For the same reasons I said yesterday, I don't think that there were any winners or losers in this second night of the initial 2-part debate among Democrats, because it's much, much too early for any of it to matter.  And also because this wasn't really a debate, but a multiple-choice questionnaire.  So, there wasn't anything to "win," but just score well on your test.  Even the various blunt exchanges -- most notably between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden -- will have lessened impact at this point in the long journey to the convention.  I won't repeat all the reasons for this that I wrote earlier, but you can see that piece here.

Yes, I know that most commentary says that Kamala Harris "won."  But as I said above, I just have a different perception of what took place.  It just wasn't a debate.  People simply got questions -- a year before the final exam.  Everyone, within a wide framework, passed the test without a failing grade.  But there were definitely people who did better than others, and worse.

But yes, I thought Kamala Harris did well.  Bernie Sanders did fine, though his anger (while understandable) is sticking out a bit much.  Michael Bennet did fine in his answers, but in the Big Gaggle of 10 candidates blended in a bit too much.  Kristin Gillibrand did fine, too, though kept interrupting and talking over others -- I understand why one would do that, but it risks coming across as more desperate than aggressive. Pete Buttigieg did okay, though not at his best.  Eric Swalwell did fine, although I don't think broke through any new ground.  But even Joe Biden did fine -- except for his responses to Kamala Harris, especially considering he had a week to prepare a reply to what he had to know was going to be asked.  He did not come across well in that.

Quick side note: How difficult would it have been for Joe Biden to have answered Kamala Harris's olive branch question about at least acknowledging that his position long ago against busing to have been:  "I have spent a career fighting for civil rights and I believe am well-respected for it.  At the time, for reasons I've explained, I thought my position was the proper one, for busing to be a local issue which I supported. But over a long period of time, as my views on busing have evolved it is clearly not a position I would take today, and for that reason I do regret it."

Back to the others on the gaggle.  Among those who did less-well, I thought John Hickenlooper was just fair.  Andrew Yang was a non-entity.  And Marianne Williamson was banal, though transitioned into silly with her final "We'll beat Trump with love" final statement.  Yet none of them "lost," since they really don't have very far to drop.

Overall, I thought the strength of the debate was that there was more invoking Trump and criticizing him.  The weakness was the efforts to get their voices in and talking over one another.  (Kamala Harris did well addressing that.)

Another weakness is the party's general response to charges of Democrats being "socialists" -- a charge of Republicans for over half a century. They dance around it politely and need to be blunt.  They need to make two points:

1) People who try to push the claim that Democrats are "socialists" are ignorant of what socialism is.  It is not about the government helping the public and providing safety nets.  Socialism is a political philosophy where, as its foundation, the government literally owns all industry and business.  No Democrat has ever promoted that.

2) The American public has long-accepted and overwhelmingly supports policies that are socialistic because they  provide critical safety nets for society -- Social Security, Medicare, public education, farm and oil industry subsidies, the police department, the fire department, federal deposit insurance, the military.  Those are all socialistic at their core and widely supported by Republicans and Democrats alike as central to democracy and capitalism.

Ultimately, I don't think this first two-part debate-like event accomplished much because it was SO early.  This isn't to say Kamala Harris wasn't helped by it -- she was.  Just that for whatever she gained, it was still too early to be as substantive as this would be if it came in six months when the convention is closer and there is a more focused collection of candidates left.

And in the end, that's my biggest takeaway.  It's not that I dislike there are so many candidates -- that's life, if people want to run and qualified for the debate stage, more power to them -- but that there are so many candidates who really have no business being in a race to be President of the United State.  This election is profoundly serious, and whether or not I like someone, I'm really bothered that Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang, and Tulsi Gabard  are on an Ego Tour taking up valuable air time that would otherwise be used to hear from the people who may actually, seriously take on Trump -- but also John Delaney  Bill DeBlasio, Tim Ryan and a few others.  I may even include Julian Castro, as well as he did last night, but is polling at 0.8 percent.  For some of them, I suspect they're running to raise their profile enough to be on the ticket as Vice President.  And while that's understandable, I think that when you only poll at 0.8 percent that isn't a great calling card.

As I've posted in the past, the Chicago Cubs have had a tradition for about 20 years where they invite to the ballpark "guest conductors" to lead the crowd in the 7th inning stretch singing of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."  The singing usually ends with the guest conductor imploring the team to "Let's-get-some-ruuuuns!!!!!!!'

Today's guest left a tweet in anticipation of the occasion --
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It's the 50th anniversary of Sesame Street, so that clearly had most to do with Cookie Monster being there.  

Here's the event itself.  (For the record, the "Gary" who Cookie Monster refers to at the beginning is longtime organist Gary Pressy.)

On final note:  The video cuts off a few seconds before it should have.  (In fact, all but one video that I was able to track down online cut off too early.  Cookie Monster adds something but it's said almost as an afterthought quietly, and I think most people missed it.  I thought of embedding that one video, but the sound quality is bad.)  However, I was watching the game live, and saw the Stretch as it happened.  After Cookie Monster calls out to the crowd to "Let's-get-some....COOOOK-IESSS!!!!!", what you don't see in the video is that a moment later he quietly then says, almost as a second thought -- "...And some runs, too."

Last night, the Democrats held Part One of their two-day First Debate.  My comments will be reasonably curt because that's all I think it deserves.  I know MSNBC gave it A LOT of hype for the past couple weeks, but in large part that's because they were hosting it.  Beforehand, a friend gave me his thoughts on what candidates would have to do be be winners and losers.  I said I thought it would be unlikely that there'd be winners and losers.  It was simply much too early.  Too early for many people to watch and care deeply enough to make someone a winner or loser -- and too early for someone to to do something SO big or SO awful that they'd be a winner or loser.

For someone to be a winner, they'd have to do something so major the whole evening as to swamp everyone -- but with only about 10 minutes at most for each candidate, that would be hard to do.  And for someone to be a loser, there simply wasn't enough room for those at the bottom with 1% to drop.  And for anyone near the top, there's plenty of time to make it up.

I think at this point, people will drop out when they simply don't have enough money to keep running or find it much too pointless.  Not because they did badly at the debate.  Doing badly at the debate when you're around 1 percent isn't going to convince you to drop out -- you're only at one percent already, for goodness sake.  And if you're at the top tier and do badly,

To be clear, I do think candidates can do well, which would be helpful, and other candidates who have poor nights and don't do themselves any good.  And such was the case last night.

For my taste, I thought Amy Klobuchar did well.  And Elizabeth Warren did, fine, too.  Also, Julian Castro was okay, along with Cory Booker.  Jay Inslee did reasonably well, except he barely touched on what is virtually the entirety of his campaign, the environment and Climate Change.  The foundation of his argument is that the issue impacts all issues -- and he never mentioned.  As for the rest, no one really did bad enough to hurt themselves, though I think Tim Ryan came close, most notably on the question of fighting the Taliban who he claimed attacked us on 9/11, when it was, in fact, al-Qaeda.

Afterwards, I listened to some of the post-debate analysis on MSNBC, and the only poor comment I heard came from Nicolle Wallace.  She fretted that when you run against an incumbent president,  you have to frame the race as a referendum on them, and she noted that last night the candidates rarely even mentioned on Trump.  She said that it was almost as if they were running scared, and if they do that, they risk losing in 2020.

The problem with her analysis is that right now the Democrats are not running against Trump.  They're running against one another, trying to get the nomination.  Trying to convince the Democratic voters why they're the best candidate.  And as so often been said -- including during the debate -- if Democrats only talk about Trump and impeachment, they risk alienating voters who care about issues like health care, the economy, war and immigration.  Once someone gets the nomination and becomes The Candidate, then everything changes.  Happily, Eugene Robinson chimed in and said precisely what I was thinking -- "When we have the two party's nominees, trust me, we will hear plenty about this being a referendum on Donald Trump."

​Tonight conceivably could be slightly difference since, because of the luck of the draw, more of the top-tier candidates will be on the debate stage together, so there could be more attempts to position themselves.  We'll see.  But whatever happens, the core reality remains -- there will be hard to be a winner and loser.  Though some will likely do themselves some good, and others perhaps a touch of harm.

​Onward.

There is an excellent commentary on Salon/Raw Story by Heather Digby Parton which has nice things to say about Republican NeverTrumpers, but politely tells them to knock off lecturing Democrats on how to beat Trump.  As she notes, not only could Republicans not beat him within their own party – but she brings up a remarkable statistic:  Democrats have only lost the popular vote once in 31 years!  And she adds that two electoral wins by the GOP during that period are highly “suspect.”

You can read the piece here.
 
 

You may have read about the staged reading of an adaptation of the Mueller Report that was live-streamed on Monday with 18 actors in the roles of the various participants.  Presented by Law Works, it was titled, The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts,

The actors included Jason Alexander, Annette Bening, Wilson Cruz, Noah Emmerich, Gina Gershon, Joel Grey (an especially wonderful Jeff Sessions), Kevin Kline (who read for Robert Mueller), John Lithgow (as Trump), Justin Long, Ben McKenzie, Alyssa Milano, Piper Perabo, ,Kyra Sedgwick, Michael Shannon, Aidan Quinn, Zachary Quinto, Frederick Weller and Alfre Woodard,  Bill Moyer served as the opening host.

It's worth noting that there was "star power" for the writer and director of the production, as well.  (A writer was needed to edit the long report down to a little over an hour, structure the piece so that the piece worked together with a dramatic coherence, and add some narration to tie it all together.)  It was written by Robert Schenkkan, whose credits include the Broadway play about Lyndon Johnson, All the Way starring Brian Cranston -- winning Tony Awards for Best Play and Best Actor -- and later made into an HBO film, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Kentucky Cycle, and the screenplay for the wonderful, though little seen film The Quiet American that got a Best Actor nomination for Michael Caine.  and presented by Law Works Monday night.  And the reading was directed by Scott Ellis among whose many credits are two Tony-nominated musicals from this year alone -- Tootsie and the revival of Kiss Me, Kate -- the stage adaptation of Twelve Angry Men, the revival of The Elephant Man that starred Bradley Cooper, and the revival of 1776.

If you don't have time for watching the whole thing, it's easy enough to jump around.  Even the moments are often terrific.

The other day, I posted a video of Angela Lansbury recreating his title performance from the 1983 Broadway revival of Mame.  Let's head back to the theater for more evidence of what Hollywood screwed up by not let her bring that original Tony-winning performance to the film version. 

The video quality here is poor, and there's a slight, staticky-buzzing noise, but this is a joyful video.  It's the final song of the show, “If He Walked Into My Life,” which composer Jerry Herman has said is his favorite song – and then it leads into the exuberant finale and title song to the wildly-enthusiastic audience.

By the way, there are few things I think are more fun in the the theater than a well-staged finale and curtain call, soaking up every nook of the bows.  And this one does a very nice job of it....
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