In Case You Missed It (v25)

Relaxing and not panicking about Corona (the virus or the beer) and watching college basketball, and waiting for the polls to close in an hour and a half or so down in South Carolina... what better time to look back at this week's posts?

This week's Sunday School was a review of part of the panel discussion on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. The panel was split - two Republicans and two Dems, and while the Rs seemed to be on the same page, the same was not true for the Ds. Rahm Emanuel was one of them; the other was Yvette Simpson, the CEO of the Burlington, VT-based Democracy for America, a progressive PAC.

There was lots of talk about That Guy From Vermont, him being the front-runner and all. Among the comments?

The "broader point," Fagen said, is the lack of vetting for TGFV. "Now, he's the front-runner, and it is coming to him. And we're starting to see the drip, drip of comments about communist leaders around the world and socialist leaders around the world..." We'll have to see how he stands up to having the spotlight on him, she said.

Keep that point in mind as you read the post on debate winners and losers - you'll hear it again...

On Tuesday (before the debate, of course), I tossed out debate drinking game keywords. I had to work at it for a bit to some up with some; as I noted in the post, I was

...trying to stay away from the really obvious drinking game words, of which there many: Medicare for All, billionaires, 1%, Super Tuesday, socialism, African-Americans, coronavirus/COVID-19, frontrunner, and the like.

You can see what I ended up with in the post; how did my list compare with yours?

Wednesday's first post came from The Update Desk, and recapped of how I did with my debate drinking game. Now, before I go any further, I didn't really drink each time my keywords popped up during the two hour slug-fest, because if I had, I'd likely be needing treatment.  Here's a look at how I did.

I actually had a well-hydrated night, looking at my pre-debate list of keywords.  Here's how I did, per the debate transcript. Bolded words are winners.

• Castro, Cuba, Fidel, communism. There were multiple Cuba references and one reference to communist countries, so I'm taking a sip - but not a Big Gulp, since I'm an anti-0besity New Yorker - on that last one.
• Jim Clyburn - he's the most powerful Democrat in South Carolina, and both Klobuchar and That Guy from Vermont dropped his name.

On in the second post on Wednesday, I offered up what the pundits had to say about the winners and losers of the South Carolina debate. I didn't necessarily agree with them, except on the moderators and voters being losers - again - because we're having cage fights instead of policy debates. But I guess that's what we like now, I don't know.  Here's how folks at The Hill looked at things.

From The Hill:

• Winners:  Papa Joe (Above all, Biden sought to portray himself as someone with the political and strategic chops to get things done rather than merely talk about aspirations),Warren (“I don’t care how much money Mayor Bloomberg has,” she said, “The core of the Democratic Party will never trust him.") and TGFV (Sanders won on Tuesday by not obviously losing.)

They weren't the only ones with that take on things, but what a low threshold for TGFV - just don't blow it, and you'll be a winner... Sigh.

In Thursday's Email of the Week post, I took a slightly different approach, it being a debate week and all. Instead of one winner, I published the first post-debate email from each of the five candidates I'm still following.  And, in addition to that, I provided this week's stats. Take a look.

Here's how the week went, with 124 emails filling my mailbox. No surprise (again) that Mayor Pete was the volume winner (again), or that Bloomy brought up the  rear (again).

Yesterday's TGIF brought us a little bit and of that, including some endorsements picked up by Papa Joe and Bloomy, some bizarre comments from Mick Mulvaney, and some fun with NY's Sonofa Gov.  And, there was this.

Speaking of Bloomy, he had to spend a bit of time defending himself in a PBS NewsHour interview with Judy Woodruff, on Muslim surveillance practices in NYC after 9/11. I half expected the Rs to be supporting him on this, given how readily they fell in line with Trump's travel ban, but I haven't seen much support for him.

So, now you're up to date on this week's veritable pastiche. Subscribe, if you're so inclined, in the Instant Gratification box on the right sidebar, and you'll never miss a post.

See you tomorrow for Sunday School, where I'm sure two topics will be the South Carolina primary, and the coronavirus...