Joe Biden promised to choose a woman as his vice presidential running mate if he wins the Democratic nomination, as he and Bernie Sanders dueled in an unusual debate on Sunday evening. A surprised Sanders agreed that he too would likely select a “progressive” woman.
“There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow,” said the former vice president, who repeated the promise under questioning from the moderators. “I would pick a woman to be my vice president.” Although the Vermont senator didn’t respond with an equally firm pledge, Sanders said “in all likelihood I will. For me it’s not just nominating a woman, it is making sure we have a progressive woman — and we have progressive women out there.”
That moment of agreement came amid a sometimes heated debate over past votes and leadership styles as the two remaining Democrats in the race competed amid the advent of a national medical emergency that has no end in sight.
The coronavirus crisis changed not only the debate’s substance but its circumstances, with the candidates meeting in a CNN Washington studio, absent any audience, instead of a packed auditorium in Phoenix, AZ. As the candidates took the stage they bumped elbows instead of shaking hands, in accordance with CDC guidelines on personal contact to avoid spreading the virus. Both candidates said during the debate that they had felt no symptoms of the illness and had not been tested yet.
The debate’s first 40 minutes focused on the crisis, with Biden calling for national unity, criticizing the response of the Trump administration, and recalling his own role in dealing with pandemic threats as Barack Obama’s vice president. Sanders took the opportunity to again press his Medicare-for-all plan. But much of the remaining time was devoted to familiar disputes between the two men over policy issues and past votes. There was no startling moment that might have changed the trajectory of the race, as Biden delivered a better and more assured performance than in earlier debates, while the scrappy Sanders never landed a knockout blow. A Washington Post analysis declared that Biden was the evening’s main “winner.”
With the second Republican debate on the way tonight, it’s time for another round of Donald Trump defending his position as the frontrunner. And it’s a safe bet that he’ll try to hold his ground by mercilessly insulting anyone who dares to challenge his dominance.
So let’s take a look at the insults he’s already been dishing out — and at the failed efforts by the competition to bring him down.
Donald Trump vs. Jeb Bush
Trump is a lot like a monkey who walks into a new troop, and then immediately punches the biggest monkey to become new reigning alpha. (Bear with me.) In this parable, The Donald kicked off his presidential campaign by repeatedly attacking Jeb Bush. While other candidates would have politely promoted themselves, or perhaps made oblique references to disparage Bush, Trump went directly there — and did it hard.
And since Jeb didn’t fire back — preferring perhaps to remain above the fray — he effectively forfeited the battle. His attempts to climb back so far have simply not worked — because The Donald is always ready to punch him back down again.
About two weeks ago, Jeb’s campaign tried to go after The Donald with a web video, taking on his various old liberal views:
Trump responded with a video showing Jeb lavishing warm praise on the ultimate devil figure: Hillary Clinton. And he added an extra message, “No more Clintons or Bushes!”
Jeb tried to show off some energy — and to flaunt his Republican credentials — by opening his shirt to reveal an old Reagan/Bush ’84 campaign T-shirt.
But even in this Superman guise, Jeb still can’t bring himself to directly take on The Donald by name — with words from his own mouth. Who knows, perhaps Trump’s hair is made of kryptonite.
Ever since he dethroned Jeb, Trump has been defending his alpha position against any challenger — by mercilessly knocking them down at the slightest provocation: Rick Perry and Lindsey Graham, for example.
But one candidate has been steadily rising up in the polls as a Trump alternative, fellow political outsider Ben Carson — who at first had resisted running any kind of negative campaign.
That changed last week, when Carson responded to a reporter’s question about Trump’s claims of devout Christian faith, by quoting the Bible: “‘By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life.’ And that’s a very big part of who I am — humility and fear of the Lord. I don’t get that impression with him. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t get that impression.”
Trump hit right back, by invoking the controversy over Carson’s past involvement with medical research on aborted fetal tissue in order to impugn Carson’s own religious sincerity. And then he really went for the jugular, by attacking Carson’s single best professional accomplishment: “He was a doctor — perhaps, you know, an okay doctor by the way. You can check that out too. We’re not talking about a great — he was an okay doctor. He was just fine. And now because he’s a doctor and he hired one nurse, he’s gonna end up being the President of the United States?”
(Fact check: An accomplished neurosurgeon, Ben Carson headed up the medical team that performed the first ever successful separation of conjoined twins at the head.)
Carson then responded, not by correcting the record — but by apologizing.
“I said something that sounded like I was questioning his faith. I really wasn’t, I was really talking more about mine,” Carson told The Wall Street Journal. “But it was said in an inappropriate way, which I recognized and I apologized for that. It’s never my intention to impugn other people.”
Carson didn’t just lose this challenge to the alpha — he submitted.
The Donald has been slamming Fiorina’s record in business for a long time. But recently he made it even more personal, in a profile piece about himself in Rolling Stone, when he remarked about her: “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?”
Fiorina then responded with this ad: “Ladies, look at this face!” showing the beaming visages of women who support her. But the spot had a profound bit of dishonesty: Using clips taken from Fiorina’s speech to a Republican women’s group, she boasted of how fit she was to take on sexism from the Democrats — rather than actually take on the sexism that was just directed at her by another Republican.
In a pre-debate interview with CNBC, Fiorina proudly declared that “Mr. Trump’s going to be hearing quite a lot from me.” We can’t help but wonder if she’ll grill him about how sexist the Democrats are.
For most of the race, Rand Paul has been too low in the polls for The Donald to even care about making fun of him. But it was Paul who felt the need to pick a fight last Friday, when he posted this comment after Rick Perry dropped out of the race:
What does it say about GOP when a 3 & half term Gov w/ a successful record of creating jobs bows out as a reality star leads in the polls?
Lightweight Senator @RandPaul should focus on trying to get elected in Kentucky— a great state which is embarrassed by him. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 12, 2015
I truly understood the appeal of Ron Paul, but his son, @RandPaul, didn’t get the right gene.
Too many people on stage for debate. @RandPaul at 11th, with 2% in @RealClearNews, shouldn’t be allowed to participate. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 12, 2015
The newest lower-tier candidate to try to punch upward at The Donald is Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal — who isn’t even on the main stage tonight. But nevertheless, we can very likely expect that Jindal will make Trump bashing a focus of his position at the minor-league debate earlier in the evening.
Jindal began his bombardment against Trump last week, with a speech at the National Press Club and a tour of TV shows, lobbing such terms at Trump as “non-serious,” “a carnival act,” “shallow,” “full of bluster,” and “an egomaniacal, unserious person.”
Problem is, Jindal opened himself up to the question that he then had to dodge: Would he would personally vote for Trump if he won the nomination?
“We’re not gonna let him win the nomination,” Jindal said. “That’s what this is about. This is about saying — this is bigger than the Republican Party, it’s about our country.”
Trump simply responded on Twitter, by saying that Jindal doesn’t even matter:
Bobby Jindal did not make the debate stage and therefore I have never met him….
…. I only respond to people that register more than 1% in the polls. I never thought he had a chance and I’ve been proven right. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2015
Jindal also made a bid for chivalry and attempted to come to Carly Fiorina’s defense. “I think it’s pretty outrageous for him to be attacking anybody’s appearance when he looks like he’s got a squirrel sitting on his head,” Jindal told CBS News. “I think he should stop attacking other people’s appearances.”
Trump responded on Twitter:
Oh wow, lightweight Governor @BobbyJindal, who is registered at less than 1 percent in the polls, just mocked my hair. So original!
Indeed, Trump is right — it is completely immature to make fun of someone based on their appearance!
But Jindal has just kept it up, when he wrote an op-ed piece Tuesday for CNN in which he sketched out the apocalyptic scenario of a Trump presidency — such as the rechristening of the presidential airplane as “Hair Force One.”
Advantage: Come on, is this one even a question?
Photo: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Dallas, Texas, September 14, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Stone
Donald Trump is now trying to live out the old moral maxim of doing well by doing good — or perhaps in his case, doing well by doing huuuuuuge.
Trump has just posted a letter he sent to CNN president Jeff Zucker, citing reports that the advertising rates for next Wednesday’s Republican debate on the network are going through the roof — increasing from a mere $5,000 for a 30-second spot all the way to $200,000 — and declaring that it’s all because of the interest in Trump himself. (And to be fair, Trump is largely correct on this point.)
And so as the prime mover of this TV ratings windfall, Trump is asking that CNN donate the extra proceeds to a worthy veterans charity — a list of which Trump will kindly provide.
Here is just a small selection of some of the best, Trumpiest quotes from the letter:
“While I refuse to brag, and as you know very well, this tremendous increase in viewer interest and advertising is due 100% to ‘Donald J. Trump.'”
“As you are aware, for the first debate, FOX unexpectedly (but not to those who know), had one of the largest audiences in the history of cable television, 24 million people plus, and word is that your audience will be even larger.”
“The veterans of our country, our finest people, have been treated horribly by our government and its ‘all talk and no action’ politicians. In fact, some would say they are treated like third class citizens — even worse, in many cases, than illegal immigrants. It is about time that someone comes to their ad. Let’s start now!
Of course, this is all very interesting coming from the man who insulted Senator John McCain (R-AZ) for having been a prisoner of war — though perhaps Trump’s charities will just do good works for the veterans who weren’t captured.
Photo: U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks in New York, September 3, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Call it the Spinal Tap debate — because it’s going up to 11 candidates, and you might need to get an actual spinal tap after watching it.
CNN is now giving in to public pressure by revising its debate rules — and is on track to add an extra podium for Carly Fiorina. The cable news channel announced late Tuesday that it is adjusting its rules for inclusion in the Republican debate for the top 10 candidates, which had been based on polls from July 16 through September 10.
That meant that Fiorina was still weighed down by polls from before her successful showing in the August 6 minor-league debate on Fox, and would have been excluded from the top-tier table yet again.
Now, CNN will also include any candidate who has been in the top 10 since the first debates on August 6. As its official reasoning, the network is citing the fact that there have been far fewer national polls than previously expected, thus necessitating the rule change.
As an interesting result of this rule change, however, it appears that CNN is drawing on poll numbers from two windows of time: July 16 through September 10, and August 6 through September 10. This means that candidates can be added to the debate, but it’s unlikely anyone will be subtracted.
Chris Christie or Rand Paul might have faced the dishonor of getting bumped down to the kids’-table debate. But as it is, they will both remain in the top 10 as long as no further polls in the next week or so cause a plummet in their mathematical average going all the way back to July 16.
Here is an analysis by national polling expert (and, full disclosure, my former political science professor) Charles Franklin:
My ERROR-New CNN rule does NOT bump Christie-It ADDS any candidate in top 10 8/6-9/10 but not in top 10 using 7/16-9/10. Christie in for now
In May, we announced criteria for our September 16th Republican debates at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. We said that we would use the average of approved national polls from July 16th through September 10th to determine the makeup of the debates. At the time, we expected there to be many more national polls following the first Republican debate, in August, than there appears there will be. In fact, in 2007 and 2011, there were 16 and 15 approved national polls in the comparable AugustSeptember time frame. This year, there have been only three such national polls released. We learned this week that there will likely be only two more polls by the deadline of September 10th. In a world where we expected there to be at least 15 national polls, based on historic precedent, it appears there will be only five. As a result, we now believe we should adjust the criteria to ensure the next debate best reflects the most current state of the national race. In the event that any candidate is polling in the top 10 in an average of approved national polls released between August 7th and September 10th, we will add those candidates to our top tier debate, even if those candidates did not poll in the top 10 in an average of approved national polls between July 16th and September 10th. We have discussed these changes with the Republican National Committee and the Reagan Library and they are fully supportive.
Photo: Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina responds to a question at a Fox-sponsored forum for lower polling candidates held before the first official Republican presidential candidates debate of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign in Cleveland, Ohio, August 6, 2015. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
