Winners and Losers: The South Carolina Debate
Winners: Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar
Despite the constant whining about getting cut off while others weren’t, Joe Biden had a solid performance tonight. It was a performance he needed in order to (hopefully) hold on to a lead come the South Carolina primary. If he cannot come away in first place in South Carolina, it is all over for him – at least in appearance. Still, he was able to get the message he needed across. He touted experience, and specifically experience within the Obama Administration. That will help him stay in the good graces of many black voters, and hopefully help stop the bleeding that some polls have shown.
That bleed shows black voters heading to Bernie Sanders’ camp, however, and that’s not good for Biden. Sanders was targeted more tonight than in other nights, but he was allowed to bypass key issues without much challenge, opting instead to bring in straw men to fight his fights for him. It was with Sanders that the moderators were shown as ineffective at best, and downright powerless at worst. The fact that he was able to shrug off the key issues of paying for his plans, his affection for authoritarian communist regimes, and his support for legislation that gave gun manufacturers immunity from prosecution (one of the issues Sanders has actually been right on, historically) says as much about moderators who didn’t press him to answer the questions instead of avoiding them as it did about the opponents who couldn’t land blows on those issues.
But, one of the few people to get a word in against Sanders and do so effectively was, surprisingly, Amy Klobuchar. She had a good performance, allowing herself to get in ideas and subtle jabs at her opponents without running afoul of the debate rules (often). This gave her a very composed look and sound and was enough to get more camera time than others on the stage. She may not come in the top three in South Carolina, but I would not be surprised to see a bump in the polling.
Losers: Elizabeth Warren, Mike Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg
The problem here is that none of these candidates did a particularly bad job (even Bloomberg, though somehow Woke Mike Bloomberg somehow comes across as more racist than Unwoke Mike Bloomberg), that they couldn’t break into the top three makes this a rough night of them.
Pete Buttigieg came across the worst of all, simply because he would use interruptions to try to land jabs at candidates, but they were lost across the rest of the chaotic interruptions of the night, and while he was the loudest, he also seemed the weakest because of it. I think the arguments he made for himself are and were better made by Klobuchar, who comes across as way more human than he does. He doesn’t appear to have much of a path forward and, frankly, it would be way better to see his voters slide on over to Klobuchar and her make a better run of it.
Meanwhile, you have Elizabeth Warren who simply cannot exist in a race where Sanders also exists. She can try to make the same points and have more details and data, but she lacks the charisma of Sanders and the energy that his campaign and supporters bring to the race. At this point, even if she won’t admit it, she knows her campaign is effectively over.
And Mike Bloomberg’s advisers had one job: Teach him to not come across as a smug jerk… and they failed him. He cannot help but sound condescending to everyone, and he cannot make any point sound good with that tone. He is only in this race because he is dropping obscene amounts of money on the race. That’s the only thing keeping him afloat, and eventually it won’t be enough.
Thanks For Playing: Tom Steyer
Thanks to this debate, we were all reminded that Tom Steyer is a thing that is still happening to us, and even in the middle of the debate, we forgot he existed until the moderators, who were also shocked he was even still on the stage had to read his name in order to direct a question to him. Steyer is a less rich and less effective Bloomberg, who himself is an incredibly ineffective candidate. Steyer’s existence is a mystery to us all. Why are you, Tom Steyer? What is the point of you?
The Bottom Line…
The funniest part of the night is the fact that several of the candidates pointed out “This is how you get Trump” and the audience… cheered? I don’t quite understand what happened, other than the Forces Of Chaos won tonight, and the Democratic Party has a long way to go before it can unite… if it ever does.
Meanwhile, Sanders and Trump Are Not The Same
A lot of people are treating Sanders and Trump as though their campaigns are hitting the same populist notes. The problem is that one is a populist who took advantage of the moment and the other is a pure ideologue who is dangerously dedicated to his beliefs. And Trump is not the latter. Via my column at RedState this morning…
Trump, a lifelong Democrat before deciding to run for office, talked a great game on the campaign trail and knew how to connect with voters. Upon getting into office, he did work to keep as many of the campaign promises he made, to his credit, though there are some disappointments (government spending, for example) that we have to deal with.
Sanders, though, is speaking from his heart, from his most deeply-held principles, and connecting with people who, like him, seek a utopia that isn’t possible. Where Trump’s presidency is one of pragmatic stepping stones toward improvement, Sanders’ presidency would be one of huge leaps into the unknown chasing after a dream that is not possible, whether he could successfully destroy the current American system or not.
That’s why the two simply aren’t comparable. Trump is not someone who is promising the moon. Instead, he promised to fight and move the ball down the field – something he is doing successfully. Sanders is promising the moon, but in exchange is going to force Americans to take ownership of it, no matter whether they want it (and the taxes necessary to pay for it) or not.
That’s what makes Sanders so much more dangerous to the campaign season. His level of ideological fanaticism is contagious, and his ravenous followers are eating it up. If he doesn’t win the nomination because of some technicality or because of a contested convention where even the appearance of shenanigans is visible, they’ll revolt or they’ll walk, and neither is good for the Democratic Party.
Homestyle: So. Many. Beads.
Did you get a whole lot of Mardi Gras beads and have no idea what to do with them? My co-host on the podcast “Homestyle”, Leigh Guidry, is way more creative than I am and is very good at turning beads into wreaths and other great crafts. Check out this week’s episode here.
Coronavirus Is Doing Weird Things To Social Media
With the news about the Centers for Disease Control saying “It’s not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’” as far as a U.S. outbreak of coronavirus goes and the stock market plunging as a result, you would think that Twitter would have its priorities in line.
Actually, if you paid any attention to Twitter at all, you wouldn’t think that. Here’s what has been trending this afternoon:
Do not Google that.
Dick Pound is a Canadian swimming champion who is warning that if the coronavirus outbreak isn’t under control by May, then the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, might have to be canceled. That is very big news, but social media is filled with children, all of whom chose to make sure that the man’s name trended. Because we are very mature.
Recipe Of The Week: Crawfish Cornbread Dressing
Just in time for Lent! Because today is Mardi Gras, I have to plan ahead in terms of getting the non-meat meals planned out. This is a recipe I’ve cooked a few times before, tweaked a bit from some recipe books I’ve collected over the years.
Let’s start with the cornbread.
One 6-inch cast iron skillet
Two large eggs
5/8 (1/2 and 1/4) cup whole milk
1/8 cup whole milk
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
5/8 (1/2 and 1/4) cup sugar
1/2 tbsp. baking powder
One stick butter, melted
1/2 tbsp. Cajun seasoning
Preheat the oven to 350 and put the skillet in the oven to get hot along with it.
Sift and whisk your dry ingredients together in one bowl and whisk your eggs, honey, and milk together in the other bowl. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Don’t whisk it too long, though. Overworking the batter will result in it being too dense, and you don’t want that, especially for the dressing.
Add the melted butter, whisk until mixed together.
Pull out the skillet and pour the batter in. Set it in the oven and cook for 30-40 minutes.
And while that is cooking, get the dressing started.
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
One medium onion, diced
One bell pepper, diced
One stick celery, diced
Five cloves garlic, minced
One pound cooked crawfish (if you find it frozen at the store, be sure to wash it thoroughly!)
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 ground black pepper
1/4 ground red pepper
2 cups stock (chicken or seafood)
Cornbread you are currently baking
Whenever your cornbread is done, pull it out of the oven and let it begin to cool down a bit.
In your Dutch oven, melt 1 tbsp. of the butter and add the trinity (onion, celery, bell pepper). Let it brown and get very soft. It needs to practically dissolve in the broth later.
Stir in the garlic and cook for a couple more minutes.
Stir in the crawfish, salt, pepper (black and red), and add the stock. I cannot stress enough how much you need to wash the crawfish if it’s store-bought and frozen. That briny flavor will overpower the dish if you don’t (as I learned the first time).
Bring the mixture to a simmer for a few minutes and then remove it from the heat. At the remaining butter and stir until it’s melted.
Crumble your cornbread and add it to the mixture in the Dutch oven. How well you incorporate it is entirely up to you. If you like chunkier, clumpy dressing, don’t mush it all together. If you like it smoother, do.
I can guarantee you’ll enjoy this dressing no matter what time of year it is. But, during Lent (if you’re Catholic) and when you need a seafood dish for Ash Wednesday or a Friday, it’s a stellar addition to your dinner table.