Everyone knows a circus isn’t a circus without clowns. Political debates are largely circuses of various kinds.
So it came as no surprise to me that CNN reported an average of 15.3 million viewers to last night’s Democratic Presidential Debate compared to the 23 million who watched the Republican debate last week. The GOP has multiple clowns and one terrific clown-in-chief. The Democrats have at best one clown-in-training, Jim Webb (who actually probably belongs in the GOP anyway).
With the Democratic race viewed broadly as largely decided (I disagree, but it’s the majority view) and the Dems’ tendency to debate, you know, issues and policy and other boring stuff instead of screaming and shouting and seeing who can make a bigger ass of him or herself, combined to make the Democratic debate far harder to hype and less “interesting” to watch. Unless you’re a policy wonk (guilty), there was no contest.
The question the American people will decide next November is whether to back the candidate from the more entertaining party or the one from the more thoughtful one. I’m afraid we already know the answer.