Onward in Ohio: A Wish for Words that Work

October 15, 2019 3:17 PM

On October 15, the Democrats meet for the fourth time, starting at 8 p.m. ET in Westerville, Ohio, for a debate hosted by CNN and The New York Times, on the most crowded debate stage of this election cycle so far.

Where to watch: nytimes.com, The New York Times app, CNN, CNN International, CNN en Español and CNN.com. The DNC requires all of its TV network partners to live-stream primary debates on the web.

538: National 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary Polls • Warren’s Rise Hasn’t Come At Biden’s Expense • Do Debates Matter?

AP: 12 Democrats meet for first debate since impeachment inquiry • 6 questions looming over the crowded 2020 Democratic debate

Economist: Who is ahead in the Democratic primary race?

NBC News: Democratic debate in Ohio: Impeachment, Warren and what to watch for

NYT: October Democratic Debate: The Biggest Stage Ever • Facebook Political Ads: What the 2020 Candidates’ Campaign Spending Reveals

Politico: ‘Advantage Warren’ as Dems ready for pivotal debate • New poll has Warren leading Biden ahead of next Democratic debate • The hidden menace threatening Democrats' bid to beat Trump in 2020 Emails obtained by POLITICO reveal a Democratic Party grappling with an onslaught of twin threats: foreign election interference and disinformation by Trump and his allies.

Vox: The Democratic debates have spent 93 minutes on health care A breakdown of how debate time has been spent on various topics

WaPo: The top 15 Democratic presidential candidates of 2020, ranked and tiered • Everything you need to know about the October Democratic debate

Live quick reactions and chatter are welcome in the politics room of MeFi Chat and #2020 on the unofficial PoliticsFilter Slack (all mefites are welcome to join) • Thanks to zachlipton for helping to create this post, and to zachlipton, books for weapons, Red or Green, hypnogogue, and asperity for the title suggestions.

posted by katra (197 comments total)

Bloom County reference in the title, nice.

(thanks, katra!)
posted by Chrysostom at 3:26 PM on October 15, 2019 [10 favorites]

Let the culling commence!
posted by kirkaracha at 3:37 PM on October 15, 2019 [2 favorites]

Twelve people on stage is ridiculous. Why didn't they break it into two groups like the last round? And why are Tulsi Gabbard and Tom Steyer even up there?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 3:56 PM on October 15, 2019 [20 favorites]

So ridiculous they're doing this with 12. Should have just done 6 and 6.

Gabbard is ridiculous. The other day she posted a video to Twitter saying she was considering boycotting the debate because the rules aren't fair and then two days later posts a simple, "I'll be at the debate."
posted by dobbs at 3:57 PM on October 15, 2019

If you are coming into the MeFi politics chat, hang out for a bit. people come in and out so fast that a quorum never gets reached.
posted by Dr. Twist at 4:03 PM on October 15, 2019 [5 favorites]

If you're not for impeachment at this point get off the stage.
posted by xammerboy at 5:14 PM on October 15, 2019 [11 favorites]

who is paying Tulsi to keep trying to do her thing, I wonder.
posted by Glinn at 5:19 PM on October 15, 2019 [15 favorites]

Buttigieg sitting there shaking his head as Warren takes him apart on healthcare.
posted by xammerboy at 5:24 PM on October 15, 2019 [7 favorites]

Ugh the piling on Warren. As I just said in chat, I explained this to my neighbor after the last debate. if you are paying $600 a month in health insurance and that disappears, then it does not matter if your taxes go up $200 a month omg. It is not hard.
posted by Glinn at 5:30 PM on October 15, 2019 [45 favorites]

Biden seems to have actually prepared and rehearsed for this debate.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 5:31 PM on October 15, 2019

Glad that we spent ten minutes on the most important thing, trying to force Elizabeth Warren to say she'll raise taxes for health care so Fox News and our country's garbage political journalists get to claim a win.
posted by grandiloquiet at 5:32 PM on October 15, 2019 [40 favorites]

So goddamned tired of every debate starting out with a 20-minute round of "will you step into a disingenuous right-wing rhetorical trap, yes or no." Even more tired of half the also-rans gleefully piling on said disingenuous right-wing rhetorical trap to get their chance in the sun.
posted by Rhaomi at 5:32 PM on October 15, 2019 [38 favorites]

Harris: Let's talk about women's rights! ::applause::
Moderator: Let's talk about jobs.
posted by katra at 5:34 PM on October 15, 2019 [17 favorites]

And I really wish Warren would have a better response to this obvious bait -- returning multiple times to the same "let me be clear about this" line wasn't a great look. Surely there's a way to get across Glinn's point about basic arithmetic (and pointing out how disingenuous focusing on taxes alone is) without saying the magic words "I will raise middle class taxes."
posted by Rhaomi at 5:37 PM on October 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

Booker: No really, let's talk about women's rights! ::applause::
Moderator: No, really, let's talk about jobs.
posted by katra at 5:37 PM on October 15, 2019 [14 favorites]

> our country's garbage political journalists get to claim a win.

Given what the NYT is doing to prop up Tulsi Gabbard by letting Mike Pence staffers cosplay as random concerned citizens, I can't wait to see what sort of anti-tax hysteria they can manufacture against Warren.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:43 PM on October 15, 2019 [18 favorites]

Ugh the piling on Warren.

That's what happens when you become the front runner. It's not necessarily a bad thing since if you can't handle the scrutiny and pressure of a nomination fight you sure won't handle the general election campaign.

Nobody bothers attacking the 2%ers.
posted by Justinian at 5:46 PM on October 15, 2019 [7 favorites]

For me, Bernie is killing it this debate. Every answer has been clear, passionate, right to the point, not pulling punches.
posted by xammerboy at 5:47 PM on October 15, 2019 [16 favorites]

Maybe having a heart attack clarified some things for him.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 5:49 PM on October 15, 2019 [5 favorites]

Sorry, I want a wealth tax. I really do not want a VAT tax on everything I buy. When will billionaires pay their share?
posted by xammerboy at 5:59 PM on October 15, 2019 [32 favorites]

Poor Joe. No one cares enough to even attack anymore.
posted by Harry Caul at 6:01 PM on October 15, 2019 [4 favorites]

YAY Cory Booker for saying that tearing each other down didn't work out so well last time and maybe let's not do that.
posted by Glinn at 6:04 PM on October 15, 2019 [35 favorites]

Finally we get to Syria. This is when all the candidates should pull out all the stops and attack Trump relentlessly. Popcorn time.
posted by xammerboy at 6:09 PM on October 15, 2019 [6 favorites]

Yes, wish they would. Amy Klobuchar brought it up pretty early.
posted by Glinn at 6:12 PM on October 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

Instead, we start with Gabbard saying politicians "from both sides" have supported yadda yadda yadda and started the circular firing squad by asking Warren to say the exact same thing.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 6:14 PM on October 15, 2019 [2 favorites]

is this debate weirdly buzzwordy?
posted by 20 year lurk at 6:14 PM on October 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

OH! OH! OH! Kamala Harris with THE quote from this debate:

"DUDE GOTTA GO!!!" (referring to Orange Julius Caesar's disastrous Syrian foreign policy nightmare.)

I don't think Kamala Harris should be President but she's fierce as hell and I wouldn't cross her.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 6:31 PM on October 15, 2019 [16 favorites]

Cory Booker always sounds good with nothing to say. He's charming, respectful to other candidates, and then there's.....nothing of substance. One man's opinion.

Liz Warren looks like she's getting a little rattled from being the on the front line for friendly fire in this debate. Wasn't too happy about her ducking the "tax on the middle class" question for Medicare For All.

Biden is his usual knowledgeable but word-salady self.

Bernie is fesity. Bernie is always feisty. Bernie wrote the damn bill and we all know (knew already) he did that.

Tulsi Gabbard is as weird as Marianne Williamson and her bizzarro chant of "endless regime change war" was off-putting.

Julian Castro comes off like that guy in your office who slaps you on the back for no reason at all and you kind of respect him for it without knowing why.

Amy Klobuchar is everyone's tough, kinda scary aunt.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 6:38 PM on October 15, 2019 [8 favorites]

Liz Warren looks like she's getting a little rattled from being the on the front line for friendly fire in this debate. Wasn't too happy about her ducking the "tax on the middle class" question for Medicare For All.

No. We've been over this. It isn't a thing and we shouldn't be attacking each other anyway.
posted by Glinn at 6:43 PM on October 15, 2019 [13 favorites]

I live in the Berniest ZIP code (at least by donation in 2016) in the nation, and Tulsi support is pure ugliness online among a small but vocal group I know. I don't. Get it.
posted by argybarg at 6:45 PM on October 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

> No. We've been over this. It isn't a thing and we shouldn't be attacking each other anyway.

Also "imagine never having to scramble with open enrollment again or changing your doctor because you changed employers or your employer changed providers so now you have to change doctors."
posted by mrzarquon at 6:50 PM on October 15, 2019 [22 favorites]

Or "imagine being able to strike out on your own instead of staying in a dead-end job because you can't afford to lose your insurance."
posted by argybarg at 6:52 PM on October 15, 2019 [33 favorites]

Go home Mayor Pete

You are worse than Beto
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:54 PM on October 15, 2019 [15 favorites]

Biden: "I've been taking so many horse tranquilizers, I can make it to 99, no problem. Look at this tan! Still wash the ol' Camaro by hand!"

Booker: "Why are DEMOCRATS talking about HORSE TRANQUILIZERS when we should be talking about Trump! Can you believe my FELLOW DEMOCRATS?!?!"

Buttigieg: "I used to drive a Chevy Cavalier"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:57 PM on October 15, 2019 [28 favorites]

Tulsi it ain't gonna happen.
posted by Glinn at 6:59 PM on October 15, 2019 [5 favorites]

I guess one of the things the army didn't teach ol' Tulse was the importance of properly timing your attacks.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:02 PM on October 15, 2019 [9 favorites]

Yeah, the "attacking Elizabeth Warren for clout" thing was not a hit on my local focus group (admittedly a living room that leans Warren, but also people who like Buttigieg and Steyer). Warren has been pretty blunt about what she believes. Voters haven't been bamboozled into thinking she's a moderate. So...I can't imagine offering the most bad faith possible interpretations of her character and policy are going to convince Warren supporters that they actually should vote for Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, or Beto O'Rourke. Maybe they're just hoping to stall Warren's momentum well enough to get a Biden VP slot?

TBH, I don't really understand what most people on that stage are doing!
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:08 PM on October 15, 2019 [8 favorites]

I used to drive a Cavalier, and am happy to take any questions.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:08 PM on October 15, 2019 [9 favorites]

Biden doing a lot better than last time.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:11 PM on October 15, 2019

WARREN: "We need to tear down the systemic power monopolies in this country that are destroying our democracy."

HARRIS: "But won't you join me in calling for Twitter to close Donald Trump's account?"

lol.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:16 PM on October 15, 2019 [30 favorites]

Never mind what I said earlier, I found a new campaign issue. I will not vote for Elizabeth Warren until she signs my online petition to remove Trump from Twitter.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:17 PM on October 15, 2019 [5 favorites]

Harris has gone so deep on attacking Trump that she has nothing left for herself, policy-wise. Corporate responsibility and the problem of monopolies is not the same thing as "should Twitter ban Trump?" but she keeps treating it as an attack line. Is this a thing voters actually care about?
posted by zachlipton at 7:19 PM on October 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

warren DID tell the dictator to delete his account
posted by brujita at 7:19 PM on October 15, 2019 [6 favorites]

Somebody needs to attack Biden.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:22 PM on October 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

The crypto-Republican framing of the moderators' questions is viscerally disgusting to me. The Democratic party needs to self-finance these debates and put up moderators who are not so sneeringly condescending toward progressive values, particularly that N.Y. Times clown.
posted by xigxag at 7:23 PM on October 15, 2019 [36 favorites]

We’re seeing one of the big issues of having 12 people on stage - Biden is sounding good. There is little room to attack him, his record and many of his outdated views.
That being said, anyone on this stage 2020.
posted by misterpatrick at 7:26 PM on October 15, 2019

The moderator's question about court-packing is literally a Breitbart article (warning: link to Breitbart) from a few days ago that mentions George Soros.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:28 PM on October 15, 2019 [6 favorites]

@MEPFuller: Does anything embody Joe Biden’s current understanding of politics better than him constantly bringing up Robert Bork?

Biden's record on Judiciary is, um, not really something he should be bringing up when it comes to abortion.
posted by zachlipton at 7:29 PM on October 15, 2019 [14 favorites]

For perspective, Biden's defeat of Robert Bork is closer in time to his confrontation with Corn Pop than to anything happening today.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:29 PM on October 15, 2019 [4 favorites]

Liz Warren looks like she's getting a little rattled from being the on the front line for friendly fire in this debate. Wasn't too happy about her ducking the "tax on the middle class" question for Medicare For All.

Here's what she should be saying:

"Medicare for All will be a trillion dollar windfall for employers so we will tax employers on this windfall. We will tax the wealthy. We won't tax the middle class. Done. That is all."

This is 10 times the detail Republicans provided in their 2017 tax cuts for the rich.

Fuck the numbers. Detailed numbers are for chumps. First you decide where you want to go. How you are going to get there is just technicalities.
posted by JackFlash at 7:31 PM on October 15, 2019 [46 favorites]

I'm always pleased when the candidates manage to provide a sensible answer to insulting leading questions without falling into the traps they attempt to set.
posted by wondermouse at 7:31 PM on October 15, 2019 [2 favorites]

I live in the Berniest ZIP code (at least by donation in 2016) in the nation, and Tulsi support is pure ugliness online among a small but vocal group I know. I don't. Get it.

Well, Gabbard supported Bernie back in '16, and I think she's coasting on support from the sort of 2016 Bernie-fans who would rather (for a variety of reasons) support a young woman than a grumpy old man. On most forms of identity politics she's a terrible mess, with a really ugly history of anti-LGBTQ and anti-Islamic positions, but if you were a Bernie fan who wants to show token sympathy for marginalized groups by supporting a woman of color, you might overlook that.

(She's also #1 among Russian troll farms, as I understand it, because of her pro-Assad position and, uh, maybe other reasons but that is getting a bit conspiracy-theory)
posted by jackbishop at 7:32 PM on October 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

"And I would like to see the Democratic party have the guts" is Bernie's most appealing argument to me, a Democrat who has never been especially Sanders-obsessed.

(WILD that Biden keeps bragging about getting votes for things when the notable thing about the Obama years is that we almost never got votes for anything!)
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:34 PM on October 15, 2019 [9 favorites]

Ooh sick burn: "I give thanks to Obama." Ha!
posted by zardoz at 7:34 PM on October 15, 2019 [11 favorites]

"Is political revolution what the American people want?" Yes, anything slightly left of Mitt Romney is revolution.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:40 PM on October 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

Ooh sick burn: "I give thanks to Obama." Ha!

Context: Biden was trying to claim that he was the only one who’s ever gotten anything done and put Warren on the spot by telling her that he was the one who got votes for her stuff and waited for her to respond. That was Warren’s response.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 7:41 PM on October 15, 2019 [14 favorites]

That exchange between Warren and Biden about the votes got chilly right quick. And even though it doesn't have the immediate national urgency as Kamala Harris demanding unilateral Trump Account Deletion on Twitter, it was intense.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:43 PM on October 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

@lisatozzi: So they argued about the Twitter terms of service and no one talked about climate change?

I'm surprised Steyer didn't bring it up more (he did once). I know he doesn't want to look like a single-issue candidate in his first appearance here, but if there's any point to him being on stage at all, surely it's to show some kind of leadership on climate?
posted by zachlipton at 7:43 PM on October 15, 2019 [2 favorites]

Is anyone also seeing the ads from FFRF that end with "... Ron Reagan, not afraid of burning in hell" ?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:43 PM on October 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

Yup, it's on CNN and I think Hulu.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:44 PM on October 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

Andy Borowitz today: “Nation Shocked to Learn Beto O’Rourke Still Running”

Me: “Actually... yeah.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:45 PM on October 15, 2019 [7 favorites]

Christ these questions are awful. "What horrible person are you friends with?"
posted by zardoz at 7:46 PM on October 15, 2019 [15 favorites]

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders to be endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Not a huge surprise, but a slick move embargoing this until 15 minutes before the end of the debate to punch through the spin room conversation and setting up the rally with her in New York this weekend.
posted by zachlipton at 7:50 PM on October 15, 2019 [5 favorites]

(reminder: MeFi chat has a second tab for Politics and that is where the people are)
posted by Glinn at 7:51 PM on October 15, 2019 [2 favorites]

Democrats on TV always overestimate John McCain's popularity. It's weird.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:51 PM on October 15, 2019 [4 favorites]

Beto's surprising friendship was a Chevy Impala
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:52 PM on October 15, 2019 [9 favorites]

I trust my car more than my friends, too


That's not weird
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:55 PM on October 15, 2019

To follow up: A much more appropriate question would've been "Do you think that George W. Bush should've been tried for war crimes? Did Obama make a mistake when he refused to do so?"
posted by zardoz at 7:59 PM on October 15, 2019 [8 favorites]

I'm kind of glad that wasn't the question. I don't think that's a question that's going to win many voters.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:03 PM on October 15, 2019 [7 favorites]

Not just AOC but Tlaib and Omar also reported to be getting behind Bernie.

Should absolutely not be a surprise to anyone that the most left wing all stars in congress are endorsing Sanders.
posted by windbox at 8:16 PM on October 15, 2019 [6 favorites]

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders to be endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Looks like she won't be alone.

@GregJKrieg (CNN)
New: Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib will also endorse Sanders, according to source.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:16 PM on October 15, 2019 [4 favorites]

Guardian: Joe Biden’s visibly angry reaction to Elizabeth Warren over one of her signature achievements hasn’t gone unnoticed. [...] You can watch the moment here:

MJ Lee (@mj_lee) Here's that Biden vs. Warren exchange on the CFPB >> pic.twitter.com/NE2fPCwvZO
October 16, 2019

marisa kabas (@MarisaKabas) “i went on the floor and got you votes! I got you votes!” biden says while pointing his finger in warren’s face and raising his voice.

try and convince me he doesn’t have issues towards women.
October 16, 2019

posted by katra at 8:19 PM on October 15, 2019 [25 favorites]

The crypto-Republican framing of the moderators' questions is viscerally disgusting to me. The Democratic party needs to self-finance these debates and put up moderators who are not so sneeringly condescending toward progressive values, particularly that N.Y. Times clown.

I have literally zero confidence that the DNC, or whatever aspect of the Democratic party you think would be financing these debates, would be any less crypto fascist than the New York Times. For reference please review the last two years of furrowed brows, concern, thoughts and prayers by the Democratic leadership.
posted by hobo gitano de queretaro at 8:27 PM on October 15, 2019 [29 favorites]

Biden figured out hostility towards women is the key to the Trump vote.
posted by benzenedream at 8:35 PM on October 15, 2019 [24 favorites]

I think former Presidents (yes, Dubya included) should moderate the debates.

Ride on their coat-tails and curse them to their faces.

And lose the audience, if I want to hear random whooping I can go to a sports-ball bar.
posted by lon_star at 8:36 PM on October 15, 2019 [5 favorites]

Also, Kamala Harris is a grandstanding demagogue-in-the-making. Her solution to her inability to argue is executive order.
posted by lon_star at 8:37 PM on October 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

Ilhan Omar's official endorsement of Sanders
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:48 PM on October 15, 2019 [5 favorites]

Unsatisfied with two straight debates that focused the first section on M4A = TAX HIKES, YES OR NO?!?, CNN's post debate talk with Warren has focused exclusively on that question (from four straight panelists so far), including a classy chyron saying:

WARREN DANCES AROUND WHETHER TAXES WOULD GO UP FOR MIDDLE CLASS IN ORDER TO PAY FOR "MEDICARE FOR ALL"

For fuck's sake.
posted by Rhaomi at 9:26 PM on October 15, 2019 [21 favorites]

The Steyer campaign's Q3 FEC filing is in: they burnt $47 million dollars, essentially all of it the candidate's money. That's nearly double what any other candidate announced in fundraising.

There are a lot of downballot candidates with pained facial expressions right now.
posted by zachlipton at 9:42 PM on October 15, 2019 [10 favorites]

Wish I had 47 million to blow on a vanity presidential run...

Though I think I could find more helpful uses for that kind of coin.
posted by Windopaene at 9:53 PM on October 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

Tom Steyer would've better spent that money by backing left-leaning journalism. The right has endless millionaires and trusts and "think" tanks that funnel ungodly amounts for right-wing propaganda. The left needs to move the Overton Window to the left, and the only way you do that is by changing the framing, and the only way to do that is to have a louder megaphone.
posted by zardoz at 11:07 PM on October 15, 2019 [36 favorites]

I see Harris came out swinging for that crucial TERF vote, with her bold "womanhood = babymaking" stance.
posted by kafziel at 11:43 PM on October 15, 2019 [8 favorites]

What did she say?
posted by agregoli at 5:10 AM on October 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

Unsatisfied with two straight debates that focused the first section on M4A = TAX HIKES, YES OR NO?!?, CNN's post debate talk with Warren has focused exclusively on that question (from four straight panelists so far), including a classy chyron saying:

WARREN DANCES AROUND WHETHER TAXES WOULD GO UP FOR MIDDLE CLASS IN ORDER TO PAY FOR "MEDICARE FOR ALL"

The morning after reporting on NPR is big on that angle too. Of course, if she had said "yes, taxes would go up on the middle class" then the big story would be "Warren finally admits she is going to raise your taxes by trillions to fund medicare for all".
posted by Emmy Rae at 5:19 AM on October 16, 2019 [4 favorites]

What did she say?

I don't remember the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of 'Women's bodies were designed to make more humans.'
posted by solotoro at 5:51 AM on October 16, 2019

What did she say?

“Women have been given the responsibility to perpetuate the human species,” she said. “Our bodies were created to do that, and it does not give any other person the right to tell a woman what to do with that body. It is her body. It is her right. It is her decision.”
posted by Etrigan at 5:58 AM on October 16, 2019 [4 favorites]

The worst of it is the other Democratic candidates that pretend we can't pay for it, or that it will be more expensive for people, or that we can have both private and public insurance without mentioning that that will healthcare overall much more expensive.

The media has a job here too. They're job is to debunk false arguments like these.
posted by xammerboy at 6:01 AM on October 16, 2019 [12 favorites]

I am constantly nonstop bombarded here in Iowa with anti-"single payer" and "medicare for all" ads that are just despicable. They went from "Your taxes will go up!" to finally a NICU nurse saying "They'll close these and babies will die." Blargh. I assume they're attempting to poison the water ahead of the caucus. I think the campaign is intended to make it a not so popular issue in Iowa so that candidates don't want to run on medicare-for-all quite as much.

The ads are dumb though so.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 6:41 AM on October 16, 2019

How we'll pay for Medicare for All is literally the least important thing about it.
posted by Automocar at 7:07 AM on October 16, 2019 [10 favorites]

A round-up of articles from NPR:

• Live Analysis And Fact Check: The 4th Democratic Primary Debate
• A Surging Warren Faces Attacks From More Moderate 2020 Candidates, with a focus on Medicare for All and taxes
• 6 Takeaways From The 4th Democratic Presidential Primary Debate
  1. The scrutiny came for Warren, and her vulnerabilities were exposed some -- The criticisms strike at Warren's core vulnerability — that she's less electable* than others in the race because, one, her policies are too liberal and, two, the former Harvard professor is dismissive and elitist.
  2. The Biden versus Warren Rorschach test
  3. Buttigieg may be back in the game -- Can he sell his third way? He's at least positioned himself for the pragmatic lane if Biden falters, and he could pull from Warren's support given their overlap with college-educated white voters.
  4. Questions about Hunter Biden were over and done with surprisingly quickly
  5. The previously taboo issue of age was broached -- The top three Democratic candidates — Warren, Biden and Sanders — are all septuagenarians. Sanders is 78, Biden 76 and Warren 70. In the runup to the debate Sanders had a heart attack that took him off the campaign trail, and that became a reason for the moderators to ask about age.
  6. Health care was again dominant, while immigration, climate change and race didn't even come up


• In Democratic Debate, A Fiery Clash Over U.S. Role In Syria

  The most fiery clash in the Democratic debate over Syria came between the two military veterans on the stage.
  
  Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who served in Iraq, said Trump has blood on his hands for abandoning Syrian Kurds, but she went on to accuse members of both parties of fueling "regime change wars" across the Middle East.
  
  South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who served in Afghanistan, shot back at the congresswoman, saying she was "dead wrong," and argued that the "slaughter going on in Syria" is Trump's fault, not a consequence of America's presence in the region.
  
  "We need to get out of Syria, but it's also the case that a small number of specialized special operations forces and intelligence capabilities were the only thing that stood between that part of Syria and what we're seeing now, which is the beginning of a genocide and the resurgence of ISIS," said Buttigieg.
  
  In response, Gabbard accused Buttigieg of supporting "endless war."

* Warren is magical: both surging in the polls, threatening to push Biden aside (and make room for Mayor Pete?), while also being less electable. Dare I call this "female politician magic" that so many women in politics seem to have, according to press coverage (by men, so often).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:46 AM on October 16, 2019 [24 favorites]

The Steyer campaign's Q3 FEC filing is in: they burnt $47 million dollars, essentially all of it the candidate's money. That's nearly double what any other candidate announced in fundraising.

Jesus Christ, right there is confirmation that billionaires shouldn't exist. That's almost 1/2 of my city's capital improvement budget for 2020 and he's blown it on a campaign that's currently at 1.4% in the RCP's average.
posted by octothorpe at 7:47 AM on October 16, 2019 [19 favorites]

Oh, my YouTube actually shows two ads. The anti-medicare for all ones... and TOM STEYER 24/7 I HATE HIM.

I'm Tom Steyer and I am Super Rich. Endlessly.

I like to have on magic the gathering videos while I putter around my house but every 10 minutes I hear Tom Steyer again saying I WILL EXPOSE DONALD TRUMP like he's the first guy to think "Huh, there's not much to this guy."

Anyway, that's where a lot of the $47 mil went. To annoying me the past 4 months.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:51 AM on October 16, 2019 [11 favorites]

‘I’m Starting Not To Care That She Is Brutal To Her Staff’ -- Who stood out in the crowded debate? According to our experts, centrists like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg finally showed up. (Politico)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:58 AM on October 16, 2019

‘I’m Starting Not To Care That She Is Brutal To Her Staff’ -- Who stood out in the crowded debate? According to our experts, centrists like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg finally showed up. (Politico)

Interestingly, all the pundits who said something like "Warren looked weak" and didn't counter with some of her strengths were GOP-affiliated. I think there's some coordinated messaging going on there.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:26 AM on October 16, 2019 [9 favorites]

These anti-M4A ads are getting ridiculous. I just saw one with sadsack boomers heartfully telling the camera that they depend on Medicare and don't want it taken away. So I guess there's a talking point that m4a means healthcare for everyone except boomers?
posted by FakeFreyja at 8:26 AM on October 16, 2019 [5 favorites]

which one of you let tom steyer talk. who did it. who do i blame.

i mean, jeez, if we have to have a totally unqualified candidate up there, a totally unqualified candidate who acquired great amounts of wealth through business practices that made the world worse, a totally unqualified candidate who acquired great amounts of wealth through business practices that made the world worse and whose entire run reads like nothing more than a symptom of severe narcissism, a totally unqualified candidate who acquired great amounts of wealth through business practices that made the world worse and whose entire run reads like nothing more than a symptom of severe narcissism, despite being 100% right on an important signature issue...

... if we have to have all of that, can we please have orb mom back??
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:35 AM on October 16, 2019 [10 favorites]

It’s annual enrollment time, and I do the high premium/low deductible plan because I’m disabled, so my 2020 premium will be *checks notes* $6005.76 plus a $1000 family deductible. Tax me, Liz. Please, please tax me.
posted by Ruki at 9:29 AM on October 16, 2019 [22 favorites]

The Steyer campaign's Q3 FEC filing is in: they burnt $47 million dollars, essentially all of it the candidate's money. That's nearly double what any other candidate announced in fundraising.

From an interesting article about Penzeys Spice spending a lot of money on pro-impeachment facebook ads, I found a link to Facebook's public Ad Library Report, which is a really fascinating look at how much money is spent on facebook advertising by subject, date range, entity, and other metrics. I've never seen it before, and I think others here will find it interesting. It's amazing to see Facebook ads all laid bare like this.

On to Steyer, here is his page in the facebook ad report, which includes ads he's run on the platform and data about his total spending there. The data I see right now is from May 2018 to Oct. 13, 2018, and it shows that in that period he spent $10,670,006, and $545,615 was in the 7 days prior to Oct. 13. He has actually spent more than Trump in that 7 day period (though that doesn't account for Trump-adjacent organizations), but only spent about half of what Trump spent since May 2018.
posted by msbrauer at 9:55 AM on October 16, 2019 [6 favorites]

I feel like the media and punditocracy is getting desperate for their “sane, reasonable centrist” because over and over we hear that Klobmentum is finally happening. Nate Silver seems especially invested in “Biden is doing fine and KLOBUCHAR IS FINALLY GETTING IT TOGETHER!” Even when that’s not what his own site is saying.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 10:42 AM on October 16, 2019 [8 favorites]

I would argue that Silver has asserted that "Biden is cratering!" is false, because his polls have been basically steady. Now, you could say that "steady=failure" because a former VP should clear the field, you have Warren coming up fast, etc., and that's a valid argument. But a lot of the online takes about how Biden is already toast are a tad premature. We are, after all, still 110 days out from Iowa.

I follow Silver on Twitter and 538, and I don't think he's been pushing Klob at all. She had a much more prominent performance last night, and I think it's fair to say, "if anything is going to happen for her, that's how it starts" but I haven't seen any evidence he's Klob-stanning.

(FWIW, I am solidly pro-Warren)
posted by Chrysostom at 10:50 AM on October 16, 2019 [6 favorites]

I’m Starting Not To Care That She Is Brutal To Her Staff

My wife and I both find Amy Klobuchar incredibly grating and off-putting, but I guess that works for some people. If she wants to seem folksy, she probably shouldn't rely so heavily on pre-written zingers. Castro (the Biden thing) and Harris (the Biden thing) come off the same way to me. Like:

Debate assistant: You're looking bad in the polls. Start some unnecessary shit with Biden on [topic].
Candidate: Biden, you're so OLD/RACIST/etc!

It feels fake-y and mean even if there's a a bit of underlying truth. Biden is not in good shape to run mentally and he's too centrist, but I'd prefer the others rely on their own strengths more than his weaknesses. That's why I like Warren.
posted by freecellwizard at 11:08 AM on October 16, 2019 [2 favorites]

According to that latest Quinnipiac poll, from the 14th, 'DK/NA' is also a second tier contender at 8% of those polled.
posted by Harry Caul at 11:16 AM on October 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

Not to belabor this, but here is what Silver had to say about the Ipsos pre/post debate poll they just had done:

Our post-debate polling is out!

There's a lot of good news in here for Buttigieg and Klobuchar.

And among the top 3, definitely more good news for Warren than for Biden or Sanders.
--
We interviewed voters on a number of questions, so we hope you'll look at all of them.

First, in terms of grading the candidates' debate performance, Warren got the highest marks, followed by Sanders and Buttigieg in a tie for second.
--
Relative to their pre-debate favorability ratings—it's easier to get higher marks if voters liked you going in— Buttigieg and Klobuchar's debate grades stand out positively, while Biden, Castro, Gabbard and Beto all underperformed.
--
Next, in terms of who voters said they were considering voting for before and after the debate, Buttigieg and Klobuchar made the biggest gains, while Warren also did well. Sanders, despite getting fairly high debate ratings, didn't do so hot on this question.
--
Next, we asked about favorability ratings. Klobuchar, Buttigieg and Warren improved their net favorables by the most. Beto, Castro, Gabbard, Harris and (at the margin) Booker all saw their net favorables decline. Meh results for Biden and Sanders.
--
Finally, we asked about electability. Perhaps reflecting how contentious the debate was, almost all D's actually lost ground on perceived chance of beating Trump. Beto, Biden and Castro lost more than others, though. The lone exception was Klobuchar, who gained on electability.

(original tweets and the source article contain supporting charts)

Do look at the article, but to me, that's an accurate summary of what the polling found, and isn't any kind of centrist stanning. Yes, he mentions Klobuchar did well...because she did! He says it about Warren, too.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:25 AM on October 16, 2019 [10 favorites]

I'm just gonna put this here as fodder for y'all's conspiracy theories (many of which are probably right). That's Tulsi Gabbard's 2.5 hour appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast. Of Dem candidates, he has also hosted Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders. You'd think a dude might ask Biden/Warren on, I'm sure they'd do it, but they remain un-interviewed.

Listen to that, if you're feeling frisky, plunge the depths of what consensus says is the most likely Russian ringer in the Dem primaries this year, and see if you don't find something to agree with. Then measure against her presence in these debates, and her previously divisive and flp-floppy record.

This primary takes sharpening your senses against many whetstones.

Being an educated voter is hard.
posted by saysthis at 11:48 AM on October 16, 2019 [8 favorites]

One more clarification comment before I bow out that vaguely but not entirely has something to do with this debate, that is also a conspiracy theory on my part: I would not be surprised to discover Joe Rogan is low-key receiving Russian money. I'd bet he's not even aware of it, but talk about a vessel for divisiveness yo. F*** this crypto-Fox host to the moon and back. UGH.

We REALLY need dark money out of politics. This primary, I'm voting for the Democratic candidate with the strongest platform & record on this single issue.
posted by saysthis at 12:16 PM on October 16, 2019 [5 favorites]

The Night of the Mad Moderates

We have seen since that Warren’s progressivism has neither prevented her from broadening her base of support within the primary electorate, nor from taking the lead from Biden in a growing number of polls. Sanders, in third place, remains very much in the hunt having raised more money than any other candidate. Biden, by contrast, is lagging in fundraising and, it was reported Tuesday night, has only about $8 million in cash on hand. Even his advantage in perceived electability among Democratic voters seems to be waning, thanks perhaps in part to Hunter Biden and the Ukraine situation. The rest of the field’s moderates have failed to build any meaningfully large constituency and some have been forced to move substantially left on issues including healthcare and climate change to keep themselves relevant within the Democratic policy discourse and within public view.

Amy Klobuchar has been an exception to the latter, having shown throughout the race so far a gritty determination to offer the Democratic primary electorate as little as possible. This approach hasn’t worked very well, oddly enough, and at Tuesday night’s debate, her frustration with progressives boiled over in response to Warren’s suggestion that opponents of a wealth tax want “to protect billionaires.” [...]

In truth, Democratic moderates and progressives fundamentally disagree about the scale of the problems facing the country—and the planet—as well as the solutions they require. Tuesday night’s debate was a reminder that the tensions present in discussions of healthcare, or climate change, or the basic structure of the economy will be sustained not only through the rest of the primary but well into the next Democratic administration—and that the obstacles to passing ambitious legislation will be not just provided by Republicans. Haughty and bitter moderate Democrats, all just as miffed as Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Biden seemed to be Tuesday night that the party is moving away from them, will pose their own challenges.

posted by tonycpsu at 12:45 PM on October 16, 2019 [5 favorites]

Looks like some pretty good data visualization work here: The October Democratic Debate In 6 Charts (Laura Bronner and Maddie Sach, 538).

Chart #1 is a before/after chart of pre-debate favorability vs. perceived debate performance (using Ipsos KnowledgePanel of likely Democratic voters, N=1761). Seems to track the general perception with Warren being furthest up on both metrics and Gabbard furthest down.
posted by Not A Thing at 1:12 PM on October 16, 2019

pete buttigieg is a republican @proustmalone
4:53 AM · Oct 16, 2019·Twitter for iPhone

White liberals: LISTEN👏🏼TO👏🏼WOMEN👏🏼OF👏🏼COLOR👏🏼
AOC: *endorses Bernie Sanders for President*
White liberals: OK👏🏼EXCEPT👏🏼FOR👏🏼THAT👏🏼ONE👏🏼
Ilhan Omar: *endorses Bernie Sanders for President*
White liberals: OH👏🏼GOD👏🏼NO👏🏼
posted by Ahmad Khani at 1:40 PM on October 16, 2019 [21 favorites]

Kind of crazy to see the sudden, lockstep media praise for Butty and to a lesser extend The Klob. The investor class is circling the wagons now that their star center-right neolib has a chance of blowing the nomination.

I think by this time next month Warren will be completely written out of the major news outlets, much like Sanders is today. The headlines will say "Buttigieg Gains Ground on Biden" despite several folks ranking between the two.
posted by FakeFreyja at 1:59 PM on October 16, 2019 [6 favorites]

Er, aren't POC disproportionately supporting Biden?
posted by Chrysostom at 2:01 PM on October 16, 2019 [8 favorites]

I think by this time next month Warren will be completely written out of the major news outlets, much like Sanders is today.

I'll take that bet, I very much doubt that.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:11 PM on October 16, 2019 [5 favorites]

There is a NY Times opinion piece running right now titled "Can Buttigieg or Klobuchar Push Biden Aside?"

Warren is the frontrunner. Why is there an article about whether some 2%ers can beat the second place dude?
posted by FakeFreyja at 2:24 PM on October 16, 2019 [11 favorites]

Why is there an article about whether some 2%ers can beat the second place dude?

Because the NY Times are 1%ers?
posted by JackFlash at 2:27 PM on October 16, 2019 [8 favorites]

Why is there an article about whether some 2%ers can beat the second place dude?

Other than being NYT Opinion (and thus even more meaningless than NYT Editorial), the obvious answer would be that many people still think about "lanes". Buttigieg or Klobuchar are competing for similar voters as Biden, according to that thinking, and are not in direct competition with Warren.

(There are certainly many other ways of thinking about the primary, I think there is no one single theory/answer that covers it. But "who is the main centrist candidate" has been a long running story, and with Biden seeming to stall out there is a renewed focus on who might take over as that candidate. People who believe strongly in this theory see the race as between a Centrist (Biden/Buttigieg/Klobuchar) and a Progressive (Sanders or Warren), and that the first part of the primary is narrowing those to one candidate each).
posted by thefoxgod at 2:36 PM on October 16, 2019 [2 favorites]

Yes, exactly. Also, Biden is basically tied with Warren for the lead. If you think it's going to come down to Warren and somebody else, which is not a crazy thought, then "Is it Biden or one of the other moderates?" is a reasonable thing to think about.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:38 PM on October 16, 2019

Er, aren't POC disproportionately supporting Biden?

Yeah, I was gonna say. Perhaps the Squad is endorsing Bernie (but not all of them - not Ayanna Pressley, at least not yet), but Biden's still polling at about 50% among African Americans generally.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 2:38 PM on October 16, 2019 [4 favorites]

> Warren is the frontrunner. Why is there an article about whether some 2%ers can beat the second place dude?

It seems important to mention that the opinion piece is from Ross Douthat, which puts it squarely in Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes territory.

Succession has a GIF for this occasion.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:38 PM on October 16, 2019 [6 favorites]

Young people of color prefer Sanders, and, to a lesser degree Warren over Biden.

Although, as we plunge further and further into ecological collapse, it really is something else to see the preferences of those who won't live to see the worst of it override the preferences of those who will.
posted by Ouverture at 7:00 PM on October 16, 2019 [8 favorites]

it really is something else to see the preferences of those who won't live to see the worst of it override the preferences of those who will.

People 18 to 44 outnumber those 45 and up. All they gotta do is vote.
posted by JackFlash at 7:20 PM on October 16, 2019 [6 favorites]

It’s the generations not yet born that will inherit the consequences of our decisions and they get zero votes.
posted by moorooka at 7:35 PM on October 16, 2019 [2 favorites]

People 18 to 44 outnumber those 45 and up. All they gotta do is vote.

It's not as simple as that. There is a massive amount of voter disenfranchisement targeting younger people, especially college students who have to vote by mail. I followed all the rules in 2012 and my vote still got thrown out. I told the story in this old comment.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 8:46 PM on October 16, 2019 [11 favorites]

Millennials vote at half the rate of boomers. That ain't disenfranchisement. You think there isn't disenfranchisement for 80-year-olds?
posted by JackFlash at 9:11 PM on October 16, 2019 [3 favorites]

Ouverture: "Young people of color prefer Sanders, and, to a lesser degree Warren over Biden."

Young whites aren't big on Biden, either.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:14 PM on October 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

You think there isn't disenfranchisement for 80-year-olds?

Well, much less for well off 80-year-olds...
posted by Weeping_angel at 11:13 PM on October 16, 2019

'Personality Is a Huge Part of It.' A Look Inside the Mystery of the Bernie-to-Pete Voter (Charlotte Alter / Iowa Falls, Time.com, Oct 15, 2019)

"People have asked me, 'are you just giving up on your ideological position to vote for Pete?' No," she says. She supported Sanders last time, she explains, partly because she opposed the Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, and partly because of the unique political moment in 2016. This time around, with President Donald Trump presiding over a scandal-plagued White House and an impeachment inquiry raging on Capitol Hill, Hubka's priorities are different. "I think we need some calm in the nation," she says.

Hubka, it turns out, is not alone. E ven before the Senator's heart attack rocked his campaign in early October, a large chunk of his 2016 supporters were already shopping for another candidate. According to the left-leaning think tank Data for Progress's analysis of a YouGov poll, shared exclusively with TIME, only 65% of people who voted for Sanders in 2016 were considering voting for him again in 2020; 81% said they were considering voting for Warren. When asked to pick just one candidate, only about a quarter of the voters who backed Sanders in 2016 said they'd definitely vote for him again; 42% picked Warren.

Warren took most of the ex-Bernie supporters. Yet Time focuses on the young white dude. Hmm, what is Warren's problem again, per the media? Oh right, she's a woman. No, I mis-read my cards. It's that she's not electable. (Despite growing support!) Please, tell me more about this moderate Democrat's plans to calm the nation.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:55 AM on October 17, 2019 [12 favorites]

I mean, I hear what you're saying, but Bernie and Warren have largely similar platforms; Bernie and Pete don't. So a voter switching from Bernie to Warren isn't much of a story, whereas switching to Pete is.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:01 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

Millennials vote at half the rate of boomers. That ain't disenfranchisement. You think there isn't disenfranchisement for 80-year-olds?

Do you guys remember that absolutely rage-inducing article that came out just before or just after the 2016 election in which young people were interviewed about why they didn't vote? And one of the examples was a young person who didn't vote because they were confused and afraid of stamps or something?

Because I still wake up in a sweat thinking about it sometimes.
posted by Justinian at 2:39 PM on October 17, 2019 [8 favorites]

don't undertand Tulsi support

She makes the claim to want to put a [partial] end to the US foreign wars.

When the one [ex?] Quaker who was running wasn't up to taking a cut-the-military stance one is left with someone who wasn't willing to cut the military, just end the foreign wars.

This plays to a group of voters. Part of the reason Trump made comments about 'getting out of the Middle East' with his Kurdish abandonment move.

You might not mind the military spending - but some voters do. The visible lack of support means the people leading the polls will lean harder into "Thank you for your service" and less doing a re-inactment of BoJack Horseman comments on the military.
posted by rough ashlar at 2:49 PM on October 17, 2019

You're sure Joe Biden would go on Joe Rogan. You're sure about this. Joe Biden on Joe Rogan. Joe Biden just itching to talk about ufos releasing dmt into our brains during a near death experience. Joe Rogan talking about his favorite mma matches. You're sure about this. Joe Biden on Joe Rogan double joes joedeux the ol joejoe bizarre podventure you're sure about this

Come now you are selling Rogan short here.

I don't believe UFO's or DMT was part of the Rogan-Yang or Rogan-Sanders shows.

I'd expect the interview to go more like the Rogan-Jordan Petterson thing where someone clipped how Rogan talked Petterson into a corner and then Petterson did a response video about how he wasn't talked into the corner.

There is no upside for Biden as he won't be able to control questions about how he was called "The Senator from MBNA" or observe how if he'd JUST kept his mouth shut at CFR this whole Hunter thing would not be the issue it now is. How does 'the Lamborghini of Gaffe Machines' Biden come out on top in ANY uncontrolled 2-4 hour live interview show?

And exactly who's listening to Joe Rogan ALSO doesn't know who Joe Biden is? Or is the idea here not to introduce Joe Biden but to have the Joe Rogan listener change their minds about Joe Biden enough to gain their support?
posted by rough ashlar at 3:06 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

C'mon now, if UFOs were real Trump would've tweeted about it the instant he found out.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:16 PM on October 17, 2019 [7 favorites]

Goodness knows, America's last Quaker president got us out of foreign wars.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:46 PM on October 17, 2019 [7 favorites]

Do you guys remember that absolutely rage-inducing article that came out just before or just after the 2016 election in which young people were interviewed about why they didn't vote? And one of the examples was a young person who didn't vote because they were confused and afraid of stamps or something?

Because I still wake up in a sweat thinking about it sometimes.

Yeah, I remember that time a journalist cherry-picked a handful of young idiots to try and pin Clinton's loss on my entire generation, part of a huge sweep of similar articles all desperate to find something, any reason at all to explain the election that didn't in any way implicate the media.

And I remember a lot of smug old liberals happy to have an explanation that didn't in any way reflect poorly on them, their candidate of choice, or the strategic decisions of that candidate's campaign.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 3:47 PM on October 17, 2019 [15 favorites]

I am not a mod, but this seems to be perilously close to 2016 re-litigation.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:00 PM on October 17, 2019 [6 favorites]

Mod note: Don't make me turn this car around.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:08 PM on October 17, 2019 [25 favorites]

Pod Save America's take on the debate:

1. Mayor Pete pivoted hard on some of his previous positions like healthcare and not kowtowing to Republican talking points.
2. Warren survived an onslaught. Not many debates where 11 other people have the chance to gang up on one person.
3. What is Booker's argument for why he should be president?
4. Kamela's attack on Warren came across as staged.
5. Biden's taking credit for Warren's consumer protection agency was sad and scary. Warren's response was devastating.
6. Why is Steyer running? His policy positions are the same as Warren's.
7. Biden is no longer raising as much money as the other candidates. He is no longer a front-runner.
posted by xammerboy at 8:04 PM on October 17, 2019

Post-debate tracking poll from Morning Consult:

Biden: 31% (-1)
Warren: 21%
Sanders: 18% (-1)
Harris: 7% (+1)
Buttigieg: 6% (+1)
Yang: 3%
Booker: 2%
Klobuchar: 2% (+1)
O'Rourke: 2% (-1)
posted by Chrysostom at 9:46 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

Biden, Booker, Buttigieg, Harris, Sanders, Steyer, Warren, and Yang have all already qualified for the November debate, which is ridiculous. If someone hasn't cleared 5% by now, it's not gonna happen. Personally, I'd make 10% polling the cutoff.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:07 PM on October 17, 2019 [2 favorites]

Dec qualifiers are supposed to be tighter again, but have not yet been released.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:47 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

Warren took most of the ex-Bernie supporters. Yet Time focuses on the young white dude. Hmm, what is Warren's problem again, per the media? Oh right, she's a woman. No, I mis-read my cards. It's that she's not electable. (Despite growing support!) Please, tell me more about this moderate Democrat's plans to calm the nation.

Y'know, instead of repeating this tired and sexist canard, you could try asking one of Bernie's many supporters - including one of his many supporters who are women, like me - why we're backing him instead of Warren. I assure you, we have quite a lot of reasons that aren't your made up ones.

Meanwhile, headline and tweet at the Hill: "Trump beats Warren, Biden in Iowa match-ups".

Actual article at the Hill: Sanders beats Trump in that same poll. Weird how that wasn't worth mentioning.
posted by kafziel at 2:13 AM on October 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm a little confused...if you are saying you still support Bernie, then that article and ensuing discussion are pretty explicitly not about you? To me the complaint is that the article presents numbers that seem to clearly show that of those who were Bernie supporters and have now changed allegiance,a plurality have moved to Warren (which makes a lot of sense given the similarity of their policy positions), but that self same article highlights a supporter who went to Buttigieg (and implies that person is representative of the group). And that the sexism being discussed is in the media, not voters like you.
posted by solotoro at 4:03 AM on October 18, 2019 [11 favorites]

You could try asking one of Bernie's many supporters - including one of his many supporters who are women, like me - why we're backing him instead of Warren.

Seriously, why?
posted by xammerboy at 6:06 AM on October 18, 2019 [6 favorites]

please stop getting into fights about mom and dad. mom and dad are friends. they both love us. they’re both great.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:44 AM on October 18, 2019 [13 favorites]

You could try asking one of Bernie's many supporters - including one of his many supporters who are women, like me - why we're backing him instead of Warren.

Seriously, why?

To start?

A means-tested student loan relief that caps at $50k per household. A lot of us have more than that. This won't even halve mine, and I'm not the only person in this household with loans.
A rent reduction plan that won't even keep up with inflation, and glut the landscape with more unfilled homes and developer windfalls. This is less than three pizzas a year.
A significantly weaker wealth tax than Sanders, which barely touches net worth and brings in less than a quarter as much. Sanders has aggressive tax plans targeting high income brackets, and Warren stays far away from that to avoid pissing the corporate class off too much.
Decades of trading on the 1/32 Cherokee lie for professional gain, despite specific callout of the fact that being Cherokee is membership in a nation, not a race, and with zero outreach to or support of Native American communites even when approached. Especially jarring given racist outbursts like this one.
She's a warhawk, with a record all over the map and clearly telling people a lot of what they want to hear.
A weak climate plan that is too little too late, just like every candidate except Sanders. Even his might not go far enough! Climate change is an apocalyptic threat that will take everything, everything we have to try to fight, and Sanders is doing a hell of a lot more than trying to phase out coal over ten years.
Flat-out lying about what's in the Medicare for All bill, to make it sound a lot weaker than it is and give her an out to walk back support. These are the words of someone who either doesn't understand the bill, or doesn't want the people she's talking to to understand it. Up to you what interpretation you favor, there.
She comes out here with CEOs signing a non-binding pledge to abide by her Accountable Capitalism reforms, and claims that's progress. As though Accountable Capitalism makes any more sense than Accountable White Supremacism. But that's what you get from someone who proudly proclaims herself to be "a capitalist to my bones".

This isn't a complete list, but it's a start. Warren isn't Sanders, her platform isn't Sanders's platform, and her beliefs aren't Sanders's beliefs. They're not the same candidate at all. I don't trust her, I don't like her, I think she'll be another milquetoast corporate liberal in office. And I really don't appreciate being accused of sexism all the time for thinking that.
posted by kafziel at 9:58 AM on October 18, 2019 [12 favorites]

And I really don't appreciate being accused of sexism all the time for thinking that.

In case you didn't see solotoro's reply up there, you weren't actually being accused of it this time. The insinuation came in the context of media focus on the fewer people who have switched from Sanders to Buttigieg, rather than from Sanders to Warren. It did not address the actual people who have switched, nor people who have chosen Sanders over Warren and remain there.
posted by Etrigan at 10:26 AM on October 18, 2019 [7 favorites]

Cool. Now someone post a similarly scathing takedown of all the (relatively forgivable) things Sanders has done to make him personally less agreeable than Warren, knowing full well you would vote for either candidate when the time comes.

On second thought, maybe let’s talk about how HRC came out and said Tulsi Gabbard is the Russian asset designed to spoil the next election, as many people here have been intimating.
posted by Arson Lupine at 10:32 AM on October 18, 2019 [13 favorites]

sanders fronts as a democratic socialist, but when push comes to shove he’s a moderate-left social democrat. warren fronts as a pro-capitalism liberal, but when push comes to shove she’s a keynesian social democrat. i’m glad they’re both in the race: warren’s perceived centrism grants the social democratic views that both she and sanders hold a sense of mainstream respectability, and the presence of sanders forces warren farther toward the rabble-rousing left.

mom and dad are great. mom’s a little square and dad is a doofus sometimes, but they’re both good folx.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:35 AM on October 18, 2019 [4 favorites]

mom and dad are great. mom’s a little square and dad is a doofus sometimes, but they’re both good folx.

this is very nice and kumbayah but you realize this is a primary and only one of them is going to win custody of the kids right?
posted by windbox at 10:38 AM on October 18, 2019

mom and dad are great. mom’s a little square and dad is a doofus sometimes, but they’re both good folx.

this is very nice and kumbayah but you realize this is a primary and only one of them is going to win custody of the kids right?

Not to extend this metaphor too far, but that's not how custody works in most cases, and courts take a dim view of parents who go nuclear on the other one, especially in front of the kids.
posted by Etrigan at 10:55 AM on October 18, 2019 [10 favorites]

this is very nice and kumbayah but you realize this is a primary and only one of them is going to win custody of the kids right?

yeah, we have to fight. we have to. I hate this, but [picks up brickbat]
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:58 AM on October 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Folks, I'm gonna ask that we stop scrapping about candidates and stop scrapping about whether or not to scrap about candidates. Aim this back toward "here's substantial stuff happening related to the primaries" and let's steer away from "here's something primaries-related to argue about".
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:11 AM on October 18, 2019 [9 favorites]

Mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird.
Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away, ay, ay, ay.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:32 AM on October 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

I'm sorry kafziel, I thought you were saying you were a Bernie supporter now supporting Buttigieg instead of Warren as your second choice candidate, but I still think your reply was awesome! I'm a Warren supporter who sometimes thinks about supporting Bernie.
posted by xammerboy at 3:09 PM on October 18, 2019

In a move that echoes Cory Booker (CNN) and Oral Roberts (UPI), Julián Castro (BuzzFeed) says in an email to supporters that he's out of the race if he doesn't raise $800,000 in the next ten days.
posted by box at 8:21 AM on October 21, 2019

What a load of horseshit. Famous bigot and scammer Oral Roberts told his followers that god was going to kill him if they didn't send him money, Castro said that his campaign is running out of funds and that he may no longer be able to stay in the race.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:29 AM on October 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

Maybe I should've just said Booker. I don't especially like being marketed to, and the fundraising part of politics is not my favorite, so I might judge candidates' fundraising efforts more harshly than I should.

I don't intend any larger comparison between Castro and Roberts. But, like, a guy says that, if he doesn't get a seemingly-arbitrary sum by a seemingly-arbitrary date, a maybe-kinda-overstated thing ("my campaign will be silenced for good") will happen? There might be some similarity.

I like what Castro's been saying at the debates, and I hope he makes his mark. This is a harder sell than he's used up to this point--it's not my favorite sales technique, but I hope it pays off for him.
posted by box at 2:20 PM on October 21, 2019

It's pretty clear at this point that he's running for VP (or, I suppose, Cabinet again). He should drop out and run in TX SEN.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:25 PM on October 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Pew's latest polling has some interesting insights about the makeup of supporters for the leading Democratic candidates.

Sanders leads in terms of urban supporters, supporters under 30, PoC supporters, women supporters, and supporters without a college degree (or graduate degree? can't tell what "college grad+" means...if only I had gone to grad school~).

At 71%, Warren leads in terms of white supporters by quite a bit compared to Sanders's 49% and Biden's 56%. She also leads in terms of religiously affiliated supporters and "college grad+", while Biden is at the other end.
posted by Ouverture at 6:42 PM on October 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

A little surprising that Warren's supporters are no more female than anyone else's (I'm assuming the margins of error on these percentages are pretty large). And too bad for her Buttigieg isn't on that graphic, since I think he's the only candidate with more purely white support than her. Maybe I missed it, but one odd thing is that, based on here, while Biden's non-white supporters are mainly black and Warren's are roughly 50/50, Sanders's non-white supporters are mainly hispanic. I feel like I've seen tons of articles on Biden's African-American support, but very little to explain why such a high percentage of Sanders's support is hispanic.
posted by chortly at 7:55 PM on October 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

Full video of Bernie Sanders' Saturday NYC rally

For me, the real highlight was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's endorsement speech.

I can't find a transcript to quote from, probably because of the media's tendency to totally blackout Sanders' campaign whenever possible. But this bit gives you an idea of the intensity of her endorsement:

It wasn’t until I heard of a man by the name of Bernie Sanders that I began to question and assert and recognize my inherent value as a human being.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 10:05 PM on October 21, 2019 [8 favorites]

New York Times or New York Times Pitchbot:
Anxious Democratic Establishment Asks, ‘Is There Anybody Else?’

posted by octothorpe at 8:30 AM on October 22, 2019 [1 favorite]

Julia Wolfe and Laura Bronner, 538: Most 2020 Candidates Have Something In Common: Their Supporters Also Like Warren.
posted by Not A Thing at 10:19 AM on October 22, 2019 [4 favorites]

Thanks for bringing attention to that AOC speech, One Second Before Awakening! She's one hell of a speaker. Here's a nicer quality version posted by Bernie's team.

I found it so inspiring I decided to transcribe it:

Holy cow! What's up New York City? Let me ask you again, what's up New York City?!

Thank you all! Can we please hear it loud and proud for all of our volunteers, our staffers, our organizers! Putting in the time, putting in the work, putting in the sweat and the tears, to make sure that we bring a working-class revolution to the ballot box in the United States of America!

(Crowd: "We love you!")

Thank you, I love you back! Do you all like my haircut? It got a lot of attention last week. (laughs) Damn. Thank you New York City! Thank you Queens, thank you Queensbridge, let's acknowledge the ground that we are on, this is ground zero for the fight for public housing and fully funded dignified housing in the United States of America!

Not only is this about public housing, this is the ground for environmental justice, because just beyond this park is a power plant that spills and spews off toxins to the poor, that shows exactly the fight of environmental justice that we are up against, but that's okay, because with the Green New Deal, we are gonna center front line communities, center working-class communities, center communities of color, indigenous wisdom, to transform our future, take it back, and preserve our planet.

(Crowd chanting "Green New Deal")

Last year, last February, I was working as a waitress in downtown Manhattan. At a taquería. I worked shoulder to shoulder with undocumented workers, who often worked harder and hardest for the least amount of money. I was on my feet working 12-hour days. With no structured breaks. I didn't have health care. I wasn't being paid a living wage. And I didn't think that I deserved any of those things, because that is the script that we tell working people, here and all over this country. That your inherent worth and value as a human being is dependent on an income that another person decided to underpay us. But what we're here to do is to turn around that very basic logic. It wasn't until I heard of a man by the name of Bernie Sanders that I began to question and assert and recognize my inherent value as a human being that deserves health care, housing, education, and a living wage.

Now I was born across this river in the Boogie Down. And like many first, second, and third generation Americans, I grew up between two worlds, in multiple contexts. My mom was born in Puerto Rico. My dad was born in the South Bronx while the Bronx was burning. And again, let's listen to our history. My dad was born when the Bronx was burning, when landlords began to turn into arsonists because the insurance payouts were more valuable than the families that lived inside those buildings.

Now, that was the backdrop by which my parents started their lives. And the backdrop upon which I started mine was in a one-bedroom apartment in Parkchester in the Bronx. They worked hard. We had a mattress on the floor, and a crib in the closet, and that's how we started our American Dream.

Now, it was shortly after that, that my mom and my dad looked at the quality of education in the Bronx, and they looked at 50% drop out rates, they looked at the inequity of education. The inequity of education funding. The fact that teachers weren't paid, the fact that kids weren't given their tools to succeed, and that frankly, it not only had to do with their income, but it had to do with their melanin too. And so they made, and my family made a really hard decision. And my whole family chipped in to buy a small house about 40 minutes north of here. And that's when I got my first taste of a country who allows their kids' destiny to be determined by the zip code that they are born in.

And so much of my life was shuttled between these two worlds. And not just the two worlds between the Bronx and Westchester County, but the continental US, New York State, and the realities of Puerto Rico, where my family is too. And we saw the distinctions between these two worlds. I grew up where income inequality was an ingrained fact of life, of my childhood. And it took everything in us to try to give that next generation a chance. When I was 18 my dad died, of cancer, and all of the work that we did in a generation, like that (snaps fingers) was wiped out. And I know that that story isn't just mine, it's all of our story. We are all, always, it feels, like just one accident away from everything falling apart. And we have to change the fundamental logic of a system and a politics that puts corporate profit ahead of all human and planetary costs.

But when you rewind on that story, when I was a baby, my family relied on Planned Parenthood for prenatal care. Then, Bernie Sanders fought for me. When I was growing up, and education was being gutted for kids in the "wrong zipcode", Bernie Sanders fought for us. When I was a child that relied on CHIP so that I could see a doctor, Bernie Sanders fought for a single payer health care system. When the federal government decided to discriminate and abandon my queer family and friends, Bernie Sanders was putting his career on the line for us! When I was a waitress and when it was time for me to graduate college with student debt, Bernie Sanders was one of the only ones that said 'no person should be graduating with life-crushing debt at the start of their lives'.

Bernie Sanders did not do these things because they were popular, and that's what we need to remember. He did this, and he fought for these aims and these ends when they came at the highest political cost in America. No one wanted to question this system, and in 2016 he fundamentally changed politics in America. We, right now, have one of the best Democratic presidential primary fields in a generation, and much of that is thanks to the work that Bernie Sanders has done in his entire life.

I'm in the United States Congress now. (Crowd cheers) And that's a long, long way from being a sexually harassed waitress in downtown Manhattan one year ago. However, in this new historic freshman congressional class, an overwhelming amount of them now reject corporate PAC money, that's thanks to Bernie. An enormous amount of the House of Representatives endorse Medicare For All, that's thanks to Bernie. More people now than ever recognize the climate crisis as an existential threat, but also our greatest economic opportunity and that's thanks, not just to the climate work of Bernie Sanders, but the climate activists that are part of mass-movement politics in the United States.

Now that I'm on that other side, I can tell you the halls of Congress are no joke. It is no joke to stand up to corporate power and established interests. It is no joke. It's not just about standing up and saying these things, but behind closed doors your arm is twisted, the vice pressure of political pressure gets put on you, and every trick in the book, psychological and otherwise, is used to get us to abandon the working class. And it has been in that experience over the last nine months that I have grown to appreciate the enormous, consistent, and non-stop advocacy of Senator Bernie Sanders.

(Crowd starts chanting "Bernie!")

Now, one thing I'll say is that it's not just what we're fighting for, but it's how we're going to do it. And how we're going to do it is with a mass mobilization of working-class people at the ballot box. That's the only way that we are going to win this thing. Because one of our top priorities is not just defeating Donald Trump, but defeating the systems of which he is a symptom. That means that what we need to do in this country is organize a fundamentally positive and welcoming movement. One that is mindful, not only mindful of the ugly histories that created our present inequalities: the racism of housing segregation, the classism of the Hyde amendment, that tells us that low-income women shouldn't have access to health care. But, we also recognize the imperialist and colonial histories that contribute to our endless wars and our immigration crisis. Not only do we need to recognize that NYCHA being underfunded by over 30 billion dollars is not an accident, it is an outcome. It's not an accident, it is an outcome of a system that devalues the poor, that devalues working people, and that prioritizes buildings like those (points at power plant) over buildings like these (points to housing).

And so, not only must we recognize what is broken, and that has resulted in why we're here, but we need to recognize the principles that will drive us forward. Because the logic that got us into this mess is not gonna get us out. So we need to build a mass movement in America, centered on the working class, the poor, the middle class, one that is actively anti-racist, that is rooted in principles of universality. Everybody has a right to health care! Everybody has a right to an education! One that is rooted in princples of cooperation, that is participatory, that combats not only racism but misogyny, anti-queer discrimination, we have to actively center those principles to drive us forward, because the future, and our future, is in public systems, and it's publically *owned* systems, because we need to take power over our lives again. I don't know about you, but I don't want Mark Zuckerburg making decisions over my life. I don't know about you, but the Waltons have already been making decisions over our lives, and what we got was nothing. We need a United States that really, truly, and authentically is operated, owned, and decided by working and all people in the United States of America. It is multi-racial, multi-gendered, multi-generational, and multi-geographic. We have to come together. Not ignoring our differences, but listening to them, prioritizing them, understanding injustice, understanding that we operate in a context where slavery evolved into Jim Crow, evolved into a mass incarceration, evolved into the realities we have today.

And so with that, I'm proud to say that the only reason that I had any hope in launching a long-shot campaign for Congress is because Bernie Sanders proved that you can run a grass-roots campaign and win in an America where we almost thought it was impossible. And with that, I'd like to introduce the man, the ally, I call him the Obernie, maybe to my goddaughter he's abuelo, maybe to some others, he's brother, but he's my tío, Bernie Sanders!
posted by Feyala at 3:25 PM on October 22, 2019 [16 favorites]

Thanks for that transcript, Feyala.
posted by nangar at 12:09 AM on October 23, 2019

Yes, thank you, Feyala!

I'm much more excited about Warren than Sanders, but I have tremendous respect for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and I really appreciate getting to read what she had to say.
posted by kristi at 8:54 AM on October 23, 2019 [2 favorites]

Amy Klobuchar (Politico) just qualified for the November debates (WaPo). She received 3% in a recent Quinnipiac poll. In that same poll, Warren held a lead over Biden, 28 percent to 21 percent. Sanders and Buttigieg were the only other candidates to crack double-digits, at 15 percent and 10 percent, respectively. These results differ a bit from a CNN poll (Politico) released yesterday, in which Biden led with 34%.

She'll join Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang (I can't believe those two are still a thing). Absent from this list: Julián Castro (he's reached the required fundraising level to be in the debate, but hasn't reached his self-imposed one (Time), needs to hit 3% in four polls between now and November 13), Tulsi Gabbard (needs three polls, threatened to boycott the last debate (NYT)), and Beto O'Rourke (needs two polls, has helped America's gun lobby (Economist)).

The November 20th debate, sponsored by the Washington Post and MSNBC, will be moderated by four women: NBC News' Andrea Mitchell and Kristen Welker, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, and the Washington Post's Ashley Parker. This is the second all-female presidential debate moderating team--the first was Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill, who moderated a PBS Democratic debate (WaPo) in 2016.
posted by box at 7:53 AM on October 24, 2019 [3 favorites]

Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang (I can't believe those two are still a thing)

Mr. Steyer has a large amount of money he is willing to spend.

Mr .Yang is concerned about the automation laying waste to the employment situation in the US of A. Rather than attempting to come up with a plan for that he's taking the buy you off to prevent you from complaining road and, well, voters like the idea of having their vote line their pocket.

And as long as Steyer's wallet remains open and Yang has his $1K bribe/payoff to avoid talking about or have actual lawmaking about the effects of automation they will be 'round.

Does the above make them still being in the debates more believeable?
posted by rough ashlar at 9:41 AM on October 24, 2019

These results differ a bit from a CNN poll (Politico) released yesterday

That's putting it mildly.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:58 AM on October 24, 2019

Tim Ryan is dropping out of the presidential race to focus on the House (Li Zhou and Ella Nilsen, Vox)
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:39 AM on October 24, 2019

Bee tee dubs voters are *incredibly* misinformed about other voters.

Here's the Keynesian beauty contest, where voters say who they think will win:

% of registered voters who think ___ would beat / lose vs Donald Trump in 2020:

Biden: 39% beat / 44% lose (-4)
Warren: 36 / 46 (-10)
Sanders: 32 / 51 (-18)
Harris: 23 / 55 (-31)
Buttigieg: 21 / 54 (-33)
Booker: 19 / 56 (-37)
O'Rourke: 18 / 57 (-38)
Klobuchar: 15 / 59 (-43)

But when you ask people who they themselves will vote for, RCP says:

Biden 53, Trump 43 (Biden +10)
Warren 52, Trump 44 (Warren +8)
Sanders 52, Trump 43 (Sanders +9)
Buttigieg 50, Trump 44 (Buttigieg +6)

So basically people underestimate Dems' chances by about 20 points (!!!) which could theoretically cause them to worry a bit too much about electability.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:26 PM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

Curious how people would have responded if they were asked who would win in a free and fair election between two candidates.
posted by Green With You at 4:06 PM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

‘There’s no model for this’: Impeachment timeline crashes into Democratic primary (Marc Caputo, Politico)

A Senate trial could take 6 senators off the 2020 campaign trail just as the early states prepare to vote.

Depending on when the trial begins, or if it drags on, the trial could affect the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 11, a day shy of the 21st anniversary of President Clinton’s acquittal after a five-week Senate trial.

There’s no consensus over which Democratic contenders are advantaged by an impeachment trial. Candidates such as Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg won’t be chained to senatorial desks, leaving them to stump unfettered in the two early states. But the six senators — Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren — will occupy the national spotlight as jurors, located at the center of the political universe of impeachment.

posted by ZeusHumms at 10:53 AM on November 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Beto O’Rourke is dropping out of the race. His announcement on Twitter:

Our campaign has always been about seeing clearly, speaking honestly, and acting decisively.

In that spirit: I am announcing that my service to the country will not be as a candidate or as the nominee

posted by mbrubeck at 2:56 PM on November 1, 2019 [8 favorites]

Two stories on Andrew Yang and Asian America-

"What Andrew Yang Means" by Wesley Yang (WashPo)

Yang is a stand-in — and hero — for all the people who have acquired a deep understanding of how things actually work while toiling away in the obscurity where others are content to keep them confined, running the technical infrastructure. That’s the role in which we are most habituated to seeing Americans of Asian descent: hyper-competent but deferential, best suited for those essential but essentially subordinate roles — and no other. [...]

After watching Gillis’s comedy, Yang decided he wasn’t the evil pariah that the progressive consensus assessed but instead “a still-forming comedian from central Pennsylvania.” This magnanimity isn’t a capitulation, it’s a sign of strength.

Yang grasps that, despite the grievances many Asian Americans justifiably hold about discrimination, members of the best-educated and highest-earning group in America shouldn’t linger on victimhood.

In an era when activists debate whether a white man should lead the Democratic Party and pollsters ask voters whether a woman or a minority can beat Trump, Yang arrives without baggage because he’s an outsider to the black-white binary at the core of American racial tension. A country that not long ago elected its first black president to his second term, and Trump to his first, could well find a respite from this whipsaw dynamic in the very marginality of an Asian American candidate. Neither especially loved nor feared by either side of this divide, an Asian American might become what the country can agree to settle on: an honest broker.

"Andrew Yang Knows How to Fit In. Somehow That’s Making Him an Outlier." by Jay Caspian Kang (NYT)

His approach to race is the conciliatory style a nonwhite candidate might have adopted years ago — the one Barack Obama took when he talked about being “a skinny kid with a funny name.” It acknowledges racial difference but asks us — self-deprecatingly, a little humiliatingly — to get over it.

For white voters who hate thinking about identity, this may resemble many of the Asian-Americans they know and like. But for progressive, upwardly mobile Asian-Americans — many of whom have aligned their identities with a more modern political consciousness — Yang’s approach has raised hackles. This month, in fact, he met with a collection of Asian-American and Pacific Islander journalists and was peppered with tough questions about his comments on race and the harm they might inflict on others. The minority who has minimized his difference is now seen, by these peers, as the wayward child. [...]

In the second half of his column, Shyong described going to a Yang rally and interviewing Asian supporters, most of whom said that while they didn’t love Yang’s supposed missteps, they didn’t see them as a big deal. They, I imagine, have a simpler view of representation — the same one that felt so anachronistic when I first watched Sarlin’s interview. The simple view is that Yang matters because he’s an Asian guy running for president. But there’s a less-simple view, too — one in which many people might be coming to see the self-appointed arbiters of racial politics, and the candidates working to satisfy them, as the establishment. Those people will be happy to see anyone willing to break from our rigid prescriptions.

posted by Apocryphon at 8:21 PM on November 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

I wasn't a big Beto fan, but his late pivot to "Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47" and "Members of the press, what the fuck?" made me like him a little. Of course, it will probably decrease his chances of winning an election in Texas. So, presuming he doesn't just ride off on his skateboard, what's next for Beto?

MSNBC gig? Cabinet post? Cross-country tour with P.J. O'Rourke followed by a Michael Ian Black/Megan McCain-style book?
posted by box at 6:19 AM on November 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

And, last night Trump said Beto 'quit like a dog.'

Which, between this and al-Baghdadi, seems like a good reminder that, when Trump says 'like a dog,' he wants to say 'like a bitch.'
posted by box at 6:30 AM on November 2, 2019

Not a real look of confidence when you feel compelled to go after a candidate that was polling at all of 3%. A candidate in Beto's position shouldn't even appear to be on the incumbent's radar.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:04 AM on November 2, 2019 [5 favorites]

> But there’s a less-simple view, too — one in which many people might be coming to see the self-appointed arbiters of racial politics, and the candidates working to satisfy them, as the establishment. Those people will be happy to see anyone willing to break from our rigid prescriptions.

Ah yes, the logic that brought us Trump, reheated. What a surprise it comes from another "best-educated and highest-earning group" in the country.
posted by rhizome at 9:38 AM on November 2, 2019

Trump has made similar comments after every candidate that drops out. Yes, it's dumb, but he'll clearly do it every time.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:18 PM on November 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

Ayanna Pressley endorses her MA colleague Warren.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:37 AM on November 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

Charlie Pierce: Joe Biden is going to ride this dinosaur until it drops dead underneath him.

He said: "With Donald Trump out of the way, you're going to see a number of my Republican colleagues have an epiphany. Mark my words. Mark my words."

Which of "his" Republican colleagues is going to have this "epiphany"? Mitch McConnell? Tom Cotton, who, on Wednesday, started pitching for the next Mexican War? And what will this "epiphany" entail? A move away from radical deregulation and fringe Protestantism? Abandoning, at last, supply-side economics? My guess is that, if and when this administration* ends badly, the Republican Party will find itself compressed into a diamond of pure Id—angry, vengeful, and out for blood. The epiphany is likely to be a fiery reaction against anyone associated with anything these fevered minds believe is "liberal." I could be wrong. The sky could rain gumdrops.

posted by box at 5:37 AM on November 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

"One Big Thing the Dems Get Wrong About Warren" is not quite the right title for this article, which ranges across topics including media bias and who drives change from a historical perspective.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:40 AM on November 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

Tom Steyer not running the cleanest campaign here. Days after one of his workers stole data from Kamala Harris's campaign, the AP reports that one of his top aides has privately offered campaign contributions to Iowa politicians in exchange for endorsing his White House bid.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:35 AM on November 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Exclusive: Mike Bloomberg will "spend whatever it takes" in 2020

Maybe if he spends enough money, he might poll as high as Tom Steyer.
posted by octothorpe at 10:31 AM on November 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

Maybe this will give me a chance to ask him why the disgusting and aggravating California Anti-Vape commercials were all paid for by him and, apparently, him alone.
posted by rhizome at 5:28 PM on November 8, 2019

Maybe he could form a Bloomberg-Steyer unity ticket for people who like billionaires, but don’t like Trump. Doesn’t sound like a winning coalition to me, but then I am not surrounded by people who depend on me for a paycheck.
posted by box at 5:32 PM on November 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

Me Yesterday: Is there a single person in the universe who wants Mike Bloomberg to run for president?

Me Today: Opens the New York Times and reads "Run, Mike, Run! by Bret Stevens"

Welp, that answers that question.
posted by octothorpe at 4:58 AM on November 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

Pointed out on Twitter: it Bloomberg isn’t going to take campaign contributions, he’s not going to be in the debates.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:04 AM on November 9, 2019

Bloomberg roaring out of the gate with a big 4% in polling.
posted by octothorpe at 6:20 AM on November 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

This is the second wave of Billionaire defense strategies. I hope Warren and Sanders tear him a new money funnel.
posted by benzenedream at 11:14 AM on November 10, 2019 [3 favorites]

Ugh. The first sentence of that Bret Stephens piece: "Mike Bloomberg should run for president, for two reasons that ought to be dispositive." Stephens makes sure at the very fucking start to let you rabble know he's smarter that you, you fucking Philistines. He knows big words like "dispositive" and knows you don't, so don't even think about second-guessing his pundit cred.
posted by zardoz at 5:32 AM on November 11, 2019 [1 favorite]

New Monmouth poll of Iowa:

Buttigieg: 22% (+14)
Biden: 19% (-7)
Warren: 18% (-2)
Sanders: 13% (+5)
Klobuchar: 5% (+2)
Harris: 3% (-9)
Steyer: 3% (-)
Yang: 3% (+2)
Booker: 2% (+1)
Gabbard: 2% (+1)
Bullock: 1% (-)
Castro: 1% (+1)
posted by octothorpe at 10:49 AM on November 12, 2019

Iowa is climbing aboard the Butti Bus?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:33 AM on November 12, 2019

The RCP average for Iowa right now shows Warren ahead of Buttigeig by 0.3

Is there another site that does polling averages? Real Clear Politics does a good job but they're such a shitty site otherwise.
posted by octothorpe at 1:32 PM on November 12, 2019

The Economist does it (with great data viz), but just for national polls.

538 and the NYT list all polls but doesn't average them.

It looks like 270ToWin provides a simple average of recent state-level polls.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:43 PM on November 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

Today's the deadline to qualify for the November debate.

Looks like it'll be Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Harris, Yang, Steyer, Klobuchar, Booker, and... Tulsi Gabbard. I'm sorry to see Julián Castro not on stage (he met the donor threshold, but didn't get above 3% in a single qualifying poll).
posted by box at 5:42 AM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Well thank goodness the field is winnowing...oh no.

Former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick has reportedly decided to enter the Democratic presidential primary

Patrick has missed the deadline to appear on the primary ballot in Alabama and Arkansas.
posted by persona at 12:18 PM on November 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

‘No discipline. No plan. No strategy': Kamala Harris campaign in meltdown (Christopher Cadelago, Politico)

Campaign manager Juan Rodriguez is taking the most heat for the failings, but his defenders point their finger at the candidate's sister, Maya Harris.

[…] Inside the campaign, which had already experienced staff shakeups before the layoffs, rank and file aides are fed up with the weak leadership and uncertainty around internal communication, planning and executing on a clear vision. They say the constant shifting has eroded trust in the upper ranks.

posted by ZeusHumms at 11:21 AM on November 15, 2019 [1 favorite]