefully. And what I paid the most attention to wasn’t what the candidates were saying, but it was how they were saying it. To me, the candidates’ policy positions didn’t especially matter when it came to the debates; I could examine those positions at any time by listening to their speeches/interviews, going to their websites, reading analysis, etc. I saw the debates as a test of the skills of the candidates; of how they would handle a long election campaign and how they would eventually match up against Donald Trump in a debate. Here’s what I thought…

There were only two candidates who, in both debates, conclusively proved that they were nominee material: Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker. I am shocked that I am placing Booker in the top two, since I’d always had an aversion to him trying to portray himself as the next Obama. He seemed fake and calculating (check out my previous post for the irony here). But credit where credit is due. They were both incredible.

Then there were the candidates who did well; candidates who I could very well see winning a debate against Trump but who have to solidify this thought in the September debates. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro and Tulsi Gabbard are in this category. Gabbard, unfortunately, will not be in the September debates due to the DNC’s secret formula on deciding which polls to certify.

The third category are candidates who did okay. Now, in a field of 24 at the time (now it’s 21), doing okay may seem, well, okay. And for Joe Biden, it is. Biden performed poorly in the first debate but gave some solid answers in the second, and this was just enough to maintain his lead -which would later be weakened by his endless “gaffes”. However, for other candidates, doing okay was possibly worse than bombing, because they were unnoticed. When you have to check the list to remember that they were in the debate, it’s not a good sign. So, Amy Klobuchar, you have to stand out in September, or it’s over.

There were about eight candidates who I personally disqualified based on their debate performances. The two in this category who actually matter are Beto O’Rourke and Andrew Yang. Take O’Rourke in the first two debates, place him next to Trump, and Trump is a two-term President. I never liked Beto, and the debates showed me that I never will. The problem with Andrew Yang was that; if you’re going to have this crazy proposal of handing out trillions of dollars every month, you better explain the hell out of it. You can’t act like it’s a perfectly ordinary idea and spend a few minutes each debate talking about it. You have to convince me that it’s not ridiculous to suggest giving every American 12.000 dollars a year. I wasn’t convinced.

So in the fall debates, I’ll be open minded about eight of the ten candidates -Beto and Yang excluded. And I’ll be watching even more carefully, so they better fucking prepare.