As the most famous arbitrator of any kind of pugilism, from sports to politics once said, “Let’s Get It On” (The great Mills Lane), The DEMO debates are here and let’s start by saying that there are no neutral corners so if a knock down is scored, we’re going by 1900’s boxing standards which means that the person that just landed that political blow isn’t backing off and going to a neutral corner. That was never more evident when Sen. Harris put Biden on the ropes and landed some heavy shots, all above the belt as she made sure to say that she did not believe that Joe was a racist but done f’ed up in his decision and she was there to make sure he admitted it. Former VP Biden shouldn’t be surprised that he will be on the receiving end of some hay makers as he and Sen. Sanders are the front runners. For his part, he countered but not well enough. That’s 10-9 round for the Senator from California, who by the way has some very high quality political ring experience. And I quote, uhhh… and I surmise this is no time for a food fight, this is the time to put food on the table for working families. She had to have that prior because man, that was a show stopper and attention getter. A bolo punch from way outside that landed flush and the chin of her competitors. I think Sen. Harris might be latina because she sounded just like my ex-wife when we were still dating about who was going to get breakfast. If you read my blog you’ll note that I never won that argument and in this debate, sorry Joe but the phrase is can I please have huevos pericos con carne, because Joe, in that issue, Sen. Harris made you get breakfast.

The answers by the political combatants were mostly along party lines. They mostly agreed on everything, but differed on how to implement them. I like lofty goals but I prefer a realistic solution. I think we’re all tired of I’m going to do this and do that when you know there is no hope of it getting done, Sen. Sanders made that point at the end. There wasn’t much of that in this debate or at least I got the sense or I felt like these people could actually do what they were saying. They inspired me, they taught me something, they gave me hope, they gave me the warm and fuzzy feeling like that they could take care of us, as a nation. That’s good, so I kind of looked for the person that made me feel like that and was pragmatic. The one that knows this is no easy task but has that self confidence in themselves, the grit, the wherewithal to get the job done and the one knows when things aren’t working and know to find a different solution. I do want to note something.

In 2016, the Repub field was large because all expected that former Sec. Clinton would receive the nomination and they thought her vulnerable, so when Sen. Sanders almost pulled of that upset, the Repubs were biting their fingernails because they were witnessing a small revolution. Clinton ended up winning and what they predicted came to fruition. There are about the same number of Demo candidates, there is a reason for that. These people see a problem and feel that they can exploit something. This is going to be very interesting.

The topics of health insurance, which, in my opinion, all are getting it wrong, but I write a blog and eat Ramen Noodles, the spicy ones are great, so what do I know, but here is my opinion. I say don’t make the same mistake as Social Security. It had good intentions but when the government got in a pinch they raided the coffers. That’s exactly what will happen if you let the government run health insurance. If you go to government run healthcare, the money collected will eventually be diverted to other things or other fixes or tax cuts and it will get all f’ed up. The problem with health insurance is that CEO’s have yachts, (I got that from Sen Warren and good for her for pointing it out) I think they named the yacht “wouldn’t have this without breast cancer”, that’s wrong in so many ways. 27 million for a CEO, that’s about one thousand people that won’t get coverage for their life threatening disease. I say eliminate the CEO’s, keep the managers, and make the government oversight the CEO, and merge all the companies into one. Before you say that’s illegal, it’s a monopoly, since there will be no competition, no profit making, since our ailments will no longer make anyone a yacht owner, there is no monopoly… unless parker brothers becomes your health insurer. The money collected will be used solely for bettering health, the people that work there, work on a set wage and not bonuses, any left over money, if there is any, would be given as a rebate back to the people. A private business with no lobbying power only there to help people. Private medicare where the CEO, the President of the U.S., earns nothing. The biggest part is that the government won’t be able to dip their fingers into any of the money and the business won’t make a single dollar in profit. It will work the same way it works now except no 40 million dollar golden parachutes or exorbitant salaries. I mean, a golden parachute, wouldn’t they die in free fall, I would hope so.

I love the narrators, they were great, seriously but there is one question that made no sense. Would you pay for illegal immigrants health insurance? It baffled me for a second because my first thought was would you help a person on the street that gets hit by a car, or has a heart attack? or would you check their wallet first to make sure they can afford your help? You help because it is simply the right thing to do. You help because you are human and they are human. The question seemed like a gotcha question and the debaters were looking for the right way to address the question, respectfully, in a way that makes sense. I would have been admonished for my salty language. Hell yeah you help and address any issue, if it needs to be addressed, afterwards. It is important to note that it’s illegal to spend tax money on our illegal citizens. But a proper health care system, like the one mentioned above, would allow for hospitals to take care of any serious injuries to anyone and still profit. There is already a system put in place where people without health insurance still receive treatment, maybe not full on care, but enough to remedy the issue. Illegal citizens are just people without health insurance.

I loved the outrage of how illegal citizens were treated. This is going to a be big issue. A child should never fear anything. Mayor Buttigieg’s answer on the hypocrisy of helping people or lack thereof by a party that associates or bases there ideals on a man that did nothing but help people, that gave his life to help people, was amazing… What he did there was land 1, 2, 9, 3, 2, 1 combination. If you know boxing you know that was one hell of a shot combo. Sen Sanders took the pragmatic approach, the right approach, he said yeah and I’ll make sure that the situation won’t be needed because he will fix the problem in our back yard and address Honduras, El Salvador and Central America to make sure that their countries are no longer safe havens for the worst drug lords this world knows, bad people that keep good people in constant fear. As the greatest nation on this good earth, it is our duty to help when a country is run by the corner drug dealer. So after Mayor Pete landed his combo, Sen. Sanders said let me show how you do it, landed the pragmatic 1, 2 down the middle and got himself a 10-8 round.

All the debaters were really good but some did stand out. I also seen that some tried to interject humor. Some did really well and some sounded like me telling my son a knock knock joke, they got silence and stare that said please don’t do that again. I actually thought they were pretty funny but none as much as Rep. Swalwell who gave an earnest try at what I thought was a funny moment only to get the knock knock silence to which you can hear the Representative audibly get frustrated. It’s the delivery, that’s what my kid tells me, god bless his heart, it was funny, it’s just your delivery.

Joe, when they tell you to pass the torch, which is a great one liner, tell him, I definitely will, when I’m done with it. VP Biden is still a stalwart for and of the people. And he’s right, it’s not the NRA, it is the gun manufacturers. Don’t be fooled by the mouth piece, you have to know who really is doing the talking.

Sen. Sanders, the ever respectful hard nosed political icon, and he is, gets respect because people see that he deserves it. Sen. Sanders is “I’ll give you the mic when I’m done talking sir” democrat of this age. He should have been the nominee in 2016 and is still a very deserving nominee. BTW, he won the last 45 seconds.

Sen. Harris is charismatic and a gifted debater. She, as Sen Harris pointed out will be the proper pronoun for the next President, is formidable, strong, intelligent and gets you to go get breakfast, because SHE is busy fixing shit (sorry but that seemed to fit).

Mayor Buttigieg, I hope I’m getting that right, commands (which is a big deal because all he needs is the -er and chief behind that, I hope I don’t have to explain that) the stage and it seems that people are measuring their answers to his answer (except for Sanders). Mayor Pete served in a war, do you know how big of a deal that is? If you don’t, trying to explain it won’t help. Mayor Pete is a Rhodes Scholar, he speaks an ungodly amount of languages, which might come in handy with the foreign leaders on those side bars, and he is the EF Hutton of of these democrats. When he speaks, and I’m being very serious, everyone listens. I knew someone just like him, they call him 44, as in the 44th President of these United States (Obama was the 44th President right, I should look that up). Also the only person to take blame for an issue, stating “I couldn’t get it done”, a “the buck stops here” moment.

I do not think the other worthy debaters got the proper amount of time, that would be all of them. The one thing that these debaters taught me, in particular Harris and Sanders, is that the stock market is not a marker on how our economy is doing, it just means that big business is doing well. It felt like they sat me down and put a dunce cap on my head because that’s exactly how I was viewing it but seemingly I was wrong. I learned something or how do we say it now, I got schooled.

This is just a recap of the second debate.

The one thing I would like to add is that these questions shouldn’t be necessary. They should all have been answered by now. Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect, a butterfly flaps it’s wings in one place and it causes a hurricane in another. Well it doesn’t have to be just natural disasters, a person takes care of a person in one place and people are freed and made safe in another. It doesn’t have to be a negative connotation, it can be a positive one, it just depends who is leading the charge.

 

Every once in a while, I”ll take some of the NYT’s more interesting articles and post them. This one was ingenious. 18 Questions for 21 different candidates and see which answers best meet your way of thinking. The winners in my book  (in no particular order) and the reasons why were

Question 1 In an ideal world, would anyone own handguns?

Give this one to Buttigieg and Harris for a weird reason, for both noticing that in an ideal world, this question would not be necessary. Everyone else follows the cookie cutter answer but Harris and Buttigieg realized that the question was flawed in its premise, ideal worlds don’t need to be questioned. It actually takes a little smarts to realize that. They were the only two to kind of point it out. Mistakes people made, attacking the NRA because it just seems political, doesn’t seem like a practical solution. It’s like when the Repubs attack Planned Parenthood, they are doing it just because they don’t donate funds to their side.

Question 2 (A lot of words about healthcare)

This question was what Sanders has been saying since his hair was still dark and combed, just kidding, Sanders recognizes this to be a problem but none have the solution that I was looking for. If President Trump can declare illegal immigration a national emergency, why can’t the next President declare healthcare a national security issue? The answer I was looking for was cancer shouldn’t be profitable, it should be cured. The only way you do that is by taking profit away from insurance (not the pharmaceuticals or the hospitals or nurses, just the insurance companies). Make it a private monopolized company which would allow for strict government oversight and profit cap, no millionaires in the business, and since it would be just one company, they would not be allowed to lobby. A lot like NASA, but for healthcare. This would minimize how much you have to pay and maximize the amount of care.

Question 5 Who is your hero and why?

Lol, a lot of Oedipus Complex in these answers and a lot of love for their spouse or life partner. Abraham Lincoln, MLK and the Roosevelts were mentioned a lot. Some picked a Mexican freedom fighter and another Ms. Tubman of the underground railroad. The answer were quite genuine and heartfelt, differing from some of their other answers to other questions, these were more instinctive. I’m a fan of Lincoln, not only because he held the country together in one of it’s most turbulent times but because of how intelligent the President was. He figured out how to become his party’s nominee while being the least known candidate. He, like the Jeopardy champion, figured out the flaw in the process that could be exploited to win. That is a trait that maybe .0001% of the people on this planet have, and Lincoln showed why that trait was so important. It’s seeing the obscure as obvious. I’ll be looking for that in all candidates. It’s not about always having the right answer, it’s about knowing it when it presents itself.

Question 8 Something about illegal immigration being a problem.

The answer is….of course we don’t want illegal immigration, but the problem is not the U.S. or the immigrants that are obviously fleeing violence, it’s obviously the country they are coming from that has poor and corrupt leadership. Castro made a great analytical point about fixing the problem. Can’t be short sighted. Fix the country they are coming from and you fix illegal immigration. Then all immigration would be legal because all nations would be profitable. A Marshall Plan for Central and South America. That was a great answer. Can’t stop a hurricane by locking the door people, can only slow it down. What else, if building a wall didn’t work, building a bigger wall is just going to obstruct your view of it not working. I got some more, the definition of crazy is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. If none of the ditch digging, wall building, fence having avenues worked, then maybe we’re headed to crazy town unless we come up with a better solution, which is where Castro and Warren differed in all the answers.

Question 12 Do you support or oppose the death penalty?

What can I say, this almost went down party lines except for Bullock, (no relation to Sandra, I’m guessing) but the death penalty should be a personal choice. If someone is locked up for life and has no chance of parole and exhausted any and all remedy that they had to become a free person, if they choose to take the death penalty instead of living in 7 x 9 cell for the rest of their lives and because they hate the view of chimney smoke and because they cancelled GoT, then it should be their right to die. I think it less humane to cage a person for life then to let them have the option or choice to meet their maker. Oddly,  Dems are for abortion but against the option or choice of death penalty. Again, I think it should be the person’s choice, not the states.

Question 18 Does anyone deserve to be a billionaire?

LOL, sure, but their employees should be millionaires, and if they are millionaires, then their employees should hundred thousandaires, and so on. That’s how equality works, it isn’t trickle down economics, it’s wide open spout guaranteed wages.

My favorites were (in no particular order) Sanders, Harris, Buttigieg, Castro, Warren and Klobuchar. I really wanted to root for Gabbard but her answers were short and to the point but not in-depth, nothing really stood out. Booker was to emotional, he needs to let the Jersey out, he seems too caring (that sounds wrong but you know what I mean). Beto seems to be looking for the answer that you want to hear, sorry man, just seems that way. I liked Gillibrand but she almost seemed a little indecisive. Still a little early to tell.

Here is the big point. None were that funny, not that it matters a lot, being funny, maybe Buttigieg, but Trump is hilarious even if our politics sometimes don’t mesh and he can captivate. I wrote a post about a freshman congresswoman, Abigail Spanberger, and the NYT had interviewed her. Spanberger beat a good ol’ boy in his backyard that was dominated by good ol’ boy politics. She did it by being forceful, honest and ….. listen to the interview, funny or not scared of trying to be a little light hearted. The best thing, just a trick, self deprecating humor, works all the time. Don’t be afraid to point out some of your faults, if you don’t, President Trump will definitely do it for you, so you might as well beat him to the punch. Oh, by the way, you know who won with a little self deprecation in between powerful speeches, if you don’t, then why did you list him as one of your heroes. #16.