Dori: Jay Inslee flubs his way through Democratic debate

As I tweeted Wednesday night, Jay Inslee got less time in the first Democratic debate than anyone. He just got totally lost in the shuffle.

And that turned out to be true because several media outlets have calculated the amount of time every candidate got to speak, and in each one, Inslee came in dead last. He just kept standing there with his finger up, like he was hailing a cab or something.

He keeps harping on how unique he is, which shows how poorly thought-out his whole campaign is. He keeps saying, “I am the only candidate, who …”

The thing is, being unique is not a strategy. He isn’t thinking it through. And this is why he will never be president. You have to be focused, you have to be driven, you have to come up with a plan for how you’re going to stand out from the crowd and cut through the noise. And then you have to go out and execute that plan.

Your laugh of the day — relive Jay Inslee MSNBC highlights with Dori

Of course, when one of your hosts gets more words in than seven of the other candidates, you have a problem. If you’re one of the hosts of the Democratic debate, it’s your job to ask a succinct question and then get out of the way. But Chuck Todd just wanted it to be about Chuck Todd. The whole thing was pathetic.

But here’s the bottom line — I might have Jay Inslee’s pathway to success. I’ve got a message for Inslee’s campaign staff. If the campaign staffers are listening to me — and I know you are — this is the angle you have to spin. As we know, Jay Inslee has helped make the Puget Sound the heroin and meth capital of America. And as he said on HBO last year, “we’ve got the best weed” in the U.S. And then Wednesday night, he said, “I respect hash.” So between the heroin and weed and hash, we can make this be the next Amsterdam. We can have a whole drug tourism industry here in Washington.

In all seriousness, the hash line came when Inlsee was talking about wage disparity between CEOs and fast food workers who are “slingin’ hash.” And by the way, Jay Inslee — it is entirely fair that the CEO of McDonald’s makes 2,100 times the amount that the McDonald’s workers “slingin’ hash” make because he has 2,100 times the job skills. Anyone can work the register or the fry machine. But not many people can be the CEO of the world’s biggest fast food chain. So the pay is commensurate with the rarity of the work. I know you’re trying to pit low-end workers against their bosses, but it doesn’t work in this case.

The part that Inslee is billing as his biggest success of the Democratic debate is what I would call his biggest misstep. For months, he’s been running as the climate change candidate. That’s all he talks about. So then when asked what the biggest threat to America is, of course he would say climate change, right?

No. His answer was Donald Trump.

Jay said the greatest threat to America is Trump. Most of the others said “climate change”

He can’t stay on message when he gets his five seconds???

— Dori Monson (@dorimonson) June 27, 2019

And yes, it got him a lot of applause, but it didn’t further his campaign’s entire message. If you’re trying to make the case that you’re the single-issue climate change guy, and you get asked what the biggest threat to the U.S. is, going off-message for some cheap applause is not a smart strategy in the long run. You’ve been telling us for two years that climate change is the greatest threat to our future — you constantly call it an “existential threat.” Now his office is sending out press releases like the Donald Trump line was some great triumph for Inslee, but it was really a major misstep.

Oh, and a quick sidenote on two of the other candidates in the Democratic debate — I had enough of Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro trying to out-Spanish each other. I’m going to run in 2024 as the “ecca clippa titlinger” candidate to win over the Icelandic-American voters. If you came to my live show, you know what that means.

In an interview with MSNBC Thursday morning, Inslee repeated his claim that Washington state has the best economy in America. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month, Washington ranked 45 out of 50 states in unemployment. You have some of the highest unemployment in the United States, so I don’t know how you talk about having the best economy in the nation.

And once again, he made a campaign funding pitch on national TV with one of his favorite lines, “Send a buck.” But please, keep Inslee on the debate stage. I need him there as long as possible. So “send a buck” to jayinslee.com.

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