CBS Lost the Debate

Democrats lost, too.

There was a dual message, and both were bad: CBS is incompetent. Democrats are in disarray.

Where are Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite when we need them? 

This is the time in the process when things are jelling. A new leader emerges from chaos, and voters, activists, and elected Democrats begin adjusting to the new political alignment. Arguably, that is where we are now. Bernie Sanders has a pathway to the nomination. The opposition to Sanders is splintered and the 15% threshold to get any delegates means that some of those votes for Buttigieg, Steyer, Biden, and Klobuchar will be assigned to Sanders. Sanders may have this wrapped up by evening on Super Tuesday.

This is a fork in the road for Democrats. Sanders isn't just a new leader. He is a new alignment of message, voters, and campaign funding. He does not represent a continuation and evolution of the current Democratic Party. He is a rejection of it. 

The reality of that break from the old is muddled by the fact that Sanders' policy goals are largely similar to those of the Clinton-Obama-Pelosi party, and Sanders preserves the parties' positions in the great culture war. The Democratic Party remains the more urban, more secular, more feminist party, and the one more responsive to the frustrations of people of color. Sanders differs from the old party in his message on the causes and solutions for income inequality, which means he attracts a different base constituency, and relies on a different donor base. That changes everything.

In Sanders' view, the old Democratic Party worked with corporate America and accepted its values and policies along with its campaign money, and that was a betrayal of working people. Democrats became simply a kinder, gentler, hypocritical version of the GOP on the key issues of jobs, trade, income distribution, and war. Both parties, he argues, are captured by powerful corporate interests, operating through their influence on campaign funding. Sanders rejects that. He is openly hostile to corporations and billionaires. The very rich are not allies; they are enemies.

Tuesday night's debate had the potential to be the watershed showdown between the new and old. Sanders would get hit from all sides and he would defend his positions. It could have been the trial by fire of Sanders's vision.

The opportunity was lost.

CBS validated everything snarky and critical that people have said about corporate media. They announced time limits on talk but made little attempt to enforce them, so candidates quickly learned to ignore them. The moderators asked questions designed to pick at political vulnerabilities rather than policy, and nobody had a chance to explain anything in any detail. If their goal was to create a chaotic food fight, they succeeded. At one point Sanders and Buttigieg simultaneously spoke for an entire minute, audio live on both microphones, appearing on split screen.

It turned into a mix of professional wrestling and Jerry Springer, dealing with minor points and resentments. Did people know Bloomberg had donated to Lindsay Graham, what did Sanders mean when he praised Cuban education, how did that differ from what Obama said, was Putin helping Sanders and why, who gets credit for what legislation, whether a D- score from the NRA is low enough.

It was all pretty silly.

The classic case of missed opportunity was when Elizabeth Warren, who potentially could represent a bridge across the Democratic chasm, used her time to attack Bloomberg, then persisted with it, questioning Bloomberg's jokes found inappropriate by three female employees, and his apology. He said he agreed, that he released the women from the non-disclosures, and that he ended at his firm the non-disclosure policies common on Wall Street. "Yes" was not good enough for Warren. Having heard agreement, instead of moving on to take credit for progress, incredibly, she turned back to more attacks on the same subject. She transported herself from a presidential candidate into the archetype never-satisfied scold, which is what people say when pressed to explain what they mean by "there is something about her I don't like." There it is. That is what they don't like.

The debate was a lost opportunity for Sanders and for Democrats. It failed to test whether Sanders could defend--and sell-- the new vision for the Democratic Party. He is proposing that Democrats make war against current allies of the party--"good" businesses, wealthy people, people tired of all the political upset, and the suburban voters that voted in the new House majority--without demonstrating he can sell a robust message that will unify Democrats and will replace those voters with the frustrated working class. He has convinced Democrats he can shun the moderates; can he convince them he can pull together a winning coalition? He didn't get a chance last night.

The debate also failed to identify a single, plausible alternative candidate to Sanders. All of them are sort of plausible and sort of flawed.

Bloomberg was positioned at the end and looked like he did last debate: imperious, cold, technocratic, competent, and prepared to step into the middle, brush aside all this participatory democracy time wasting, and win things the old fashioned way, with the mother's milk of politics, money.  That remains plan B. What we don't know yet if Plan A--Sanders--can sell his message to the sixty or seventy percent of Democrats who like someone else better than him.

And who are tired of all the drama.