“Astoundingly arrogant,” “irritating,” “glib,” “smarmy,” “obnoxious,” “a zero,” “preening,” and “completely bananas,” according to Times roundtable. But is that what winning looks like now? Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images
During one of several explosive exchanges between Vivek Ramaswamy and his Republican opponents in the first debate of the 2024 presidential-primary season, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie called Ramaswamy an “amateur” who “sounds like Chat GPT.” Ramaswamy met this volley, as well as a cascading chorus of whoops and laughter and “oohs” from the crowd, with an impervious smile and a barb about Christie literally embracing Barack Obama after Hurricane Sandy. The shield of his smile had to be deployed all night long, as his rivals took obvious umbrage at the presence of this rude political neophyte and attacked him with relish — an uncanny replay of the dynamic that governed Donald Trump’s debates in 2016. But nothing could dampen Ramaswamy’s spirit or dim that grin. To borrow a line from FDR, Ramaswamy seemed to be saying to his rivals that he welcomed their hatred.
Ramaswamy, a wealthy entrepreneur who muscled and hustled his way from obscurity onto a debate stage that notably did not include the race’s front-runner, Trump, is adept at borrowing lines. Christie’s jab was in part a reference to his robotic, rat-a-tat delivery of aphorisms that resemble a cross between traditional conservative know-nothingism and Elon Musk’s brand of Silicon Valley know-everythingism. (“Fossil fuels are a requirement for human prosperity!”) But Christie was also calling out Ramaswamy’s naked appropriation of one of Obama’s most famous quotes from the 2008 campaign, with Ramaswamy introducing himself to the Republican faithful in Milwaukee as a “skinny guy with a funny last name.” His crisp hand gestures and tight little head shakes were vintage Obama, yet the words coming out of his mouth were “Reverse racism is racism.” It really did feel like Ramaswamy was a computer program trawling the past two decades of American history to cobble together a ruthless striver’s idea of a political persona, some unholy amalgamation of Obama, Trump, and Musk.
The press has been about as hostile to Ramaswamy as the rest of the Republican field. In a New York Timesroundtable after the debate, commentators from across the ideological spectrum described him as “astoundingly arrogant,” “irritating,” “glib,” “smarmy,” “obnoxious,” “a zero,” “preening,” and “completely bananas.” The conservative columnist Bret Stephens said Ramaswamy “seems to think he’s Jesus,” and not in the meek-shall-inherit-the-Earth way. There is a sense in the Establishment media that because Ramaswamy is such a copycat, particularly of Trump, that he represents no broader threat or significance, that he’s just another wannabe swimming in the MAGA slipstream. The Princeton historian Kevin Kruse tweeted, “What’s funny is that Vivek is going to campaign with furious Debate Bro energy for six nonstop months and then Trump will casually refer to him as ‘Rama-smarmy, or whatever’ and he’ll immediately turn to dust.”
But I would posit that perhaps Ramaswamy signifies something more. If you are a youngish person looking to get into politics or some other career of public renown, it’s only natural that you would model yourself on the people in your lifetime who have had ostentatious success in those areas, people like Obama and Trump and Musk. It seems likely that, in the future, we will see a lot more politicians like Vivek Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy’s youth is important, as American democracy slides into gerontocracy. So is the context of the debate, where you could see this lithe figure with taut skin and a full head of not-gray hair antagonize and fluster the leathery dinosaurs that, if the polls are to be believed, he is already eclipsing. Ramaswamy flaunted his age at every turn, beginning his closing statement with a huge flex: “I was born in 1985” — which makes him the youngest presidential aspirant of my own lifetime, indeed one who is several years younger than me, a horrific personal milestone for which I will never forgive him. His liveliness irked his opponents as well, particularly former vice-president Mike Pence, who showed his irrepressible counterpart nothing but disdain in what read to me as the way Pence would talk to Trump if Trump had less power. “We don’t need to bring in a rookie,” Pence scoffed.
In response, Ramaswamy took great joy in exploiting Pence’s age and experience, which came through in Pence’s delivery (the long statesman’s pause), his appearance (Ken doll whose smooth plastic veneer has gone a bit sludge-y), and constant references to the old deities of the Republican Party (God and Ronald Reagan). “Some others like you might have a ‘Morning in America’ speech,” Ramaswamy told Pence. “But it is not morning in America. We live in a dark moment.” When the discussion turned to the war in Ukraine, which saw Rawaswamy taking passionate fire from all sides for his opposition to additional U.S. aid for the Ukrainians, he said to Pence, “I have a news flash: The U.S.S.R. does not exist anymore.” He was intent on drawing a line in the sand between ancient history and the boundless future. And in doing so, he happily smashed the Republican Party’s idols as Trump had done before him, the jeers raining down on him for his anti-war stance reminiscent of the stern admonitions Trump received in 2016 for saying the Iraq War was a mistake. Though if Trump was a flattening bulldozer, Ramaswamy was nimbler, more precise — a guided missile.
He could also perform the equivalent of wading into a brawl and inviting all comers, calling his rivals “super-PAC puppets” and declaring, “I’m the only person on this stage who isn’t bought and paid for,” an audacious line that drew a scandalized “Whoa whoa whoa” and “That’s ridiculous” from people who very much are bought and paid for. In the melee over the Ukraine war, he turned to former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, a hawk, and said, “Nikki, I wish you well on your future career on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon,” a rebuke so impolite and so close to home that Haley was left red-faced and sputtering. In appreciating and even admiring Ramaswamy’s sheer disrespect for his fellow Republicans, I realize I am falling into the same trap that ensnared so many liberal journalists the last time this happened, when Trump seemed so attractive because he was demolishing politicians I also wanted to see demolished.
Still, the appeal of the iconoclast remains, and Ramaswamy’s primary influences, the Ur-trolls Trump and Musk, let it be known that game recognizes game. “Vivek is increasingly compelling,” Musk tweeted during the debate. “This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of a thing called TRUTH,” Trump posted on Truth Social, referring to Ramaswamy’s claim that Trump was the “best president of the 21st century.” Obama has not deigned to comment on a politician who is destined to be a member of Trump’s entourage, and maybe even a partner on his presidential ticket, but Obama’s influence on Ramaswamy is fascinating, a sprinkling of a feel-good, only-in-America story on an otherwise tiresome recapitulation of Trump’s “American carnage” speech. Obama, too, exhibited a preternatural confidence that his critics described as “arrogant,” “obnoxious,” “preening,” and worse; Obama, too, reveled in his relative youth, swishing three-pointers on the campaign trail and jogging up the steps to Air Force One; Obama, too, played the insider-outsider sweeping away the fossilized vestiges of an older era.
It’s unclear whether Ramaswamy’s policy positions, such as they are — “The climate change agenda is a hoax!” — will have much lasting appeal in American politics. But surely his style, no matter how much it may grate on the ears and annoy finer sensibilities, is on the ascendance. No longer will politicians be as slow, as pious, as patriotic as Mike Pence, who came of age in the pre-Trump world; they’ll be quick to let the insults fly, fearless in their misguided convictions, and scornful of their elders and betters. To believe otherwise is to believe that Trump, especially, is a one-off phenomenon, that we will one day return to having a slate of “normal” candidates running to be the Republican nominee for president, when so many incentives point in the other direction: toward politicians who are younger, hungrier, meaner, wilder.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – An incumbent BC United legislative member has reversed her decision not to seek re-election and has announced she’ll run as an Independent in the riding of West Vancouver-Capilano in the upcoming British Columbia election.
Karin Kirkpatrick has been a vocal critic of BC United Leader Kevin Falcon’s decision last month to suspend the party’s campaign and throw support behind the B.C. Conservatives under John Rustad.
Kirkpatrick announced her retirement this year, but said Monday that her decision to re-enter the race comes as a direct result of Falcon’s actions, which would force middle-of-the-road voters to “swing to the left” to the NDP or to move further right to the Conservatives.
“I did hear from a lot of constituents and a lot of people who were emailing me from across B.C. … that they didn’t have anybody to vote for,” she said. “And so, I looked even at myself, and I looked at my riding, and I said, ‘Well, I no longer have anybody to vote for in my own riding.’ It was clearly an issue of this missing middle for the more moderate voter.”
She said voters who reached out “don’t want to vote for an NDP government but felt deeply uncomfortable” supporting the provincial Conservatives, citing Rustad’s tolerance of what she calls “extreme views and conspiracy theorists.”
Kirkpatrick joins four other incumbent Opposition MLAs running as Independents, including Peace River South’s Mike Bernier, Peace River North’s Dan Davies, Prince George-Cariboo’s Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka in Kootenay-Rockies.
“To be honest, we talk just about every day,” Kirkpatrick said about her fellow BC United incumbents now running as Independents. “We’re all feeling the same way. We all need to kind of hold each other up and make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
She added that a number of first-time candidates formerly on the BC United ticket are contacting the group of incumbents running for election, and the group is working together “as good moderates who respect each other and lift each other up.”
But Kirkpatrick said it’s also too early to talk about the future of BC United or the possibility of forming a new party.
“The first thing we need to do is to get these Independent MLAs elected into the legislature,” she said, noting a strong group could play a power-broker role if a minority government is elected. “Once we’re there then we’re all going to come together and we’re going to figure out, is there something left in BC United, BC Liberals that we can resurrect, or do we need to start a new party that’s in the centre?”
She said there’s a big gap left in the political spectrum in the province.
“So, we just have to do it in a mindful way, to make sure it’s representing the broadest base of people in B.C.”
Among the supporters at Kirkpatrick’s announcement Monday was former longtime MLA Ralph Sultan, who held West Vancouver-Capilano for almost two decades before retiring in 2020.
The Metro Vancouver riding has been a stronghold for the BC Liberals — the former BC United — since its formation in 1991, with more than half of the votes going to the centre-right party in every contest.
However, Kirkpatrick’s winning margin of 53.6 per cent to the NDP’s 30.1 per cent and the Green’s 15.4 per cent in the 2020 election shows a rising trend for left-leaning voters in the district.
Mike McDonald, chief strategy officer with Kirk and Co. Consulting, and a former campaign director for the BC Liberals and chief of staff under former Premier Christy Clark, said Independent candidates historically face an uphill battle and the biggest impact may be splitting votes in areas where the NDP could emerge victorious.
“It really comes down to, if the NDP are in a position to get 33 per cent of the vote, they might have a chance of winning,” McDonald said of the impact of an Independent vote-split with the Conservatives in certain ridings.
He said B.C. history shows it’s very hard for an Independent to win an election and has been done only a handful of times.
“So, the odds do not favour Independents winning the seats unless there is a very unique combination of circumstances, and more likely that they play a role as a spoiler, frankly.”
The B.C. Conservatives list West Vancouver School District Trustee Lynne Block as its candidate in West Vancouver-Capilano, while the BC NDP is represented by health care professional Sara Eftekhar.
Kirkpatrick said she is confident that her re-entry to the race will not result in a vote split that allows the NDP to win the seat because the party has always had a poor showing in the riding.
“So, even if there is competition between myself and the Conservative candidate, it is highly unlikely that anything would swing over to the NDP here. And I believe that I have the ability to actually attract those NDP voters to me, as well as the Conservatives and Liberals who are feeling just lost right now.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt on Tuesday for his 10th trip to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began nearly a year ago, this one aimed partly at refining a proposal to present to Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire deal and release of hostages.
Unlike in recent mediating missions, America’s top diplomat this time is traveling without optimistic projections from the Biden administration of an expected breakthrough in the troubled negotiations.
Also unlike the earlier missions, Blinken has no public plans to go to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip. The Israeli leader’s fiery public statements — like his declaration that Israel would accept only “total victory” when Blinken was in the region in June — and some other unbudgeable demands have complicated earlier diplomacy.
Blinken is going to Egypt for talks Wednesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and others, in a trip billed as focused both on American-Egyptian relations and Gaza consultations with Egypt.
The tamped-down public approach follows months in which President Joe Biden and his officials publicly talked up an agreement to end the war in Gaza as being just within reach, hoping to build pressure on Netanyahu’s far-right government and Hamas to seal a deal.
The Biden administration now says it is working with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to come up with a revised final proposal to try to at least get Israel and Hamas into a six-week cease-fire that would free some of the hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Americans believe public attention on details of the talks now would only hurt that effort.
American, Qatari and Egyptian officials still are consulting “about what that proposal will contain, and …. we’re trying to see that it’s a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.
The State Department pointed to Egypt’s important role in Gaza peace efforts in announcing last week that the Biden administration planned to give the country its full $1.3 billion in military aid, overriding congressional requirements that the U.S. hold back some of the funding if Egypt fails to show adequate progress on human rights. Blinken told Congress that Egypt has made progress on human rights, including in freeing political prisoners.
Blinken’s trip comes amid the risk of a full-on new front in the Middle East, with Israel threatening increasing military action against the Hezbollah militant organization in Lebanon. Biden envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Monday to try to calm tensions after a stop in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has one of the strongest militaries in the Middle East, and like Hamas and smaller groups in Syria and Iraq it is allied with Iran.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged strikes across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas started the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will ease those strikes — which have uprooted tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border — only when there’s a cease-fire in Gaza.
Hochstein told Netanyahu and other Israeli officials that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah would not help get Israelis back in their homes, according to a U.S. official. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said Hochstein stressed to Netanyahu that he risked sparking a broad and protracted regional conflict if he moved forward with a full-scale war in Lebanon.
Hochstein also underscored to Israeli officials that the Biden administration remained committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the tensions on Israel’s northern border in conjunction with a Gaza deal or on its own, the official said.
Netanyahu told Hochstein that it would “not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.” The prime minister said Israel “appreciates and respects” U.S. support but “will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the north to their homes safely.”
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, warned in his meeting with Hochstein that “the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action,” his office said.
In Gaza, the U.S. says Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal in principle and that the biggest obstacles now include a disagreement on details of the hostage and prisoner swap and control over a buffer zone on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Netanyahu has demanded in recent weeks that the Israeli military be allowed to keep a presence in the Philadelphi corridor. Egypt and Hamas have rejected that demand.
The Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Militants also abducted 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. About a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, said Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction, displaced a majority of Gaza’s people and created a humanitarian crisis.
Netanyahu says he is working to bring home the hostages. His critics accuse him of slow-rolling a deal because it could bring down his hardline coalition government, which includes members opposed to a truce with the Palestinians.
Asked earlier this month if Netanyahu was doing enough for a cease-fire deal, Biden said, simply, “no.” But he added that he still believed a deal was close.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
