The VP Debate

 I doubt anyone will claim that the needle was moved in either direction by the performance of the VP candidates in terms of the election outcome.  Vance may have earned himself a little less critical assessment by the "undecideds".  The thing is that he had a very low bar to clear.  All he had to do was not spout the wild lies about immigrants eating pets to look more like a normal person.  It was unsurprising that he also carried forward Trump's waffling about abortion, apparently betting on the idea that Americans' memory is already foggy about the fact that Trump packed the Supreme Court to undo women's right to chose.  He may be right with that assumption.

Take Aways

Impeachment:

The Dems have done a pretty good job of staging the public hearings.  I would imagine that a fairly small percentage of the public tuned into all the hours of testimony and questions.  Still, there was plenty of red meat for the media and a coherent story of Trump's attempt at bribery is out there.  The last two people called to testify have done a thorough job of poking holes in the falsehoods and conspiracy theories propagated by the Republicans.

The Debate To Date:

I'm hoping ever more fervently that I will not have to vote for Joe Biden.  I'm also not much happier with the idea of supporting Pete Buttigieg, and for much of the same reasons, though he does not carry the burden of being over the hill like Joe.  Bernie still has the clearest voice of the bunch.  Warren seemed a bit lost in the weeds at this last debate. (Others rated her performance to be superior -- see, for instance, the 538 report on the debate.)  The rest are also-rans, but I would be happy to see nearly all of them in high government positions after a Dem victory in the 2020 elections.

2020

New Mexico has been treated to a preview of the Republican strategy for the upcoming elections.  Trump's Attorney General/Personal Lawyer put on a big show in the State implying that State and local governments are not doing anything to effectively combat crime.  This is now being followed up by an on line media barrage disparaging the governor, the mayor of Albuquerque and Representative Xochitl Torres Small of Las Cruces.  TV PAC ads about Torres Small are running nightly.

A sample of the Republican talking points can be found on Joe Monahan's New Mexico Politics blog.   The Nov. 20 blog post carried a law and order screed by retired APD Sergeant Dan Klein suggesting that Federal oversight of the Albuquerque Police Department was hampering law enforcement.  Overlooked was the fact that the current city administration has put a good effort into hiring more officers.  Additionally, the governor recently detailed a large number of State Police to help out with combatting crime in central New Mexico.  In the post for the following day, Monahan published my brief reply to Klein:

Klein, with his opportunistic law and order pitch, would have us conveniently forget that we just recently got rid of a "law and order" governor who did nothing to effectively combat crime in New Mexico. In fact Martinez starved and disrupted the public services institutions which are crucial to real progress. Lessening police oversight now is one sure way to undermine social justice while doing nothing to affect the root causes of crime in our State.

 So, expect LAW AND ORDER every day from now to the election.  What you won't hear from the Republicans, of course, is any kind of support for educational reform, jobs, health care, mental health or drug abuse treatment for rural and small town New Mexico.  Also, don't hold your breath while waiting for them to tackle methane pollution, degradation of the State's water supply through fracking and any number of other environmental threats faced by New Mexicans.