.@BetoORourke to @TedCruz: “If the president attacks you personally…how you respond is your business. But when the president attacks our institutions…that is our business.”
Watch the debate here, courtesy of @NBCDFW. https://t.co/YrOsTJAA4L#txsen #tx2018 #txsendebate pic.twitter.com/NHloaOpV9G
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) September 21, 2018
Reports from last night’s debate:
Did Ted Cruz just blame school shootings on “removing God from the public square”?!
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) September 21, 2018
Beto: I have a responsibility as a white person to use my white privilege to dismantle white supremacy
Cruz: All children must die because you are bad at praying, don't shoot the messenger#TXSenateDebate
— andrea grimes (@andreagrimes) September 21, 2018
And then…
The last question requires O’Rourke and Cruz to say one nice thing about each other. “I think you are sincere in your beliefs, like Bernie,” says Cruz. “True to form,” O’Rourke responds. ??
— Elaina Plott (@elainaplott) September 21, 2018
For his part, O’Rourke said he admired Cruz’s commitment to his family in midst of such a high-pressure job.
— Elaina Plott (@elainaplott) September 21, 2018
Cruz debates like a champion college debater: he cares about "impressing the judges" and winning on points because that's mostly what counts there.
IRL, not coming across like an ungracious prick matters even more. https://t.co/kW1XeYt4em
— Jeff B. (@EsotericCD) September 21, 2018
Yeah…that kinda captured something huh https://t.co/AuLASuBpVX
— EricaGrieder (@EricaGrieder) September 22, 2018
Ohio Mom
The only part of the debate I saw was the excerpt of Cruz’s “nice” statement about Beto and Beto’s reply, “True to form.” It was a zinger I am afraid may go over most people’s heads. But I got a good chuckle out of it.
I also saw Beto’s follow-up video with his sisters’ take on his performance. It looks like the first sister to comment — the shortest one, who said “Awesome!” — lives with a developmental disability.
This may also go over most people’s heads but it is lovely to see a family include a DD member in such a natural, casual and matter-of-fact manner. And without using her to show off how virtuous they are.
Major Major Major Major
The thing Cruz has never realized is that everybody hates college debate.
marcopolo
@Ohio Mom: As a person whose first job out of college was working with DD folks I had the exact same reaction to that clip.
And as you are also in OH (though I don’t know where) I want to repost a reply I made to Kay on a dying thread below to her comment about the OH folks around her having a “grim” mentality.
I was in NW Ohio last weekend taking my mom to her 67th HS reunion. Grim is a good descriptive word for what I experienced over 4 days. The town/county I was in has a fairly stagnant economy. We ate dinner one evening with some family friends who have three adult kids, none of whom saw any reason to return home after college to pursue careers–the closest is working in Cleveland.
The big economic development in the last ten years has been the placement of several wind energy farms in the county. According to a fellow who is on the county economic development board the company behind the wind farms wants to invest an additional $1 billion into more wind farms & solar fields there but the general reaction from the (older very white) residents tends more to anger over the turbines destroying their view. And they don’t seem particularly happy with the idea of there being 20-40 new wind turbine tech jobs, each paying around 100K/year, because that will just mess up the local economy/cost of living.
I did not see many campaign signs on my daily walks (most of them were for the local auditor’s race). No signs for Latta, Dewine or Renacci (sp). However there were two houses that each had 3 signs up for Sherrod, the Galbraith (D candidate for congress), and the local D state house candidate. Nothing for Cordray though. Speaking of Cordray, I guess Dewine is running a lot of ads that just outright lie about his positions? I had lunch with 2 cousins (white guys in their 60s who have traditionally been D leaning & live on the outskirts of Toledo) who apparently believed what the ads said about Cordray’s positions on drug offenders–I couldn’t believe what they were saying was true so googled it when I got home, found a number of articles, and emailed them back a link to one from the Dispatch. The reply I got was along the lines of “yeah, I see your point (which was not to believe shit they see/hear in campaign ads) but I still don’t like his (Cordray’s) position on Issue 1. I must admit I was a little surprised but their views/attitude. What a difference a decade (the last time I spent time with them) makes.
OzarkHillbilly
Damn. That was a bullseye. Almost enough to make me feel sorry for Cruz.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Not really
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Which one was the bullseye?
oatler.
I’d like to hear Beto paraphrase an earlier statesman and say “Please proceed, senator.”
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: The clip at top on how Cruz defends himself from personal attacks. It was f’n brutal.
Ohio Mom
@marcopolo: I’m in the Cincinnati suburbs but Mr. Ohio’s brother and his wife lived in Toledo for a few years not so long ago, and i agree, it is a morose area.
Reminded me of Dayton (where we lived for four interminable years, 1998-2002): someplace that once had a lot going on, remembers those years, and now has nothing going on and no prospects of anything ever happening again. In short, the epitome of the rust belt.
I try very hard not to pay attention to the politics of my immediate neighbors. I know most of them are Republicans and my feeling is, denial is a fine approach to many aspects of life IF you have chosen it after careful deliberation.
Though my precinct did go for Hillary, so maybe some of my neighbors are morw flexible than I give them credit for.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I like the cut of that man’s gibberish.
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major:
So true.
Chetan Murthy
Davis X. Machina has this phrase: “he hates the same people I hate — gimme the damn ballot”. Gotta say, aside from the (possible) really egregious reallly really egregious asshole/thief/misogynist [at this point, I think racists & homophobes just can’t be in the Dem party, but I could be wrong], I don’t need to learn much about a candidate in the general. Just don’t need to.
“She’s a Dem? Gimme the damn ballot!”
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
And moral philosophy professors.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: That really was a thing of beauty. Did you watch the debate? Beto’s dry delivery of “True to form” at the end of the debate was really effective, I thought. I think the dagger was in before Cruz knew what happened.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: I never watch debates. They are mostly filled with empty panderings and sodden soundbites. I like to wait for the “greatest hits” to be advertised and then check them out.
Chetan Murthy
@Mnemosyne: Are you saying you’re not a Chidi fan [from The Good Place]?
cliosfanboy
@Ohio Mom: I am in beavercreek now. Dayton native who moved away years ago. The city looks better than it did a decade ago. But while in a bookstore in The Green I noticed that all of the books in the Staff Reccomends section were right wing garbage. Ugh. Back in falls church the books displayed were mostly how awful trump is. Not here.
No Democratic lawsigns in sight. A few Republican.
Am still tempted to retire here if only to be near family and because I think how big a house we could afford by selling our Cape Cod back in Falls Church.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, I get that. This one was worth it, though. Beto speaks from the heart and doesn’t waffle on his positions because of the audience or the phrasing of questions. He comes off as fearless and unapologetic when stating his positions.
Caravelle
I know everybody hates Ted Cruz but never really saw him speak; this debate did a lot to explain things for me. I haven’t watched it all yet, but in almost every answer so far has been on an intense or emotionally charged subject, and he adopted the affect of sorrow, outrage, compassion, or whatever intense emotion matched the subject, but not once did he come across as sincerely feeling any of those emotions. It’s like it’s pure show and rhetoric to him. (which by all accounts it probably is!).
It’s also striking how openly partisan he’s been, while Beto adopted the stance of “nope these are universal values we all share, what do you mean left or right, surely *everyone* can agree on this”, which I honestly find… clueless at best, disingenuous at worst, but it’s an effective *stance* if you can come across as sincere about it, and I thought Beto did. Because that’s the thing; left-leaning values kind of *are* considered universal, to the point that even when the right rejects them, they tend to talk as if they didn’t. Tactically, taking them at their word risks both-siderism and failure to find common ground, but rhetorically it can be effective.
Ted Cruz, meanwhile, is clearly banking on the fact that Texans identify as Republicans and conservatives, and so feels that labeling himself that way (and labeling Beto as the opposite, like lol how many times did he mention him in association with Hillary Clinton?) will be enough to carry them.
(the fact that he’s probably right, the Republican brand becoming toxic country-wide notwithstanding, is another point that makes Beto’s strategy a good idea. It is true that given partisanship as it is, his biggest liability may be the Democratic/Progressive label, and his biggest asset his policy preferences that match majorities of the population. So highlighting the policy preferences and minimizing the label is the best way to activate voters to his side and defuse defensiveness from Republican-identified people. It’s impressive in that calculus how clearly lefty those policy preferences are, as far as the culture war goes).
Chetan Murthy
@WaterGirl: Back in the 90s I used to joke that Democrats were the ones who lost the coin toss at law school graduation [implication being that the winners got to be GrOPers]. B/c it seemed like Dems were so often GrOPer-lite. But these days, yeah, so many Dems are …. loud and proud. Part of it’s The Big Sort, I guess. But part of it, I believe, is that Barack Obama and his entire coalition of folks, made it not just OK, but Good to be a liberal, a progressive, as a politician.
Mnemosyne
@Chetan Murthy:
I love Chidi. I’m just saying that it is known that everyone hates moral philosophy professors.
BTW, all fans of the show should liaten to the very excellent official podcast, hosted by Mark Evan Jackson (he plays Shawn). Not only have all of the stars and writers been on (including Mike Scher), they get a really interesting cross-section of the behind-the-scenes crew like the costume designer, casting directors, assistant directors, etc.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: You should add a link to the podcast – when i looked a few weeks ago other things came up as a match when I googled.
Chetan Murthy
@Mnemosyne:
Shots fired! I can say honestly that I disagree …. firmly. I still remember with great fondness Prof. Larry Temkin at Rice, in moral philosophy my freshman year. He was …. GREAT! And it really had an impact on me — changed the way I see the world, the way I see others, and the way I reason about moral issues. Because of him, I know that I’m a Kantian.
Mnemosyne
@WaterGirl:
Here’s a link to it on NBC’s website. People who use a podcasting app like Overcast, Apple Podcasts, etc should be able to find it by searching “good place official”:
https://www.nbc.com/the-good-place/exclusives/tgp-podcast
Mnemosyne
@Chetan Murthy:
Unless he wrote a rap musical about Kierkegaard, he was a poseur. ?
Caravelle
Still listening to the debate.
Guys, d’you think Beto might have gone to every county in Texas? This debate is leaving me unsure on that important point.
Caravelle
That last question where Beto answers he thinks Ted Cruz is doing his best to work for the American people, is rather weird in the context of his immediately previous answer, where he was accusing Ted Cruz of working for corporations and special interests instead of the people of Texas. I wonder how that struck people who weren’t already on his side.
Chetan Murthy
@Caravelle: Imagine in 2020, if Shitlord actually runs: his opponent’s gonna get asked “say something nice about your opponent”. What’s she gonna say? I mean ….. I just can’t imagine! At least Cruz isn’t burning down the world!
Matt McIrvin
Why does Drezner find this surprising? It’s been part of the standard conservative boilerplate for decades, and people routinely parrot it as if it makes perfect sense.
“Taking God out of the schools”, specifically, is supposed to have caused every social ill that popped up in the 1960s and after.
Matt McIrvin
@Chetan Murthy:
Well, he did continue drinking almond milk in spite of knowing the environmental consequences.
Chetan Murthy
@Matt McIrvin: I’m not exactly a shrinking violet about most things. [well, about one or two things, but I won’t mention them.] I likes me my Dirty Harry films. But this sitcom, it’s literally the -gentlest- sitcom I’ve ever seen. And yet, it’s uproariously funny. It’s such a surprise!
WaterGirl
@Caravelle: I think Beto’s point was that Cruz is doing what Cruz thinks is best for the country.
Ladyraxterinok
@Chetan Murthy: Wow! Another Rice grad here–61. When ALL freshmen were required to take 1 semester of calculus and 1 semester of analytic geometry.
Ohio Mom
@cliosfanboy: If you are serious about leaving DC for Ohio, move to either Columbus or Cincinnati.
Both are much livelier than Dayton, and very short drives away — Mr. Ohio commuted to work in Beavercreek from our current northeastern Cincinnati suburb for several years.
It took him just under an hour. You won’t be much further from your Dayton family in driving time in either Ohio city than if you stayed in Falls Church and your family moved to Rockville next week.
I don’t know anything about the Columbus housing market but I am sure that like Cincinnati’s market, it is a bargain compared to Falls Church.
Anyway, whatever it is you are looking for — sports, shopping, museums and cultural events, parks, good restaurants, top notch doctors — you will find it easily in either Columbus or Cincinnati, and maybe not at all in Dayton.
Ian R
@Chetan Murthy: “He did an excellent job raising Tiffany.”
satby
@Ohio Mom: I worked the longest year of my life on an account in Dayton. The whole town closed down in the evening when the last commuter left work for whatever suburb they were driving to. In all my travels that’s the only place I was ever at that seemed so close to a movie set in a dystopian future.
Never saw a reason to go back once I left either. Sad little place.
Ohio Mom
@satby: Dayton has some interesting history. It’s where the cash register was invented, and also the electric starter for automobiles.
Remember the scenes in old movies where the driver is crouched on the ground, in front of the car, turning the crank to get the engine going? A lot of people got run over when they mistimed getting up and out of the way; when Kettering invented the automatic starter, he saved a lot of lives.
And the pop-top on soda pop cans, that was another Dayton invention, and of course the Wright Brothers.
Oh, and Erma Bombeck. She lived in the Kettering suburb and was inspired by her life there.
You wouldn’t know any of this looking around Dayton today: NCR (National Cash Register) moved out years ago, a lot of the car plants closed, even Erma moved to Arizona (though she did arrange to be buried back home in Dayton).