We are living in a moment when the world has seen our president for the dangerous incompetent he really is, vainglorious and easily manipulated by a world of despots. No wonder Americans are desperately hoping for a leader who can save their families from the uncertain future they suddenly fear.
Yet for the second time this summer, 20 Democratic presidential hopefuls just showcased their vision of the future by staring into their rear view mirrors and attacking each other about stuff that sometimes happened in the last century and other times just one president ago. The Democratic challengers seek to damage, if not undo, the early front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, for the second time this summer, the cable news journalists moderating these debates seem to have defined their roles not as public communicators, but more as fight promoters. They are carefully framing questions to promote face-to-face attack politics. It’s the hard core of reality (see also: tabloid) TV. But it doesn’t serve the interests of voters or democracy.
So it was that the Democratic Party’s second round of presidential debates Tuesday and Wednesday night left me, and no doubt many Americans, wondering the same thing New York’s legendary baseball manager Casey Stengel once wondered to the also-legendary writer Jimmy Breslin. After years of managing the New York Yankees to World Series wins, Stengel ended up managing the new, woefully inept New York Mets and Breslin chronicled the Mets’ last-place first year in a book he titled by quoting Stengel’s lament: “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?”
Fast forward to Campaign 2020. The candidates figured out they can get maximum TV face time by manipulating the format used by MSNBC last month and CNN this week: Just attack another candidate; then you get face time when you attack and the TV producers will split the screen and keep showing your face while the opponent you attacked is responding; and then you’ll get to rebut once more.
All the pols learned that trick in last month’s MSNBC debate, when Sen. Kamala Harris attacked Biden for his positions on school busing a half-century ago. She wound up with big boosts in the polls and fundraising. TV’s talking heads gushed that she was the debate’s “winner.”
So on Wednesday, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey was among those who eagerly attacked Biden, criticizing the then-senator’s crime and punishment legislation of the last century. And Obama’s former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio attacked Biden for not having spoken out to oppose Obama’s record high number of deportations of immigrants. But lost in all the commotion was the reality detailed in a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis — that in sharp contrast to Trump’s current policies, Obama’s deportations focused on immigrants who were declared national security risks, who committed serious crimes or recently entered illegally.
“It looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn’t,” Castro said to Biden, in an attack that was disingenuous and seemed downright unfair, given that vice presidents rarely go public with whatever they told their presidents in private. Biden explained that, in effect, and also said: “I never heard him talk about any of this when he was (Obama’s HUD) secretary!”
The questions posed this week by CNN’s moderators were clearly designed to promote confrontations rather than promoting light or insight. Tuesday’s first question began with anchor Jake Tapper noting that Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-all plan would “eventually take private health insurance away from more than 150 million Americans in exchange for government-sponsored health care for everyone.” But Tapper then pivoted, noting that former Rep. John Delaney called Sanders’ idea “political suicide that will just get President Trump elected.” Tapper then asked: “What do you say to Congressman Delaney?” Confrontation ensued, as planned.
Wednesday’s debate began with CNN’s Dana Bash quoting a Biden criticism of Harris’ new health plan and asking her: What do you say to that?” And so it goes.
Which brings us back to the most accurate punditry so far in the way-early Campaign 2020 — old Casey Stengel’s “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
Martin Schram, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, is a veteran Washington journalist, author and TV documentary executive. Readers can email him at martin.schram@gmail.com.
