An Ambien Thunderdome
If the first round of Democratic Party debates were distilled into five words or less, it would be “pass the No-Doz, please.” Vini, vici, dormeo. They came, they saw, they slept. Ambien Thunderdome: “Twenty go in, six remain awake.”
There were two separate two-hour debates between the twenty frontrunners for the Democratic nomination for president Four of their twenty-four major candidates weren’t included, and those lucky innocents would have to be considered the big winners.
Also winningish were Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, maybe Elizabeth Warren, but definitely the entire viewing public that had better things to do than watch potential opponents to the current occupant of the Oval Office argue over who dislikes him more.
Twenty-four candidates. Literally, dozens of Democrats. Which sounds like a Sondheim song. “Dozens of Democrats, all in a row. Most of them chasing some guy they call Joe.”
The two ways to qualify for the Miami debates were 65,000 unique donors or 1 percent support in three sanctioned polls. 1 percent?! That’s only 1 percent more than you or I currently sport. And with such crowded panels, the goal was simple: find some way, any way, to stand out from the pack. Meaning that belligerent, argumentative and contentious ruled the day. Luckily enough, the Democrats’ default state.
A couple candidates strove to be noticed visually. Senator Warren wore purple and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, red. Governor Jay Inslee wore a green tie because he’s the environmental candidate. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang didn’t wear a tie because he’s cool. Congressman Eric Swalwell wore an orange ribbon to honor victims of Parkland. And New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio was tall.
Others tried to stand out by their statements. Marianne Williamson announced her readiness to fight the 45th president with the Power of Love. It was a performance that attracted numerous donors anxious to keep her in the race. Many are suspected to be Republicans. Or Russians. Or both.
Congressman Beto O’Rourke, Senator Cory Booker and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro spoke Spanish in varying degrees of fluency. Castro also defended a transgender woman’s right to have an abortion. Warren hinted at more plans than there are blueprints to the Pentagon. And MSNBC was confused by the concept of microphones.
Senator Kamala Harris jumped on former Vice President Joe Biden so hard she runs the risk of having an aggressive prosecutor charge her with elder abuse. Then Vermont curmudgeon Bernie Sanders piled onto Biden in a grisly example of Grey on Grey crime.
There was shouting, finger-pointing, accusations, elbows, head butts and a couple kicks to the groin but not a single authentic moment over two nights. Most of the time was spent ignoring moderators’ questions and responding with soggy snippets from canned stump speeches. The only thing everybody agreed on was Donald Trump needs to be a one-term president. Although, its hard to imagine any of these lightweights helping accomplish that task.
The Democratic National Committee is teaming with CNN for the next round of debates at the end of July in Detroit, and 21 candidates are nearing qualification standards. So tie-breakers might need to be employed to get down to two nights of 10 each. The least they could do is make the cut-down interesting. A competitive round-robin of Indian wrestling or axe-throwing might raise ratings.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
How to submit an article, guest opinion piece, or letter to the editor to The Independent
Do you have something to say? Want your voice to be heard by thousands of readers? Send The Independent your letter to the editor or guest opinion piece. All submissions will be considered for publication by our editorial staff. If your letter or editorial is accepted, it will run on suindependent.com, and we’ll promote it through all of our social media channels. We may even decide to include it in our monthly print edition. Just follow our simple submission guidelines and make your voice heard:
—Submissions should be between 300 and 1,500 words.
—Submissions must be sent to editor@infowest.com as a .doc, .docx, .txt, or .rtf file.
—The subject line of the email containing your submission should read “Letter to the editor.”
—Attach your name to both the email and the document file (we don’t run anonymous letters).
—If you have a photo or image you’d like us to use and it’s in .jpg format, at least 1200 X 754 pixels large, and your intellectual property (you own the copyright), feel free to attach it as well, though we reserve the right to choose a different image.
—If you are on Twitter and would like a shout-out when your piece or letter is published, include that in your correspondence and we’ll give you a mention at the time of publication.
