Dem Debate: One Line to Summarize Each Pol’s Performance
The following is adapted from our weekly newsletter. If you would like to get early access to our bonus column for subscribers, sign-up for our newsletter here.
Dear Political Animals,
I am going to summarize last night’s debate in Los Angeles with the one line that explains every candidate. Have fun and enjoy — we’ll deal with impeachment later.
Joe Biden
“We have to build on what we started in our administration and it’s been interrupted in a big way.”Â
I just love this line for a few reasons. First of all, Joe Biden had a good night and was lucid for most of it. Secondly, the quote above really highlights Biden’s strategy to run on two planks: (1) that he is boys with Barack Obama; and (2) that everything in the USA is fine and whenever Trump leaves the White House things will just snap back to normal. There will definitely never be another Antifa riot or celebrity president who is just winging it, and people will move on from being called “deplorables” or “murderers and rapists” as soon Uncle Joe resumes Obama’s work.
Maybe Biden is right and Americans will have a shorter memory than a 78-year old man. That’s not my bet though.
Mayor Pete
 “I can’t help but feel like that was directed at me.”
Pete Buttigieg is the Cinderella Story of the 2020 primary. But his opponents lit him up for who his Fairy God Mothers are — basically every white Dem making over $500,000 a year. Elizabeth Warren shanked Mayor Pete for having a donor list that is basically identical to The Forbes 400, and Amy Klobuchar pointed out that the only elections he has ever won were in a shitkicker town with a name that sounds like an oil refinery. Also, apparently wine cellars are cancelled.
Thursday’s non-stop pummeling was the downside of Buttigieg’s being the belle of the ball in Iowa, where the leads in the polls and where thousands of his supporters/stalkers have invented a lame dance to celebrate him. When you are top dawg, the others come at you — fangs out. But Mayor Pete stood up to it well and escaped without putting any permanent cracks in his glass slippers.
Elizabeth Warren
“Sometimes I get a little hot.”
Elizabeth Warren basically admitted that people are kind of tired of her right now because of how hot and bothered she gets. That’s why she hung back and let the rest of the squad bloody their noses in LA, and only really poked her head-up to attempt a drive-by shooting on Pete Buttigieg.
The most meaningful thing that we learned about Warren is that she is 100 percent not a socialist. That is because she obviously lives by the Law of Supply and Demand: she noticed that demand for her was crashing in the polls, and wisely reduced the supply of her voice and face in tonight’s debate to address that.
Bernie Sanders
“The day is gonna come.”
Bernie Sanders took Joe Biden and the health care industry to task for hating on his $30 trillion Medicare for All plan. He crooned like a sorcerer that “the day is gonna come” when Biden and those “greedy” executives have to pay for their crimes. Maybe this is true. Maybe this is fake news. But I do know that the day has come — the one Bernie has spent decades building towards — where socialism is finally cool. The best indicator: that a 78-year old Senator whose past job experience consists of making “educational” film strips and collecting unemployment checks is one of the most popular politicians in America.
Amy Klobuchar
“I think winning matters.”
So far in this primary, Dems have crushed hard on young faces like Beto O’Rouke and Kamala Harris; then fallen for the progressive MILF Elizabeth Warren only to dump her too. Meanwhile, Amy Klobuchar’s feisty Midwestern pragmatism has been the field’s late bloomer and voters are starting to get aroused by it.
Here is a fact: the Democratic Party has been playing “Kill, Fuck, Marry” with an orgy-sized group of candidates. And though it is clear that no one wants to kill or fuck Amy Klobuchar, it is starting to feel like she’s in the hunt for a marriage proposal at the DNC. At the very least, Joe Biden could be looking for a bride when he gets there.
Andrew Yang
“I’m sorry, Mr. Steyer.”
PBS host Judy Woodruff hilariously confused Andrew Yang with Tom Steyer. I honestly have no idea what to say. Asian man vs. old white guy in a tartan tie? Seriously? The Fake News Media has been presented with the most unique candidate in memory, whose legacy will long outlive his vote count– but none of them have even bothered to learn his name. Meanwhile, politicians dismiss Yang’s ideas but will be running on some of them within a decade.
Serious people think that Yang is a joke. But serious people don’t realize that no one cares what they think and that they are actually the joke. What a bunch of boneheads.
Tom Steyer
“Frenemy”
Rich Guy Tom Steyer basically revealed that he is only running for president as a hobby when he referred to China as a “frenemy.” It was a savage reminder that this guy doesn’t even have the Wikipedia vocabularly down for the job he wants but is still spending more than $100 million of his own money to get it. Dumbass.
Okay, onwards.
KEENDAWG.
