Frank Rich: Kamala Harris's Debate Performance Should Scare Trump

[babylonsister]

the national circus 2:03 P.M.
Kamala Harris’s Debate Performance Should Scare Trump
By Frank Rich

Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today, the fallout from the first Democratic debates.


Over this week’s two nights of debates, the top 20 candidates in the Democratic primary have had a chance to introduce themselves to a national audience. Will anything they said winnow the field?

I am happy to answer with a resounding “Yes!” I’ll take a minor risk and guess that as of this morning, the field has been winnowed by more than half. We’re down from 20 to either seven (Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, Buttigieg, Castro, and Klobuchar) or nine, if you hold out hope that the mellifluous but glib bros Booker and Beto will start putting at least as much effort into bold policy positions as they have into their pandering effusions of gringo Spanish. Most of the rest were dead men and women walking before they arrived onstage, merely marking time until that inevitable moment when their political lifeblood — money — dries up. They will soon be forgotten, even if they’re not yet gone.

Like most everyone else, I did not see the Kamala Harris rocket takeoff coming before last night. Her ascent was easily the most energizing spectacle of the campaign thus far. And her rightly canonized exchange with Joe Biden wasn’t mere political theater — it was substantive. By linking Biden’s praise of James Eastland and Herman Talmadge to his opposition to busing, she revealed that Biden still doesn’t understand that he didn’t only benefit from these bigots’ supposed “civility” on legislative trivia back in the day, but actively enabled at least one plank of their arch-segregationist political strategy. He has chosen not to apologize for that failure. And last night, he paid a huge price by digging himself in further. His invocation in 2019 of states’ rights to argue against busing, a 1970s federal tactic to roll back the de facto school segregation that blighted students like the young Kamala Harris, sounds like something that would pop out of the mouth of Rand Paul, not a Democratic front-runner.


snip//

There was much more to Harris than her Biden face-off. She had sharp, unambiguous answers to every policy question. She was concise. She occasionally smiled and laughed (a card not played by any of the other 19 candidates). And she constantly reminded us that she was a prosecutor not just by saying so, but by showing off her talent. There may be no word that Trump fears more than “prosecutor,” and no professional expertise that the Democratic base is more eager to see inflicted on him. At a juncture when Trump defends himself against a charge of rape by sliming women who are not his “type,” Harris’s emergence could not be better timed. She is not his “type,” heaven knows, and, not unlike her fellow San Franciscan Nancy Pelosi, she is not a “type” he knows how to deal with at any level, whether on Twitter or a debate stage.

I hunger to see Pete Buttigieg on a debate stage with Mike Pence. No Democratic politician has ever been so skilled at tossing the Christian card right back at the likes of right-wing religious hypocrites and homophobes. Buttigieg also implicitly took down Biden when he apologized for his own failure in highly charged racial politics rather than denying his record. Did Biden take it in and learn anything? I doubt it.

more...

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/frank-rich-democratic-debate-harris-biden.html?fbclid=IwAR3UpO_8ywlERYeSQPq96UJD-r9WgGKQPsbD9q1KDlsUiJmdh9I5ZyedUZc

[Trumpocalypse]

1. I stopped trusting Frank Rich in 2000

when he spent the year lying about Al Gore.

[underpants]

2. Yep. I don't know why no one saw that coming as he writes

She’s been in my top 3 for a long time.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. Warren / Harris

Or Pres. Warren and A.G. Harris.

My wild-assed, unscientific guess is that there are many millions of voters who, like me, are tired of seeing old white men at the top of the ticket.

[TruckFump]

12. +1,000! EOM

[Andy823]

4. Doesn't matter who the writer is

He is right, trump should be afraid, and he probably is. Harris did a great job last night of showing the public who she is, what she is about, and the fact she can be the person to take down trump.

Joe is not the "only" one that can win this thing and put trump out of a job, Harris proved that last night.

[NastyRiffraff]

5. Hmmm...a Harris/Buttigieg ticket?

Intriguing. Rich is right about a Harris/Trump AND a Buttigieg matchup. It could be a great ticket.

[uponit7771]

6. K&R, Harris / Buttigeg would but just as bold as Harris / Warren

[The Liberal Lion]

7. I have supported Harris from the start

as I believe that she's the only person who if elected would actually put trump's ass in jail and not play the old "time for healing" card, to avoid responsibility. Don't get me wrong, I would support any of the democratic candidates should they get the nod (except for one) and I really like what Warren has to say, and Joe is just fine in my book, but Harris was and remains my top choice.

[33taw]

8. Assuming he will debate the nominee.

I think he’ll pass.

[FarPoint]

11. I think I will....

Put money on it that you are CORRECT.

[TruckFump]

13. IMO, MF45 will request that any and all debates with the Dem nom are done,

by TWEET!!!!!!!!

[33taw]

14. Or, with Tucker Carlson moderating.

[TruckFump]

17. LOL, good one! EOM

[Panacea-monger]

9. The Yang-Harris Connection

Given that Yang, easily the most knowledgable candidate in terms of economics, got the least amount of airtime despite polling above most other candidates, I wish Harris would at least have had the opportunity to talk more about her expanded earned income tax credit (EITC).

What we call an EITC is actually a "trapezoid program" (effectively a combination EITC, basic income, and flat income tax). Harris' plan, in addition to other improvements, extends the "plateau" (i.e. the basic income part) sufficiently to make the EITC more similar in shape to Yang's Freedom Dividend than to the old EITC. While Harris' EITC is only about a fourth what it needs to be (and what Yang's plan is), it has the advantage of being disguised as an EITC, which makes it less exotic-seeming and thus less subject to naive criticisms such as the moderator's suggestion that the Freedom Dividend recipients would pay it all back in taxes.

[BannonsLiver]

10. I have no doubt Harris would embarrass him.

But Hillary beat him soundly in 3 debates and it didn’t matter much. That’s where I get skeptical. I also think it’s no better than a 50-50 proposition there are any GE debates in 2020.

[Kind of Blue]

15. Indeed! I'd take my chances with pitting the racist

misogynist with a fierce WoC any day. We're just lucky that Sen. Harris has prosecutorial skills to go with her quick intellect. I haven't heard him say a word about her today.

Tick-tock, asshole.

[thesquanderer]

16. re: "Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, Buttigieg, Castro, and Klobuchar"

Castro? What qualifies him for that grouping? His polling is abysmal (RCP average .8%, same as Gabbard, and below Yang, Klobuchar, Booker, or Beto. I know he has some fans, but I was not at all impressed with him in the debate, either. It's not just me... he's still at 0% in the DU poll, too.

[crazytown]

18. There may be no word that Trump fears more than "prosecutor,"