The responses to my post about the Democratic Party
candidates' debate make it clear that I should have explained myself more
fully. I don't in fact disagree at all
with the comments. So, herewith a more
thoughtful response to the debate.
There are at least four different things we might mean when
we say that a candidate won a debate [aside from formal debating, where winning
means being awarded the win by the judges.]
First, we might mean that what the candidate said was closer to the
truth or more profound or more important.
By that measure, Bernie won the debate hands down. Indeed, so far as I am concerned, he won the
debate in that sense before it ever started, simply by identifying himself as a
Democratic Socialist.
Second, we might mean that the candidate handled himself or
herself better, more self-assuredly, more deftly. By that measure. Bernie and Hillary vastly
outclassed the other three candidates, and Hillary, I would say, somewhat
outclassed Bernie. She is, in my
judgment, simply a more accomplished debater than Bernie. Let me give one example, about which much has
been made. At one point, Bernie said
that America should try to be more like Denmark. I know what he meant. All of us on the left know what he
meant. But it was a tone-deaf thing to
say, a real blunder [never mind that it
is true, that is a separate matter.] How
might he have said the same thing better?
Very simple: cite a number of
state health plans or minimum wage plans or family leave plans and say [this is
just by way of illustration] "If Massachusetts can do it and California
can do it and Washington State can do it, then America can do it." Same point exactly, but in a politically
acceptable form. "Why should Bernie
pander to idiots?" you might ask.
Because he is trying to get their votes, not teach them in a seminar,
that's why. If you don't want to try to
find ways of telling people things they need to hear in words that they can
hear and understand, then get out of politics.
Third, we might mean that the candidate gained the most in
public support from the debate. For
that, we must await the polls. I recall
the very first televised presidential debate, between JFK and RMN [i.e.,
Kennedy and Nixon.] It was early days in
television, and most people heard the debate on radio. Those who heard it on radio thought Nixon had
won. Those who saw it thought Kennedy
had won. Why? The answer is delicious, and has been used by
me for decades to illustrate Socrates' classification of true and false arts in
the Gorgias. Kennedy had a serious disorder for which he
took medication, a side effect of which was to give him a healthy looking
tan. Nixon was thin-skinned -- not quick
to anger or easily insulted, just literally with a very thin epidermis. Even though he had shaved close just before
the debate, under the harsh bright lights of early television he looked as
though he had a five o'clock shadow [as it used to be called.] What is more, he had banged his elbow getting
out of his cab at the TV station and was in pain. So Kennedy was sick, and looked well, and Nixon
was well, and looked sick.
Fourth, we might mean that the candidate improved his or her
chances of securing the nomination. By
this measure, my guess is that Clinton was the clear winner.
She needed to do three things to shore up her front-runner status: Convey a sense that she had turned a corner
on the pseudo-scandal of the e-mails; dissuade
Biden from entering the race; and reassure her base that she was fully ready to
take on whichever clown gets the Republican nomination. She did the first, thanks to Bernie, who
uttered perhaps the only honest words ever heard in an American presidential
debate. Her general success accomplished
the second, I would bet. And she
demonstrated that she would at least be the equal of any Republican
candidate. Bernie clearly improved his
standing by introducing himself to some many millions of Democratic voters who,
until the debate, had been paying little attention. But since he is at this point the also-ran,
he needs Clinton to falter for him to take over the lead, and she did not.
Now let us step back a bit and take a longer look. We are in an extraordinary moment in American
politics, and as the resident Tigger of this blog, I am allowing myself to feel
considerable hope. The central domestic
fact of American society, dominating everything else, is the obscene inequality
of wealth and income that characterizes all capitalist economies but America's
most strikingly. As Piketty has shown
those among us who were not paying attention, this inequality is centuries old,
and after a post WWII shrinking, has been expanding again to a level of
inequality not seen since before the Great Depression. All of us Marxists have known this forever,
fat lot of good it has done us. Ten years
ago, it was impossible to get anyone to talk about it save for those of us
clustered in a corner whispering dangerous truths to each other. Then came the Great Recession, and Occupy
Wall Street, and now someone who calls himself a Socialist [even if his
policies would fit very comfortably into an FDR New Deal position paper] is
being taken seriously as a contender for the presidential nomination of a major
political party.
Did Bernie win the debate?
Maybe yes, maybe no. It depends
on what you mean by "win." Did
the American people win the debate? You
betcha, as Sarah Palin would say.
4 comments:
Sense 3 (and hence partly 4) are influenced recursively by the coverage of the debate. And that's what's so annoying about the orchestrated punditry post-debate.
A general point to note that fits along with much of this is that debates don't happen in a vacuum. If all five candidates did exactly, mathematically equally well (assuming that were possible), Hillary would be the winner. Why? Because she was in the lead beforehand, and the debate would thus not change that. She is and remains the presumptive nominee, which means that it takes more than not being the best for her to lose--it takes a serious blunder, or a long, sustained decline, combined with a contender who has a clear path forward. That can happen (See: Barack Obama and 2008), but it would take more than a single debate loss. And the pundits, for the most part, are trying to look at this long game. In that light, Hillary just has to do well enough to keep her path as presumptive nominee open; she unquestionably did so.
Relatedly, the closer we get to the primaries, the greater the likelihood of her winning becomes: if she has 60% in the polls now, that's different from 60% in the polls on February 1st; the former has, because of time and the dreaded change that comes with it, less predictive power for whether she'll win. In 2008 Newt Gingrich, as I fondly recall from this blog, was leading the polls at one point. But that was definitely not the case the day before the Iowa caucuses.
Professor Wolff --
You mentioned that, with regard to Clinton's emails, Sanders "uttered perhaps the only honest words ever heard in an American presidential debate."
That may be a bit of a generalization. I seem to recall Jesse Jackson, Jerry Brown, and even Bruce Babbitt offering a few honest statements in past debates.
-- Jim
I spoke hyperbolically, for effect.
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