the mic snatch and drop heard round the world (GOPer grabbing mic from his Dem opponent)

This was previously discussed on DU. Here it is move by move




“I’ve seen the systematic disinvestment in public education,” Mahlberg, a psychology teacher who had never run for office before, told the audience. “I think we can do better than that, and we can start doing better than that by simply making sure that formula increases over time.”

She smiled and turned to her left, awaiting the next question.

She did not see that from her other side, Quam’s hand was sliding low across the table toward her.



And then he yanked the mic straight up from Mahlberg’s fist, like Excalibur from the Arthurian stone, and made it his again.

“Thank you!” he said.


A stir went through the audience. Mahlberg whipped her head around and stared at her empty hand. “Oh,” said the moderator. “I see a rebuttal is required.”

Quam was more pithy as he launched into his second effort to explain his opposition to inflation formulas. “I want to fund success, not failure,” he said. “The formula builds in funding failure.”


Mahlberg listened to this in silence, like everyone else in the library.

“I was really just kind of in a state of shock,” she later told The Washington Post. “I just wanted to make sure I kept my composure.”

She doesn’t recall feeling any anger or embarrassment. “Just disappointment,” she said. “How would anyone feel being on the receiving end of that disrespectful behavior? Disappointment, for my current representative.”

When Quam finished speaking, he leaned across the table again and offered the microphone back. Mahlberg looked at it briefly but did not take it. When he continued to hold it out, she looked away from him.

An amplified clunk shot through the library a moment later. Mahlberg spun back around to see that Quam had just lobbed the microphone toward her. The moderator laughed nervously as Mahlberg regarded the device, laying inert behind her name placard.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/10/minnesota-republican-snatched-his-opponents-mic-then-threw-it-back-her/?utm_term=.b006d47775bb