Some excerpts from Frank Bruni's op-ed in this morning's New York Times regarding last night's circular firing squad in South Carolina:
"Nomination contests often get ugly, with candidates in the same party — candidates with some of the same core values — belittling one another. But this felt different. This felt worse. This felt like a genuine freakout. [snip]The debates were a long opposition research dump for the candidates. Polls consistently show that Dems' number one issue by far is beating malignant demagogue Donald "Dear Leader" Trump, and precious little time was spent on tearing him a new one. Even the coronavirus -- and Trump's mishandling of it -- only came up an hour or more in the "debate." As we and others have observed, acting like this primary season is like all others before is courting disaster in November.
Nobody really looked good, and that’s another big part of what spooked me. I was watching a political party devour itself. It was all so unpleasant — and so unflattering — that candidates took to commenting on how unpleasant and unflattering it was. [snip]
The debate wasn’t just scary but sad, because when the vitriol waned, there were glimpses of just how much more prudent and better prepared than Trump all of these candidates are. There were glimmers of just how much more serious than the Republican Party the Democratic Party is."
