GOP analysts tell Newsmax they expect the third Democratic debate in Houston to be the ultimate game of "Survivor," as top-tier candidates make deals with others who are polling in the single digits to attack their rivals.
The one candidate everyone will be targeting: Former Delaware U.S. Senator and Vice President Joe Biden.
Bradley Blakeman, the former George W. Bush presidential adviser, tells Newsmax: “For everybody on stage, the person to take down is Biden.
“They also have to weaken Bernie and Warren -- because they’re the leaders of the pack. You can’t just nip at their heels, you’ve got to go for the jugular.”
With the first primary contest now just four months away, the question is how to do it. And the answer basically depends on whether you’re polling above or below 10 percent.
GOP strategist John Brabender, the architect of former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s political career, tells Newsmax that Biden’s top two rivals, Vermont Democratic-Socialist Bernie Sanders and progressive Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, must avoid what he metaphorically calls the “murder-suicide” problem.
“In multi-candidate primaries,” says Brabender, “you have to do this stuff with precision. It can’t look negative, it has to look like it’s not personal.
“It’s just a fundamental disagreement over facts and done with a narrative that makes it sound like you’re not just doing it to attack someone.”
The classic formulation in this regard came from California Sen. Kamala Harris in the first debate. “I do not believe you are a racist,” she told Barack Obama’s erstwhile wingman, before launching into a diatribe over his friendships with segregationist senators and his opposition to federally mandated busing.
The challenge, then, is how to attack and wound a rival, without appearing negative or hurtful, and thereby damaging one’s own standing in the polls? For the three front-runners, the downside risk of looking like an attack dog is just too great.
Warren has gained on Biden in recent polls leading up to the debate. Her camp has already let it be known that while she won’t be going on the offensive to battle other candidates, she’s primed to defend herself, and to counterpunch, if needed.
One such alliance between candidates has already emerged: The tag team between Warren and Sanders. They’ve carefully avoided attacking each other, and have supported each other’s left-wing positions.
Brabender says Warren and Sanders anticipate a point where one of them will have to bow ought for the sake of their larger agenda. That is, to consolidate the progressive wing of the party and mount an effective challenge against Biden, someone will have to defer. Thus neither wants to alienate the other hard-left candidate, or their base.
That said, they’re likely to work together to draw a subtle contrast with Biden, rather than launch a scorched-earth attack.
“I think they’ll make the point that Joe Biden is just wrong on these issues,” Brabender says, “that the party is in a different place today and Joe Biden has not come along with it, and therefore he can’t represent the changes they’re trying to make.”
The inference they’ll invite voters to draw: Joe’s era has passed him by, and it’s probably time to look for another candidate.
Biden, on the other hand, is expected to argue that he’s actually accomplished things on Capitol Hill beyond just offering the plans and proposals that Warren is known for. He may also raise the issue of electability in the vital Rust Belt states -- but probably not by mentioning Sanders or Warren head-on. Instead, he may ask rhetorically how a universal basic income or eliminating private health insurance will capture the support of blue-collar workers.
California Sen. Kamala Harris enjoyed a brief surge in the polls after she dismantled Biden on busing in the first debate. But she was unable to maintain her momentum, and could make another run at Biden as a way to re-establish her campaign.
When Biden is attacked, Brabender predicts, he’ll proclaim the real enemy is Donald Trump and call for unity rather than political attacks -- a dependable applause line for a heavily Democratic audience.
When his rivals criticize his record, the GOP consultant adds, “What Biden’s going to do is just keep coming back and saying, ‘If that’s so, why did Barack Obama pick me?’ I think we’re going to we’re going to hear that response repetitively on a number of issues.”
The notion that Warren and Sanders need someone else to go after Biden lends support to the notion that they may work in concert with a lower-tier competitor by forming an alliance.
Blakeman and Brabender think it’s likely a few of the candidates on the stage already see the debate as an audition for a vice presidential spot, or perhaps a post in the next Democratic presidential cabinet.
For the candidates polling in single digits -- everyone besides Biden, Sanders, and Warren -- the risk of taking the offensive may be worth it. Some of them have probably figured out by now that their chances of capturing the presidential nomination are remote. Their only chance of improving their standing is doing something that shakes up social media and captures the morning headlines.
A telltale sign that an alliance is at work, Blakeman says, is when a lesser candidate launches a brutal attack against someone in the top tier, or aligns to support one of the top-tier competitors against one of their chief rivals.
“That’s where you can begin to see the alliances,” he says, “if they try to help each other.”
Blakeman has been unimpressed with Biden’s performances in the debate so far, and has predicted he won’t win the nomination. But a CNN poll this week showed Biden’s support with African-American voters continues to be rock solid. As long as that continues, he’ll remain in the top tier and may stay as the frontrunner.
Blakeman says a knockout blow on Biden would be “if he’s just totally befuddled, and cannot take the punches that are being thrown at him. He needs to fight back.”
He adds Biden must turn in a much better performance than he did in the first two debates, and needs to avoid the awkward endings that occur when moderates tell him his time is up and he stops speaking in mid-sentence.
“The one debate where he was running out of time and he just stopped -- you can’t be that person,” he says. “You’ve got to take it, and give it back. Because if you’re facing Trump and you’re a piñata, you’re going to break.”
“If people come away from this debate saying, ‘Holy mackerel, he really rose to the occasion,’ then it will be very, very important to Biden,” Blakeman says. “But if they go, ‘Wow, they really bloodied him up’ -- then maybe this isn’t his time.’
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