[img]1578|left|Mr. Bill Bloomfield||no_popup[/img]When Bill Bloomfield stepped out of the room minutes before last evening’s unprecedented debate with the feared Democratic party anchorman U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), he reportedly wolfed down a heaping bowl of brain-stimulating Romney Wheaties.
He didn’t need a single spoonful for an impressive reason.
Comprehensively prepared and as comfortably familiar with every conceivable 33rd Congressional District issue as he is with his fiancé’s cooking, he scored the biggest political victory of his burgeoning, airborne career.
[img]1577|left|Mr. Henry Waxman||no_popup[/img]How to Succeed in Politics
What made their much anticipated first matchup memorable was the facile – emphatically not flashy –manner in which Mr. Bloomfield dominated Mr. Waxman.
The rookie won more than the veteran lost. In a vacuum, Mr. Waxman’s arguments were not thin, were not bad, just second best on this occasion.
He is the reformer and Mr. Waxman is anti-reform, the icon of business-as-usual, Mr. Bloomfield claimed several times. For a clincher, he wrapped his repeated assertion that Mr. Waxman has been a too-willing prisoner of hyper-partisan liberal interests in expected but still chilling data.
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Mr. Waxman did not let his opponent escape. He noted that while Mr. Bloomfield, a lifelong moderate Republican, re-registered 13 months ago as an independent, he mostly defends Republican positions.
Oh, Yeah?
Mr. Bloomfield sought to disprove that in a half-dozen cases, including same sex marriage and areas of President Obama’s stewardship.
The debate was as impersonal as a formerly married couple striding down opposing sides of the Autobahn at 3 a.m. If they had not shaken hands before, they never would have recognized each other afterward, even though they sat at card tables several feet apart.
Pals, they ain’t.
Between the sheer weight of Mr. Bloomfield’s arguments and his clutch-handed grasp on the day’s topics, Mr. Waxman was defeated, even though he committed no overt errors.
Why and How
It was not necessarily a Bloomfield win for traditional reasons.
Today and for the rest of the campaign, the significance of the debate is more about flying sparks it generated from the unique psychological dynamics dominating what may yet be America’s most widely followed Congressional race.
Up to here, it has been only unquantifiable talk. Now they have confronted.
The giant, Mr.Waxman, for the first time since going to Washington 38 years ago, is in danger of losing his seat. That is a shock that will not be easily or swiftly absorbed.
Without reliable polling, however, a further assessment would be too subjective.
This morning, for the first time, it no longer is mere Bloomfield hot air that Mr. Bloomfield has positioned himself, and is obviously capable of, taking down his invulnerable rival.
His invulnerable rival, confidentially, may agree. He may not have slept comfortably. He likely has begun to process the notion that this upstart, knowledge-packed businessman actually could fire him in 26 days.
For weeks, off-stage, Mr. Bloomfield has been going to school. He was so exhaustively schooled going into last night he could have named Botswana’s last four secretaries of primitive education, their wives and their youngest child’s favorite toy.
Head down, mind laser-focused, he has been laboring over the massive cerebral latticework that is required for a closely watched debate with a perceived national giant.
Everything inside the jammed Community Room of Hesse Park, Rancho Palos Verdes, had the sniffing good smell of first-time new-ness to the 275 spectators.
• A longtime donor and more recently activist for reform, Mr. Bloomfield, at 62, is making his first run for office. He did not look the part. Composed, organized and supremely confident, he was less nervous than a 15th time father.
• It is slightly amazing to some that Mr. Waxman is a newcomer to campaign trail debates, even though he has been in Washington since Watergate was a boy.
And the guys were back at it this morning with a further unprecedented debate – barely 12 hours later – one of them seeking to demonstrate last night was not a fluke.
Bursting with energy and teeming with charged-up motivation, Mr. Bloomfield stormed through the virgin fields of Mr. Waxman’s head-to-head debating inexperience as if he were the veteran and Mr. Waxman the rookie contender.
That was the story of last night, to be further explored.
(To be continued)
