Bernie's Excellent Debate Performance

Hallo, Genossinnen und Genossen!

Before this week's post, I wanted to let you know about a new project- I'm trying to add in a brief piece dedicated to theory every Friday for a month, and see what that does to readership. This Friday you'll see my reflections on Rosa Luxemburg's “Leninism or Marxism” and “The Russian Revolution”.! We'll see if more discussion of ideas rather than events gets us back on the awesome track we enjoyed from April-September.

My apologies for not putting this up in a more timely manner, but it turned out to be a good thing I didn't- it meant I got to read CNN's poll from yesterday, which provides some much needed contextual good news!

Well, first, I'm transcribing my notes-

Webb: bomb Iran, not Syria or Libya, and China is mean and scary we should get ready to bomb them too. He also went out of his way to insult the BLM movement by saying “All Lives Matter”- as if whites like him and me face any of the same dangers our Black comrades do. He then went on to explain why we should let China and India make the first move on stopping world-threatening pollution. Seriously, if they allow him in the next debate it should only be to the podium rigged with a trap door below it. (Glad to hear he's dropping out- heheheh)

Clinton: Criticizing me for supporting our attack on Iraq is criticizing the president who picked me as Secretary of State! This seemed to be a refrain throughout the night- she's running as the heir apparent to Obama, which is reason enough to want Biden in the race

When it came to foreign policy, pretty much all O'Malley and Chafee could say was that they agree with Bernie- wars need to be a product of multilateral agreement, not adventurism.

There was a concerted effort to paint Sanders as a gun-lover, and he responded pretty gracefully I thought, calling for a partnership on issues of reform of gun laws, but that wasn't enough to stop a significant media backlash, unfortunately. Honestly, as long as we keep letting rural voters have 70 times the say of urban voters as the constitution requires, the “any gun, anywhere for any reason” dogma seems pretty firmly entrenched. Some BBC journalist wrote that the gun control debate ended after Sandy Hook: when we as a country decided that letting men play with guns was more important than protecting children's lives, the debate was over. I'm optimistic that if the Dems get one more term they can give the Supreme Court a shove though- after Heller there's not much cities or states can do to keep their people safe from the gun violence enthusiasts.

Sanders also presented himself successfully as the dove, and even managed to shake off mention of his application as a conscientious objector to the US occupation of southern Vietnam without betraying any principles- that really signals a passing of the torch to me- that candidates can be antiwar in their youth without being shamed.

Our Genosse also got in terrific lines on the naivete of those like Clinton who think they can motivate Wall Street Speculators to be kinder without changing the incentive structure. I generally think he did well at drawing some contrast without leaving himself open to charges of attacking Clinton, though I thought he should have pushed harder. Spoiler alert- according to CNN's polling, I was very wrong and Genosse Bernie's course of action was exactly right.

Finally, what I perceived as his best moment came when asked to name the greatest national security threat. Genosse Sanders was the only candidate to lead his answer with “Climate Change”. O'Malley listed it third I think. Sanders' focus on environmental safety isthe best reason I can think of to support him!

CNN polling reports that Sanders received a 5% boost in support since the debate, and that over 30% of Democrats watched at least part of it. Also critical is that while Clinton still holds leads on all issues they polled for among the general public and among Democrats, among those who watched the debate Bernie draws even with her on Climate Change and holds a commanding 15 point lead on income inequality. This is vital- so it looks like 1 in 5 of debate viewers switched to Bernie, (bringing us within 15 points of Clinton nationally for the first time), and that Sanders' commitment to breaking up too-big-to-fail banks and reinstating Glass-Steagal is better received than Clinton's nuanced attempts to prop up the vultures while posturing as their enemy. In a sentence: when people actually hear Bernie and Clinton side by side, Bernie starts to win!

Solidarität, Genossinnen und Genossen

Elise