It became a daily competition as the women tried to out-sad each other because audience applause picked the saddest woman as Queen for a Day. She got to wear a crown and cape and get a new refrigerator or something.

I mention this because the memory of that unusual show flooded my mind the past few days surrounding the unusual broadcast of the "Great Red State-Blue State Debate" on Fox News. It featured two governors — Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gavin Newsom of California. 

They’ve bickered online, but this was the main event mano-a-mano that no one had really demanded but these two could use.

Like pretty much everything on TV, the rhetorical cage match in suburban Atlanta was all about publicity. Both men needed it, and host Sean Hannity isn’t known for dodging it either.

Technically, this was not a presidential debate. The next one of those comes Dec. 6 next door in Alabama among a shrinking cast of Republican primary survivors.

This contrived confrontation was supposed to be arguments for and against Republican Red states argued by DeSantis (hold your applause please) and Democrat Blue states argued by Newsom (now, that's not very nice, people).

But in reality both men were presenting themselves as ready-made potential presidents, DeSantis openly this time as someone without the considerable legal and personal baggage and 32 extra years of you-know-who.

And Newsom, probably another time, but, hey, listen, he could rearrange his schedule right now if the really old guy who wants a second term stumbles again, literally or figuratively.

The show worked well for both of them without other eager speakers interrupting, though each did some of that.

In one sense, the program was refreshing relief from the usual doddering Swampers. As my friend @emzanotti put it on Twitter: 

I think Ron DeSantis won last night but it was nice seeing a Presidential-adjacent debate between two people who appear to be able to remember what they had for breakfast 

It was something of an alternative universe with the absence of both party’s nomination frontrunners, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. 

It wasn't Ali-Frasier. But it was a prized opportunity for both men to position themselves as realistic party leaders, maybe sometime.

“Why don’t you just admit it?” DeSantis told Newsom at one point. “You’re running.” Newsom couldn’t deny it, of course, because everyone knows he’s maneuvering to be in position for just that.

DeSantis is openly running right now, far behind the former president in national polls, though primary season is not national.

DeSantis came across this time as more personable than previously. A former SEAL team member, the 45-year-old also came loaded with ample ammo and his aim was sharp.

He said:

California does have freedoms that other states don’t. You have the freedom to defecate in public. You have the freedom to pitch a tent on Sunset Boulevard. You have the freedom to create a homeless camp and even light it on fire. You have the freedom to have an open-air drug market and use drugs. You have the freedom if you’re an illegal alien to get these taxpayer benefits.

To be fair, Newsom started in a hole. His Golden state is so tarnished by the nation’s worst festering homeless epidemic, fiscal irresponsibility, high taxes and housing costs, high crime, corruption, and the inevitable arrogance and indolence that accompany political super-majorities of any stripe.

Californians love their weather and scenery. I did. Still, the Census Bureau reports more than 800,000, myself included, abandoned the state as unaffordable in recent years, costing California a congressional seat for the first time in its 173-year history. 

Many of these refugees fled to income-tax free Texas, Tennessee, and -- oh, look! -- Florida, including Newsom’s in-laws. Which DeSantis just happened to mention.

On top of this, the 56-year-old Newsom anointed himself as the valiant, selfless defender of the failed policies of Democrats’ beloved, aged leader, who is unable to defend himself because it would take some long sentences. And coherence.

Now, Newsom may be oily and sly, but he’s not dumb. He well knows this is an impossible task, even with lying. But always remember that everything Democrats such as Newsom, Biden, and their ilk do to “help” others is all about appearances. 

Throw taxpayer money at problems like homelessness. It fixes nothing, but it looks like action and gets the pol through the next election.

The career semi-truck driver who somehow became vice president and then president and makes stuff up with a straight face has made blatant lying acceptable because today’s blind partisans only hear what they want to hear. And "media watchdog" is now a laugh line.

Recent polls indicate that youths, blacks, and Hispanics are coming to realize this and are searching for an alternative to the Big Guy, who’s somehow become a millionaire in elected office.

Newsom is a sly pro at imaging. Thus, he cleverly did a pre-debate interview with the sympathetic LA Times to set the scene for himself as the brave underdog on Fox News with Sean Hannity in the Deep Red Deep South. 

The debate was in Georgia, which is Deep South, for sure, but actually voted for Biden in 2020. That doesn’t fit Newsom’s narrative, so you must ignore it. Newsom called it a “privilege” to defend his president and practically begged for credit in advance: 

I’ll take lumps on behalf of (the president). But hopefully I’ll get a little bit of an ‘atta boy’ for at least even showing up to this damn thing.

DeSantis had his own reasoning for being there. Initially dubious when Hannity suggested the debate, the Florida governor eventually saw the point:

I’m in a race where one candidate gets a disproportionate amount of media coverage and so I have to be able to get my message out. To have 90 minutes on national TV, where I’m able to go and box somebody who’s on the far left, that is good exposure for me.

DeSantis’ relentless pointed attacks on the failed policies of his Democrat opponent probably did less damage to Newsom than it built up DeSantis’ standing as a, well, standup guy who can punch hard. That one-on-one rarely happens in the larger debates.

Even when Newsom tried the familiar Democrat book-banning attack, DeSantis was ready. He pulled out a visual aid, a copy of “Gender Queer,” which he described as a pornographic comic in some California schools.

The two-man set-to drew about five million viewers. Ratings for the previous GOP-sanctioned primary debates this fall ranged from 7.5 million to 12.8 million. With speaking times divided among numerous candidates.

But don’t worry. The unusual debate also had the usual schoolyard taunts.

“You’re nothing but a bully,” Newsom told DeSantis at one point. 

DeSantis responded, “You’re a bully.”

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