So...as discussed the other day, the Majority report covered a debate and trashed Mallory McMorrow on healthcare. Well, I went back and watched this debate...and uh...it's a dumpster fire. Like, I'm going to be honest, I'm TIRED of "normal" politics. I'm TIRED of normal political answers. And this debate....is mostly that. Most questions are right wing coded. They focus on the same old crap. How are you going to compromise? I don't want a candidate that compromises. Can we stop fetishizing compromise? We compromise when we have to, but we push for solutions when we're able to. Why do we need to fetishize moving to the center? What about the budget deficit? Stop electing republicans who wanna cut taxes while getting us involved in unnecessary wars. What about growing the economy? Growth growth growth, but how does this impact normal people? What about job creation? Ffs, can we stop talking about jobs jobs jobs and start talking about ensuring people have their needs met regardless of income? All of these questions assume a certain worldview that tends to favor moderates running on moderate platforms, giving politically correct non answers that are what voters apparently wanna hear, but dont really contain substance. I've heard this crap all my life. The world never changes, it never gets any better, and all of these answers are, quite frankly, BULLCRAP.
With that said, El Sayed nailed it. He clearly stood out, offering progressive answers to questions that broke the mold the most. He framed things well, all things considered, but still maintained that progressive flair. He was very dynamic. He was very on top of things, and while I cant say I always agreed with him on substance, he definitely won on style.
With that said, the other two candidates were....middling. Sometimes Stevens came off better, sometimes McMorrow came off better, but honestly, I didnt like either. Stevens came off as extremely experienced, acted like she knew what she was doing, and generally seemed to be a seasoned establishment democrat. I cant say I always liked her answers, as a lot of what she was selling was the same milquetoast bullcrap I just railed against, but she was relatively convincing for what it was and she did seem to play the whole "jobs" and "union" angle well, for all of her warts and flaws in my view.
Mallory McMorrow was more all over the place. One minute shes saying that we need change and blah blah blah, then on healthcare she pulled this weird Hillary 2016esque answer about how we cant wait for some revolution thats never gonna happen on healthcare and we need solutions now. Well, Im gonna be blunt. The best solution is...medicare for all. Even as a public option supporter myself, I will concede that. It's the best, most elegant solution on that issue. My only reason for not still being a full M4A guy is wanting a different revolution on UBI, and offsetting my fiscal ambitions on that proposal by cutting back elsewhere to make it happen. But yeah...again, McMorrow is just...bad on healthcare. I cant say her other positions were always bad. But to be fair, I can barely remember much of what she said because so much of it was rather uninspiring. It was in one ear and out the other.
With that said....while I would say El Sayed bad by far the best performance and answers in line with my whole "OH GOD CAN WE NOT HAVE THE SAME OLD HO HUM BULLCRAP?!" perspective, if you actually like that bullcrap, Stevens was very polished. She was a good bullcrapper in my view. She's a very politician-y politician. I didn't like much of what she actually said, but she was very polished and relatively charismatic for what she was. Love her or hate her, she shows a command of the centrist lane of the democratic party.
So where does that leave McMorrow? Being a middling candidate with a middling performance, not really standing out in any way, kinda being all over the place, offering politician-y answers too but them not really landing, and just...not standing out as a candidate. She was out centristed by Stevens, she was out progressived by El Sayed, and yeah, I'd say she just...imploded. I mean, that might not be fair to her. She didn't do that bad. It's not like she went all biden 2024 or something and had a brain malfunction on stage. BUT....she didn't stand out either way, and given that's something you gotta do in debates between multiple people, it's actually worse in some ways to be the person who no one remembers than the person who did bad. This isn't to say that she isn't still my second choice given I certainly aint interested in what Stevens is selling, but yeah. Her debate performance was kinda weak here.
So...yeah. That's where I stand on that. El Sayed > Stevens > McMorrow as far as this debate goes.
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