I’ve watched, on television or in person, a lot of debates between Democratic candidates over the years, going back at least to one on a cold winter night in New Hampshire in 1983, when Lee Hart, standing in for her husband Gary, said afterwards she would rather have been selling real estate.
The world is vastly different now, and it is a bit jarring to realize that most of the candidates I saw and talked with that night — Alan Cranston, John Glenn, Ernest Hollings – are dead. But the “debates” keep rolling on.
These aren’t really debates, of course. They are mass joint appearances in which cable TV anchors attempt to provoke food fights and sound bites and the savvier of the candidates tend to try to get off a line or a slogan to remember.
There’s nothing wrong with one or two “gang” debates, like the ones we are having now. But what we really need next is one with the serious contenders.
Years ago, when I first started covering politics, a wise old reporter told me that in order to be taken seriously as a candidate for President, you generally had to have been elected governor or senator, preferably of a significant state, and have been reelected at least once.
There were exceptions: Dwight D. Eisenhower had held together a vast international coalition to win a world war, which was correctly seen as being harder and more political as being, say, the governor of Kansas.
But in general, the idea of having previously worked in the field you want to lead makes sense. Which means it’s time to focus our serious attention on these candidates:
Bernie Sanders: Yes, he always looks angry. He waves his arms. He doesn’t pose with puppies. But he is outraged for reasons we all should be outraged. He changed the course of politics in America. All the candidates are talking about issues he first raised four years ago. He got elected to Congress and the U.S. Senate against long odds and keeps getting reelected.He took on a system rigged for Hillary Clinton and won more than 13 million votes without pandering to anyone.
Joe Biden: Has more experience in government than anyone else; knows better than anyone how the legislative and executive branch both work.
Elizabeth Warren: Defeated an incumbent to be elected and then re-elected U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. Well-developed policy ideas.
Kamala Harris: Overwhelmingly elected U.S. Senator from our largest state; vast experience as a prosecutor, minority perspective.
Kirsten Gillibrand: Elected and re-elected senator from New York
Amy Klobuchar: Repeatedly and overwhelmingly elected senator from Minnesota, a state in the key industrial Midwest.
Jay Inslee: Popular governor and former congressman of Washington, a state which too often is overlooked; has made climate change a centerpiece of his campaign.
Pete Buttigieg: An exception to the usual rule, but distinguished by his utter brilliance, military experience, and fresh perspective.
Those may not be exactly the elite eight; but they all deserve to have a more serious examination of their ideas, temperament, ability to govern, etc. You can’t really do that in a forum that includes a bunch of former back-bench members of Congress. Marianne Williamson is a charismatic religious leader who, surprisingly, said some things that we all need to hear.
But that doesn’t make her a legitimate contender for president.
We’ve endured what will soon be three years of a chief executive who has no qualifications of any kind for a job most of those who voted in 2016 didn’t want him to have. Don’t you think it’s time to get the qualified adults in the room?
