I've been meaning to write a diary for a week, ever since I received an email from the DNC advertising their latest product line, GOP Primary Debate Party Items! Originally, the diary was going to be about how lame it is for the DNC - which has chosen to slow walk the Dem Primary for the benefit of Hillary by denying free, early-on, national exposure to her opponents - to actually be pimping the GOP Primary and trying to make money off of it, all the while they are passively preventing their supposed constituents (Democrats) of the privilege that the GOP is providing to theirs.
I was even going to point out how graphically and conceptually lame the whole DNC Store inventory is. But this morning, as I was drinking my second coffee and reading Dood Abide's excellent send-up of the GOP Trumpfest, along with today's brilliant offering by Andy Borowitz of the New Yorker, it dawned on me that the DNC's refusal to schedule a single Democratic Primary Debate at this late date is not just blatant favoritism for the DNC Chair's BFF, but tactically and strategically boneheaded.
Jump below the perfectly coiffed orange combover (it won't bite), and I'll explain...
First, I have to agree with the DNC, Dood, Andy, and all non-cognitively-impaired humans that the 2016 GOP POTUS Primary field is a parodist's dream, a clown-only circus, and an unintentional gag(in both senses)-athon that deserves every iota of derision that the thinking portion of our beleaguered country's population can throw at them. IOW, no argument from me, you mighty DNC swag-merchants, the GOP Primary is a knee-slapper from start to finish and their debates will be the condensed versions of their low-brow, racist, nativist, and militarist pandering marathon, leading eventually to their Lowest-Common-de-Nomination at next year's GOP Convention. Popcorn all around, I agree!
But here's the thing, oh Braintrusters of the Party of the People, here's the glaringly obvious thing that seems to escape your finely-honed, marketing-driven notice:
If the Democratic Primary Debates were being conducted concurrently with the GOP eye-gouging and head-clubbing spectacles that we are about to be subjected to, the nation would be able to compare, side by side, that rabble of 16 pie-targets and armpit-farters with the Democrats' field of 6 or so actually reasonable candidates, several of whom are presenting policy ideas that will strongly appeal to the vast majority of Americans.
If you (I'm speaking to you, Ms Wasserman Schultz) were actually thinking about how to polish the Democratic Brand rather than how to sell a few throw-away tchotchkes and divert attention from your underhanded favoritism toward Hillary, you would already have Dem Primaries lined up from now trough next spring, like Howard Dean did during the incredibly successful '08 cycle. The fact that you aren't doing that - holding Dem POTUS debates right now to showcase the difference in quality between all our candidates (including Hillary) and theirs - confirms that your debate strategy has nothing to do with promoting Democrats and everything to do with promoting one Democrat.