Pragmatic and mildly left-of-center Democrats who wanted desperately to beat Donald Trump were nervous.
They'd settled by process of elimination on Michael Bloomberg, the mega-billionaire. They'd done so because the other candidates were too familiar and flawed--old and inarticulate or wild-haired and socialist or an untested mayor of a small city or just plain annoying.
They'd concluded that the best alternative was the rich pig in a poke--or the idea, at least, of this former New York City mayor who appeared in a pop-up ad every time they got on the Internet. They made a leap of faith.
They'd never seen Bloomberg much in what they call "unpaid media." Thus, the nagging question: Could he debate? Could he handle himself in live hand-to-hand political combat?
It turned out he could not.
From a Las Vegas debate stage on NBC on Wednesday evening, Bloomberg had everything except vigor, spunk, confidence, command, a personality and a seeming soulfulness.
It wasn't that he had been a sexual harasser. We'd already read that in The Washington Post.
It was that he wouldn't, or couldn't, and certainly didn't, handle the heat in a way that would give anyone confidence he could handle the great menace in October.
Your first thought was that Bloomberg should have been better prepared for the inevitable questions about sexual remarks to female employees. But then you realized there was nothing preparation could have done.
He simply had a history as an insensitive, insulated multibillionaire who wrangled out of trouble in the privileged way--with financial settlements and nondisclosure agreements, meaning the power of money and position, which is the foundation of all inappropriate male sexual conduct.
He said the NDAs were "consensual."
Oh, dear. Not that word. How tone-deaf could he be?
Nondisclosure agreements won't be a problem against Trump in the fall. Soullessness very well might be, though.
A Bloomberg supporter told me Thursday that the mayor would be staggeringly better in six days. I await, dubious that soulfulness can be purchased in six days, even with billions.
So, for the pragmatic and mildly center-left Democrat focused on getting shed of the hideous presidential disgrace that is Trump, it was back to the original field in that Wednesday night debate.
Pete Buttigieg was the smartest kid in class, but he can't get black votes and seemed to be calling Amy Klobuchar stupid for no apparent reason. Klobuchar was sputtering, about to blow a gasket upside Buttigieg's baby face.
Joe Biden was doing well finally but maybe only in comparison to the low bar of himself. Bernie Sanders was explaining that his socialism was the democratic kind, a distinction that Democratic Senate candidates in swing states will appreciate his not bothering to try to make in October.
And Elizabeth Warren was standing next to the diminutive billionaire--this Bloomberg--and brutally destroying him.
Warren had fashioned her political message attacking billionaires generally. Now she was showing that she could reduce a specific one to a puddle in hand-to-hand combat.
She basically was saying: This ain't Wall Street and it ain't no commercial, you little dirty-joking creep.
You reckon she could do that in October to the big creep? That's what the pragmatic and mildly left-of-center Democrats were newly wondering.
Yes, let us reconsider Elizabeth Warren, returning her to a moment in the sun, one she blew before by talking about how much Medicare for all might cost. Bernie knew better. He just said Canada can do it, so we can too.
I will admit to thinking of Warren in that early reference to the "just plain annoying." And I am aware that I have guaranteed an email basket overfilled with vitriol because of my supposed gender bias, never minding that I find persons of all genders and varietals annoying, including every Democratic presidential candidate except, maybe, Pete.
My policy problem with Warren has been Medicare for all, meaning this idea of an instant convulsive switch from private insurance premiums, company plans and union contracts to taxes, and whether the electorate could abide it and the economy absorb it.
But I'm sensing we might be able to get Warren as a nominee who could give Trump the Bloomberg treatment, but not really have to worry about Medicare for all, at least all at once.
That's not going to happen even if she becomes president.
For one thing, her position at the top of the ticket would harm Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate in swing states, guaranteeing a continued Republican majority.
For another, a Democratic Congress would amend it to Buttigieg's more sane approach, which is Medicare for "all who want it," meaning as a public option in the Obamacare exchange. And that could very well have the people imposing Medicare universally by their market choices in 10 or 15 years.
So, yes, let us now enter a period of reconsideration of the one the great menace calls Pocahontas.
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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 02/23/2020