A Guide to the Debates’ Biggest Clapbacks, Memes, and Malarky
Plus, who is the most boring white guy of them all????
Crashing and burning no-name candidates, eloquence from the orb goddess, the race to be Vice President, malfunctioning malarky, and Kool-Aid. This is the Democratic Debatocalypse Aftermath edition.
I’m Chris Erik Thomas. Welcome to Issue 14 of Rubber Chicken Circuit, the weekly election newsletter from Study Hall. Read more about us, subscribe here, and forward us to your friends!
DEMOCRATIC FIGHT NIGHT #1: CRASHES, BURNS, AND CLAPBACKS.
Tim Ryan’s Beautiful, Fiery Crash Into Obscurity.
Ah, to be TIM RYAN. The candidate spent June’s debate looking terrified and lost only to spend July’s debate somehow looking more terrified when BERNIE SANDERS put him on full blast in a healthcare fight. When Sanders talked about fellow senior citizens like himself getting dental care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses covered under Medicare for All, Ryan responded by saying Bernie just didn’t know that.
Enter: the line of the night. A verbal guillotine through any and all chance Ryan had of being relevant. Watch it again (and again and again). *chefs kiss*
Elizabeth Warren’s Clapback Sums Up What We’re All Thinking.
The presidential primary has stretched on for about eight months now and, yes, it feels like 84 years. Much of that is because there are so many no-name, ridiculously underprepared people trying to make the case that they should be POTUS. It’s been the elephant (or donkey) in the room and now we finally have a line that sums up this frustration, courtesy of ELIZABETH WARREN.
“I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for President of the United States just to talk about what we can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” she said to explosive applause after JOHN DELANEY, a composite image of The Three Stooges of in human form, pitched his plan to settle for less instead of striving for more.
Orb Goddess Marianne Williamson Almost Made Us Forget She’s Crazy
We’ve reached peak 2019. Somehow MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, a woman who asked people to plug the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill with their minds, has become a cult favorite in the presidential race. I love a good SNL skit in human form and on that front, she delivered with her moon-orb-goddess-of-the-light voice and mannerisms, and her answer on reparations was poignant, but there’s only so much willful ignorance we should allow before we pump the brakes.
Can This Crop of Flailing, Flatlining Democrats Finally Drop Out?
There is treading water, and then there’s slowly sinking while pretending everything’s fine. First, there was former political wunderkind-turned-flop BETO O’ROURKE who couldn’t even make a viral moment happen this time (see his Spanish pandering last month). How much longer do we have to suffer through his failed presidential campaign before he finally turns down his punk music playlist and runs for Senate again in Texas?
But Beto wasn’t the candidate to make the unintentional case for dropping out. Without Joe Biden on stage to act as the stand-in for moderate democrats, the pressure to pitch the case for middle-of-the-road policies fell on the weak shoulders of candidates like STEVE BULLOCK, JOHN HICKENLOOPER, and AMY KLOBUCHAR. Pitted against farther-left “big ideas” candidates like Warren and Sanders should’ve made for an interesting battle of ideologies but instead, the moderates failed to make a dent. The only new development here was that Bullock, a governor who won re-election in a state Trump won, made it to the stage after failing to qualify last month. What did he do with his big debut? Absolutely nothing we’ll remember next week.
Pete Buttigieg Proved He’ll Be 2020’s Best (Vice) Presidential Nominee
Call it a conspiracy theory if you must, but I really don’t think PETE BUTTIGIEG is running to be president. At least, not yet. His campaign so far is the perfect success story for becoming America’s first gay Vice President and he encapsulated that with a middling debate performance that once again failed to make the case that communities of color should vote for him.
How to not be POTUS: Saying that, “as an urban mayor serving a diverse community, the racial divide lives within me.” How to be VPOTUS: Raise millions of dollars from large and small donors by being a perfectly likable, but ultimately boring guy next door with a little gay twist.
Have feedback or want to slip us a tip? Reply to this or email chris@studyhall.xyz with your scoops and suggestions.
DEMOCRATIC FIGHT NIGHT #2: MALARKEY, KOOL-AID, AND NURSERY RHYMES.
Malarkey Joe Survives the Punches But Shows His Age
The #1 target heading into night two was frontrunner JOE BIDEN, who had only just recovered from Kamala’s brutal takedown in last month’s debate. There was no big moment that brought Biden down this time. That’s good news for the former VPOTUS because despite everyone’s best efforts, he’s still polling at an average of 33%, which is 15% higher than any other candidate.
Still, watching him debate was exactly like what you’d expect to see from the 76-year-old candidate. He accidentally called Booker both the “president” and then the “future president,” and said that we can’t endure “eight more years” of Trump despite him only being able to serve for four more years. We already have one person struggling to form sentences and that’s Trump. Why do we need to fight fire with fire?
Booker’s Big Night Overshadows Fellow Second-Tiers.
There was no big, punchy moment to encapsulate this debate but in terms of hits, it was CORY BOOKER that landed the most punches. Besides saying that Biden was “dipping into the Kool-Aid and you don’t even know the flavor” (prompting a hundred thousand google searches to figure out what it means), Booker brought “Big Youth Pastor Energy” and was sharp enough in his attacks to keep him afloat and boost his donations.
Among his standout exchanges, the most impactful will probably be his critique that Biden’s criminal justice record “destroyed lives.” In an overall uninspiring debate devoid of any huge moments, his consistent performance was probably enough to give him at least a little bit of a polling bump.
Tulsi Gabbard’s Surprise Attack on Kamala Draws Blood.
There’s almost no chance that TULSI GABBARD will overcome her insistence on refusing to call Syria’s Bashar al-Assad a war criminal (despite him using chemical weapons on his own people), but at the debate, she rose up from the sidelines to deliver a very critical attack against KAMALA HARRIS over her record as a prosecutor. She called her out for putting “over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations” and then laughing about it when asked if she’d ever smoked weed and talked about how Kamala “kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California.”
It was the sharpest attack against Kamala thus far in the race and, in a post-debate interview, her response to Gabbard’s attacks was… not good, saying: "This is going to sound immodest, but obviously I'm a top-tier candidate.” If you’re running for president and you want to appeal to people but just got called out for your record as California’s top cop, maybe don’t use a strategy that begins with the phrase “this is going to sound immodest.”
Falling Off The Wagon And Fading Into Obscurity.
As the final debate before the qualifications for future debates are ramped up to 130K unique donors and 2% polling in four qualify polls, this was a lot of candidates' final chance to make a splash. It will not shock you to hear that this splash didn’t happen for most of them. Besides Booker having a bit of a breakout, these candidates served up average but forgettable debate performances that won’t do anything to improve their standings in the polls: MICHAEL BENNET, KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, ANDREW YANG, JAY INSLEE, and BILL DE BLASIO.
The only other candidate who sort of made a lasting impression was JULIÁN CASTRO, but even his performance was lacking the punchiness necessary to break out of the crowd. Sure, he got a hard-hitting line in against Biden, saying “it looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn't,” but he’s still not hitting the 2% polling threshold he’ll need to hit the debate stage again.
Bonus Round: Please Get Rid of DNC Chair Tom Perez or We’re Fucked.
Look, I know that TOM PEREZ isn’t running for president but when the head of the Democratic National Committee’s strategy for fighting back against Republican attacks involves using a nursery rhyme to try and burn Mitch McConnell, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Just stick to calling the Trump administration a dumpster fire and call it a day.
AN UPDATE ON THE LEFTOVERS THAT REFUSE TO QUIT.
TOM STEYER: The billionaire’s strategy for meeting the 130K donor requirement for the September debates? Begging for “even one dollar” in contributions while spending $927K on ads. In an ideal world, a rich white guy would be spending $927K on something useful like helping candidates flip the senate but ego is a helluva drug.
SETH MOULTON: This satirical article from The Onion about Moulton using magic to get into the debates is more entertaining than his entire campaign. WAYNE MESSAM: He’s spent $60K in his campaign to be the most forgettable candidate in American history. JOE SESTAK: The sharpshooting folks at Ammoland: Shooting Sports News want you to know Sestak “stinks” when it comes to protecting their right to own guns.
The Trump Check
Orange Is the New Red.
Look, we been knew Donald Trump is a racist. Or, sorry, a “flaming racist piece of shit” according to John Legend. He’s been racist since the 70s and is going to be racist until the day his brittle, Diet-Coke-crusted bones turn to dust. The real story is that he might be more than racist…he might be working for the devil. At least that’s the belief of 27.7% of Americans, according to new research. Yes, over a fourth of the country agrees that "the devil is using Donald Trump for his purposes.”
On the flip side, 17.2% of Americans think that Trump’s election “is a reflection of God’s will,” but people also say that about natural disasters. And if any president could best be summed up as an unnatural force of nature that causes mass casualties, it’s Donald John Trump.
The devil works hard but Trump works harder. See you next week for another serving of Rubber Chicken Circuit.
