From 9 to 5, yesterday, Mad Dog joined a crowd which did not fill the arena in Manchester, NH, to hear each of the 19 remaining candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
The morning after, this is what Mad Dog can recall from the blur:
The WTF group:
1. Admiral Joe Sestak: who somehow seemed to think his daughter's brain tumor, treated by Navy medicine, was an argument for his becoming President.
2. Tom Steyer: who seemed to think that having been born poor and becoming a billionaire was an argument for his becoming President.
The Likeable Group, for whom being a decent person and having the right values was an argument:
1. Julian Castro: who is smart, and who delivered the best final sentence of any candidate, wherein he described his fantasy about having won the election and walking Trump to the helicopter on the White House lawn and calling out to him: Adios!
2. Senator Michael Bennet: who was introduced by an 80 something Gary Hart, which got all the people around Mad Dog trying to remember what "Monkey Business" was all about and when that election was. Bennet is good man who made the very good point that Medicare for All should not mean people should be forced to give up their own union Cadillac health insurance plans.
3. Governor Steve Bullock (Montana): who thought that because he had won as a Democrat in a deeply red state won by Trump by 20 points meant that he could beat Trump anywhere in the US. A good man, who should be in the cabinet, if the Democat wins.
4. John Delaney: another up from the bootstraps billionaire who seems like a nice guy nobody could remember ten minutes after he left the stage.
5. Amy Klobuchar: So far the most memorable thing about her is she declared her candidacy in a snowstorm. She is not Ann Richards, although she is working on those one liners. She has not come up with a classic, like "If Trump's IQ got any lower, we'd have to water him twice a day." But she's working on it.
6. Andrew Yang: Who is the most likeable of the likeables. Could not find anything to disagree with as he spoke. But the question is: Why is he up there speaking? Donald Trump took decades to build his brand. Everyone knew Trump, even if they hated him. Yang is so obscure, he could walk down 5th Avenue and not be stopped for so much as a handshake. Trump could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose a vote. Yang could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and nobody would notice him. He'd have to jump up and down and scream, "Hey! It was me! I shot him!"
The What Are They Thinking Group:
1. Bill DeBlasio who has no apparent group who likes him, but is very tall and articulate, with smoothly honed completely unmemorable phrases.
2. Tulsi Gabbard: Who seems anatomically and constitutionally incapable of smiling or making others smile, who has a finely tuned sense of outrage, likely tempered by her experiences in war, whose best argument seemed to be she will never be mistaken for Donald Trump.
3. Marianne Williamson: who viewed 20 feet from the stage, where Mad Dog was sitting, looked as if she were performing "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" but all that facial expression and body language was not adequately conveyed on the Megatron screens on either side of the stage. What Mad Dog remembers is her observation real change does not come from entrenched elected officials but from the people, which seemed to be her argument for making her an elected official.
Mad Dog could not help but think about Abraham Lincoln, who was elected and who achieved significant change.
The Also Rans: The folks who just don't have the speed, but if we still chose Presidents at Conventions in smoked filled rooms, each just might be a compromise candidate
1. Kamala Harris: who oozed emotion and a sense of knowing where she came from, with stories about her intimidating mother who told her not to see herself as others saw her. What Mad Dog saw was someone who internalized a sense of moral superiority.
2. Cory Booker: Who once again reminded everyone he was an all American tight end college football play and who somehow confused the convention with a revival meeting in which "Rise Up" is not a song from "Hamilton" but his very own theme song.
3. Pete Buttigieg: Who, if Mad Dog closed his eyes, sounded exactly like Obama. A white, gay Obama. He makes you forget he is only 37 and his highest achievement has been mayor of South Bend, Indiana. If Mad Dog were really "voting my heart" he just might vote for him. Or, if Mad Dog decided to vote strategically, he might on the assumption Pete might win the Rust Belt, but then Mad Dog thinks, if you are trying to predict how Rust Belters think, you might expect they would recoil from the sight of Mayor Pete kissing his husband on stage.
The Aged Triad:
1. Joe Biden skipped briskly on stage, as the first speaker, which Mad Dog suspected was a good thing because they might not have been able to wake him up if he had to hang around backstage for more than an hour. Joe probably belongs in the "likeable" group, but he's better known than any of those guys. He's the Eisenhower candidate, but Ike was on a farm in Gettysburg by the time he was 78, and clearly Biden would do less harm on that farm.
2. Bernie Sanders: Ever the same. Energetic, bombastic, fighting the fight for all of us. Sly, funny, exciting. But his shtick grows a bit old and he's a one trick pony. Every problem can be solved by a big government program to stick it to the avaricious corporations who own this country. He may be right, but he is not getting any younger. His crowd looked to Mad Dog like a throng of recycled 60's hippies, Yippies and Make Love Not War folks who voted for Magovern and shrugged off the results as just another reason to think there's nothing you can do about America anyway, so we'll just go smoke pot.
3. Elizabeth Warren: Who has finally got her message simplified to the point voters can actually understand it. The problem is CORRUPTION. Corruption so thoroughgoing we don't even see it as corruption any more, where the super rich pay next to nothing for all the stuff we do for them and everything, from despoiling the environment, climate change, health care, gun violence can be tied to the big money boys who will not allow the people what they need and desire.
She has finally learned she needs a very amplified mike because her voice is as soft as a high school librarian's.
On the other hand, in that setting at least, the fervor for her outstripped an Alabama tent revival.
Did anything in that arena matter?
We had a primary election in the New Hampshire 1st, Sept 11, 2018. There were scores of house parties, debates, rallies. Issues were discussed passionately. People stayed late into the night to pummel candidates with questions.
In the end, the guy who had no presence, no energy won: Chris Pappas with 20,000 votes. A close second was a woman who moved to New Hampshire the month before, backed by dark money, Maura Sullivan. She had melted down in debate, provided platitudes which bored even her young campaign workers but she got 19,000 votes.
The rest of the pack struggled to get to 4 figures.
Those Sullivan votes were "bought" votes. But how did they "buy" votes? Was this simply a reflection of the effectiveness of TV ads. Most people Mad Dog knows go to the bathroom or the kitchen during campaign ads. Are people really absorbing these things, subliminally?
Pappas had been around New Hampshire for a decade, serving on the Executive Council, a government panel fewer than 1 in 10 Granite Staters could identify, much less than explain, but he, at least, was a sort of old pol. He had cultivated friends in high places. But that cannot explain how Sullivan, a vapid, content challenged Stepford wife, made it a close contest.
Mad Dog's assessment of Sullivan may be unfair, he knows. Maybe Mad Dog just could not respond to her charms for obscure psychological reasons.
But it does make you wonder what does matter in politics.
For another take on what matters, I've discovered Noam Chomsky, a man I will learn more about, but he makes more sense to me than most:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/01/noam_chomsky_trump-russia_collusion_claims_a_joke.html
The morning after, this is what Mad Dog can recall from the blur:
The WTF group:
1. Admiral Joe Sestak: who somehow seemed to think his daughter's brain tumor, treated by Navy medicine, was an argument for his becoming President.
2. Tom Steyer: who seemed to think that having been born poor and becoming a billionaire was an argument for his becoming President.
The Likeable Group, for whom being a decent person and having the right values was an argument:
1. Julian Castro: who is smart, and who delivered the best final sentence of any candidate, wherein he described his fantasy about having won the election and walking Trump to the helicopter on the White House lawn and calling out to him: Adios!
2. Senator Michael Bennet: who was introduced by an 80 something Gary Hart, which got all the people around Mad Dog trying to remember what "Monkey Business" was all about and when that election was. Bennet is good man who made the very good point that Medicare for All should not mean people should be forced to give up their own union Cadillac health insurance plans.
3. Governor Steve Bullock (Montana): who thought that because he had won as a Democrat in a deeply red state won by Trump by 20 points meant that he could beat Trump anywhere in the US. A good man, who should be in the cabinet, if the Democat wins.
4. John Delaney: another up from the bootstraps billionaire who seems like a nice guy nobody could remember ten minutes after he left the stage.
5. Amy Klobuchar: So far the most memorable thing about her is she declared her candidacy in a snowstorm. She is not Ann Richards, although she is working on those one liners. She has not come up with a classic, like "If Trump's IQ got any lower, we'd have to water him twice a day." But she's working on it.
6. Andrew Yang: Who is the most likeable of the likeables. Could not find anything to disagree with as he spoke. But the question is: Why is he up there speaking? Donald Trump took decades to build his brand. Everyone knew Trump, even if they hated him. Yang is so obscure, he could walk down 5th Avenue and not be stopped for so much as a handshake. Trump could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose a vote. Yang could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and nobody would notice him. He'd have to jump up and down and scream, "Hey! It was me! I shot him!"
The What Are They Thinking Group:
1. Bill DeBlasio who has no apparent group who likes him, but is very tall and articulate, with smoothly honed completely unmemorable phrases.
2. Tulsi Gabbard: Who seems anatomically and constitutionally incapable of smiling or making others smile, who has a finely tuned sense of outrage, likely tempered by her experiences in war, whose best argument seemed to be she will never be mistaken for Donald Trump.
3. Marianne Williamson: who viewed 20 feet from the stage, where Mad Dog was sitting, looked as if she were performing "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" but all that facial expression and body language was not adequately conveyed on the Megatron screens on either side of the stage. What Mad Dog remembers is her observation real change does not come from entrenched elected officials but from the people, which seemed to be her argument for making her an elected official.
Mad Dog could not help but think about Abraham Lincoln, who was elected and who achieved significant change.
The Also Rans: The folks who just don't have the speed, but if we still chose Presidents at Conventions in smoked filled rooms, each just might be a compromise candidate
1. Kamala Harris: who oozed emotion and a sense of knowing where she came from, with stories about her intimidating mother who told her not to see herself as others saw her. What Mad Dog saw was someone who internalized a sense of moral superiority.
2. Cory Booker: Who once again reminded everyone he was an all American tight end college football play and who somehow confused the convention with a revival meeting in which "Rise Up" is not a song from "Hamilton" but his very own theme song.
3. Pete Buttigieg: Who, if Mad Dog closed his eyes, sounded exactly like Obama. A white, gay Obama. He makes you forget he is only 37 and his highest achievement has been mayor of South Bend, Indiana. If Mad Dog were really "voting my heart" he just might vote for him. Or, if Mad Dog decided to vote strategically, he might on the assumption Pete might win the Rust Belt, but then Mad Dog thinks, if you are trying to predict how Rust Belters think, you might expect they would recoil from the sight of Mayor Pete kissing his husband on stage.
The Aged Triad:
1. Joe Biden skipped briskly on stage, as the first speaker, which Mad Dog suspected was a good thing because they might not have been able to wake him up if he had to hang around backstage for more than an hour. Joe probably belongs in the "likeable" group, but he's better known than any of those guys. He's the Eisenhower candidate, but Ike was on a farm in Gettysburg by the time he was 78, and clearly Biden would do less harm on that farm.
2. Bernie Sanders: Ever the same. Energetic, bombastic, fighting the fight for all of us. Sly, funny, exciting. But his shtick grows a bit old and he's a one trick pony. Every problem can be solved by a big government program to stick it to the avaricious corporations who own this country. He may be right, but he is not getting any younger. His crowd looked to Mad Dog like a throng of recycled 60's hippies, Yippies and Make Love Not War folks who voted for Magovern and shrugged off the results as just another reason to think there's nothing you can do about America anyway, so we'll just go smoke pot.
3. Elizabeth Warren: Who has finally got her message simplified to the point voters can actually understand it. The problem is CORRUPTION. Corruption so thoroughgoing we don't even see it as corruption any more, where the super rich pay next to nothing for all the stuff we do for them and everything, from despoiling the environment, climate change, health care, gun violence can be tied to the big money boys who will not allow the people what they need and desire.
She has finally learned she needs a very amplified mike because her voice is as soft as a high school librarian's.
On the other hand, in that setting at least, the fervor for her outstripped an Alabama tent revival.
Did anything in that arena matter?
We had a primary election in the New Hampshire 1st, Sept 11, 2018. There were scores of house parties, debates, rallies. Issues were discussed passionately. People stayed late into the night to pummel candidates with questions.
In the end, the guy who had no presence, no energy won: Chris Pappas with 20,000 votes. A close second was a woman who moved to New Hampshire the month before, backed by dark money, Maura Sullivan. She had melted down in debate, provided platitudes which bored even her young campaign workers but she got 19,000 votes.
The rest of the pack struggled to get to 4 figures.
Those Sullivan votes were "bought" votes. But how did they "buy" votes? Was this simply a reflection of the effectiveness of TV ads. Most people Mad Dog knows go to the bathroom or the kitchen during campaign ads. Are people really absorbing these things, subliminally?
Pappas had been around New Hampshire for a decade, serving on the Executive Council, a government panel fewer than 1 in 10 Granite Staters could identify, much less than explain, but he, at least, was a sort of old pol. He had cultivated friends in high places. But that cannot explain how Sullivan, a vapid, content challenged Stepford wife, made it a close contest.
Mad Dog's assessment of Sullivan may be unfair, he knows. Maybe Mad Dog just could not respond to her charms for obscure psychological reasons.
But it does make you wonder what does matter in politics.
For another take on what matters, I've discovered Noam Chomsky, a man I will learn more about, but he makes more sense to me than most:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/01/noam_chomsky_trump-russia_collusion_claims_a_joke.html
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