On Tuesday, October 13, at 8:30 p.m., the first of several Democratic primary debates kicked off, quite appropriately, in Las Vegas—the perfect location for the event’s despairing losers to gamble and drink away their pain. Despite nearly two hours of unenlightening, repetitive, circumlocutory debate, minimal new information came to light and no poll standings changed substantively. In spite of their best efforts, candidates Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb are still vigorously contesting for last place, while former Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley evidently (and secretly) continues to hope that one of the frontrunners will add him to his or her ballot. As for the two big dogs, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are still passive-aggressively battling one another in this most windbag-rife campaign—one disconcertingly complete with millions of dollars for them to spend, a national audience for them to pander to, and a list of fashionable buzz-words for them to tout (see Sanders’s “political revolution” and Clinton’s “children’s potential”).
In short, the campaigns thus far have largely been joco-serious in that it seems many voters despairingly hope it’s a joke while others sullenly know it’s serious. Such is modern politics, so such is this article.
The night began with markedly similar opening statements from all five candidates—Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Larry, Moe, and Curly. Predictably, Sanders began by divulging to the American people that he is, in fact, a socialist. The Vermont senator then (seemingly one heartbeat away from a coronary) built upon this shocking revelation by hoarsely shouting that the top one percent of Americans have too much of the nation’s wealth, that the middle class is shrinking, that the minimum wage must be raised, that climate change is real, and apparently, that the American public must really, really enjoy hearing that which it already knows. Of course, Sanders did switch up his talking points a bit by mentioning that capitalism is bad (yes, that’s right—bad). More seriously, he later reintroduced the notions that the top one percent possesses too much power and money, that the government must break up its largest banks and simultaneously build up the middle class, and Congress must raise the minimum wage substantially. In the end, Mr. Sanders fought the good fight to keep his turf—neither gaining nor losing much ground in the polls—while simultaneously calling out capitalism, failing to introduce a new policy (or even a solid viewpoint) for gun control, and repeating “the top one percent…” every half hour.
After the debate, though, Hillary Clinton remained the frontrunner in the Democratic polls all because she showed up. Much like Sanders, former secretary of state Clinton spent much of the night brushing off opposition from the anchor-turned-interrogator Anderson Cooper by avoiding the questions entirely:
“Secretary Clinton, are you a progressive or moderate?”
“Yes.”
“Secretary Clinton, do you side with or against the Obama administration?”
“Yes.”
“Secretary Clinton, how should the United States intervene in Syria?”
“Yes.”
And even once…
“Secretary Clinton, do you want to respond?”
“No.”
Of course, Mrs. Clinton did contribute to the conversation by saying too that Congress must raise the minimum wage, that the government must counter climate change, that American society must emphasize immigration reform, that college costs must decline with federal aid, and that the middle class should pay less while the wealthy should pay more—all of which sounds eerily echoes the talking points of the last president to whom she lost. Altogether, Clinton spent much of the night reiterating common talking points of the Democratic Party.
When asked how she’ll differ from the current administration, she quaintly noted one major discrepancy, which she finds fundamental to her campaign: “Well, I think that’s pretty obvious. I think being the first woman president would be quite a change.” And there lies the rub, Hillary Clinton sees gender like Bernie Sanders sees socialism—as the key to winning the United States presidency, as the cornerstone to separating her from the pack, and as the most expedient way to dominate the polls. Much like her foremost (and only legitimate) opponent in this race, former Secretary Clinton dominated the stage with a loud mouth, a contentious personality, and very little new policy to introduce to the American people.
In short, this debate was, this campaign is, and these candidates are all unquestionably, unequivocally, and unexclusively mind-numbing. Despite all of their differences, these candidates unite in their seemingly inescapable necessity to be either forgettably boring or scandalously controversial. So, when voters rush to the polls in the coming months, they will once again find themselves (as Sanders might say) in a “quagmire within a quagmire,” choosing between equally unpleasant options who parrot the American public’s own knowledge and recycle the talking points of elections past. One can only hope that once these poor voters leave the primary booths, they’ll be close enough to Las Vegas to gamble and to drink away their pain like the rest.
Image Source: Flickr/DonkeyHote