Last night’s first night of the second Democratic debate has clear cut winners, and they are so called “moderates”:
Pete Buttigieg
Steve Bullock
Amy Klobuchar
All three did extremely well, and meanwhile, Bernie Sanders was shouting, and Elizabeth Warren was shaking, not good impressions to witness.
This author thinks all three will still be part of the equation going forward.
But tonight’s second debate will reshape the race, and decide who will be able to move forward, along with these three.
Clearly, Sanders and Warren are not going anywhere, but the number of moderate competitors will be growing in numbers.
The MSNBC panel last night made the exact same argument I’ve been making. While Sanders and Warren have bold ideas, they aren’t thinking pragmatically. The obstacle they face is Congress.
Another problem is this. Steve Kornacki showed polling of Democratic primary voters vs. general election voters. Things such as no private insurance, reparations for slavery, etc. are not polling well with the general electorate.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I hate debates. Instead of debates, I’d much rather have town hall style events.
I disagree, Southern Liberal, as Town Hall type events do not challenge candidates to react to each other, and are just ego trips for any particular candidate.
Debates are essential to understand alternatives, but I agree that 10 people in a debate is ridiculous.
When the number goes down soon, the debates will be much more fruitful!
DEBATE NIGHT #01: THE PERFORMANCES
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Date: July 30, 2019
All, while categorized, are listed in alphabetical order.
TIER #01
• Bernie Sanders
• Elizabeth Warren
• Marianne Williamson
TIER #02
• Steve Bullock
• Pete Buttigieg
• Amy Klobuchar
• Beto O’Rourke
TIER #03
• John Delaney
• John Hickenlooper
• Tim Ryan
Video Highlight #01:
https://youtu.be/vudqgDSb5OE
Video Highlight #02:
https://youtu.be/KffpLl0yIpU
D can correct me if I’m wrong on this, but, the gist I get is that Medicare For All pays 100%, where as regular Medicare pays only 80%?
Medicare is 80 percent,. but if you have a supplement that you pay for, it covers the remainder of the bill, Rustbelt Democrat.
However, I pay about $290 a month for my supplement, and not complaining about it!
Many doctors and hospitals will no longer practice if Medicare for All goes into effect, hurting their ability to survive economically!
Video Highlight #03:
https://youtu.be/ny5cFCaQj38
D, this is morally proper, but will NEVER happen, in reality!
If there were survivors of slavery, yes, as with Japanese Americans 45 years after World War II.
Our government will NEVER do this, and to believe otherwise, is total folly!
Polling shows that when asked what health care policies they want Congress to prioritize, Americans don’t list Medicare for All first. Instead, they want Congress to pass targeted measures that would lower prescription drug costs, continue the ACA’s protections for preexisting conditions and protect people from surprise medical bills.
Polling shows that prioritizing Medicare for All is politically polarizing. Democrats support it more than Republicans do.
Overall, Americans seem to be more concerned with fixing the current health care system than creating a sweeping new replacement.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-have-no-safe-options-on-health-care/
Biden vs. Harris 2.0 getting ready to start.
Hope whoever sings the National Anthem is better than that choir last night. They were awful.
Excellent articles about the debates.
A Pragmatic Deconstruction of Centrist Arguments
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/07/31/a-pragmatic-deconstruction-of-centrist-arguments
One of the things we saw clearly in Tuesday’s Democratic debate was that several candidates made the so-called “centrist†argument against the progressive proposals emanating from more liberal candidates. Some of them made sense, like the fact that Warren’s wealth tax is at worst unconstitutional, and at best, will be tied up in the courts for years. Delaney was right to support the Transpacific Partnership trade deal negotiated by the Obama administration. As Kevin Carey identified in the latest edition of the Washington Monthly, Warren and Sanders get some things wrong in their proposals for free college.
But in many ways, the entire framing of many of these issues is what’s wrong. On health insurance, of the 20+ candidates seeking the Democratic nomination, Warren and Sanders are the only two who support taking private insurance away from those who prefer it. There are a whole host of alternatives being offered that would take us closer to universal coverage but don’t get thoroughly examined because everyone is busy setting their hair on fire about the “socialism†of single payer.
The overriding problem is that, on the items that are soaking up all of the oxygen, too many people are feeding into the way that these issues are being framed by Republicans. For example, a lot of people are worried about the “radical†idea of decriminalizing border crossings. Of course that doesn’t play well with most voters. But that is because almost no one is taking a look at what is actually being proposed. I’ll let Josh Marshall explain.
————
…this is an incredibly narrow issue in the broader immigration debate. As the advocates of decriminalization make fairly clear, the reason they want to do this is that President Trump has used this law as the hook for family separations. By and large previous administrations chose to deal with crossings as civil infractions. In other words, before President Trump, in practice it wasn’t criminalized in the first place (there were exceptions). So in practice there’s very little difference. This amounts to an argument that if we get a Democratic president, it will be a priority to formally change border crossings to only a civil offense so that a future Trump-like President wouldn’t be able to use the law for family separations in the future.
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Decriminalizing border crossings does not equate to open borders. Instead, it means formalizing what had previously been standard practice: treating these crossings as civil infractions. So there would still be legal consequences, but the charges couldn’t be used to separate families or lock people up in inhumane detention centers for indefinite periods of time. If it was discussed in those terms, would the majority of voters still disagree?
One of these days, a very smart candidate is going to knock down the question moderators seem to love about whether they support providing health insurance to undocumented immigrants. There are all kinds of public health reasons for doing so. But the best response would be to simply say that that is the wrong question. The right one is to ask what those seeking political office plan to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country, two thirds of whom have been here for over 10 years.
Democrats support a pathway to citizenship as part of an overall package on immigration reform. In that case, the question of health insurance becomes moot and we should be asking Republicans why they reject comprehensive immigration reform. The way this question has been framed assumes that over 11 million people will continue to live in the shadows, while the rest of us argue about which basic services they deserve. That is not good enough!
Frankly, I’m sick and tired of people like David Axelrod lecturing us all about how voters don’t support what Democrats are offering and that we’ll lose the election if that doesn’t change. There are certainly areas where candidates like Warren and Sanders get it wrong. But too many of the centrists aren’t challenging the way that so much of this debate has been framed to put Democrats at a disadvantage. Someone needs to take up the mantle of providing a pragmatic response to that drumbeat.
Wednesday’s Debate Won’t Fit the ‘Centrist vs. Far Left’ Narrative
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/07/31/wednesdays-debate-wont-fit-the-centrist-vs-far-left-narrative
On Tuesday, I suggested that what would mark this round of Democratic debates would be that the bottom tier of candidates would need to find a way to distinguish themselves from the frontrunners. Tuesday night’s debate was all about Klobuchar, Ryan, Delaney, Hickenlopper, and Bullock attempting to do just that.
As it turns out, the frontrunners on stage Tuesday night were Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders—the two candidates who have proposed policies that place them on the far left end of the spectrum—while the group that was fighting for survival in this race could be categorized as “centrists.†With that, and a heavy dose of prodding from the moderators, the theme the media was able to latch on to was one of their favorites: “Democrats are in disarray as liberals and centrists fight for the soul of the party.â€
One thing that narrative doesn’t take into account is that there were two other candidates on the stage last night who didn’t fit that theme. Buttigieg and O’Rourke refrained from taking sides and offered both policies and responses that rose above the fray. For example, on the topic that kicked off the narrative—health care—here is how Buttigieg responded.
——
So we don’t have to stand up here speculating about whether the public option will be better or a Medicare for All environment will be better than the corporate options. We can put it to the test.
That’s the concept of my Medicare for All Who Want It proposal. That way, if people like me are right that the public alternative is going to be not only more comprehensive, but more affordable than any of the corporate options around there, we’ll see Americans walk away from the corporate options into that Medicare option, and it will become Medicare for All without us having to kick anybody off their insurance.
———
O’Rourke proposed something similar.
———-
Our plan ensures that everyone is enrolled in Medicare or can keep their employer-sponsored insurance. When we listen to the American people — and this is what they want us to do — they want everyone covered, but they want to be able to maintain choice and our plan does that.
———-
Neither of those responses became fodder for the “centrist vs far left†theme that dominated the night. But for the most part, that will go unnoticed, because the other candidates fit themselves nicely into the narrative the media wanted to generate.
What will be interesting to watch on Wednesday night is how the same moderators attempt to continue their narrative when it doesn’t fit so well with the candidates who will take the stage. The two frontrunners will be Biden and Harris—who produced the biggest clash at the last debate. Biden might be described as fitting in best with the so-called centrists from Tuesday night, while Harris has more in common with the positions outlined by Buttigieg and O’Rourke.
Among the bottom tier needing to make their mark on Wednesday, Michael Bennet is the only centrist of the group and De Blasio is attempting to place himself on the far left. But the rest of the line-up includes a group that hasn’t branded themselves by claiming a particular point on the political spectrum.
Booker has proposed progressive policies, while refusing to demonize an “enemy.â€
Andrew Yang is focusing on a guaranteed basic income for all Americans.
Julian Castro has defined the debate on immigration.
Jay Inslee has prioritized an aggressive approach to climate change.
Kirsten Gillibrand presents herself as the strongest feminist.
Tulsi Gabbard is the military veteran who is also the anti-war candidate.
What we’ll see from that group is an attempt to distinguish themselves on their issues, which won’t fit into the centrist vs far left theme that prevailed on Tuesday night.
One contribution to the distinction we’re likely to see between the two debates is something that hardly anyone but the people of color on my Twitter timeline noticed: all of the candidates of color are included in Wednesday’s lineup. Those who have engaged in the centrist vs far left framework are all white. While the group that has rejected it includes white candidates, they are joined by all of the candidates of color.
Media narratives that dominate our politics are usually framed from a white perspective. That is especially true when it comes to how the left-to-right political spectrum has been defined. Not nearly enough attention has been paid to how people of color see things differently. That is why so many people were initially confounded by the fact that Sanders struggled to gain traction with African Americans in the 2016 primary. Those same people were equally surprised to see the strength of Biden’s support among African Americans this year. Equally confounding is the fact that Hispanics in this country are incredibly diverse in their opinions about politics and, while they care deeply about immigration, aren’t simply single-issue voters. Hardly anyone even bothers to try to understand how the diverse group of Asians in this country view politics, even though they are the fastest growing “minority†group at this point. The views of Native Americans never even enter the radar screen.
As demographics in this country continue to change, the focus on how white people view politics will increasingly mean that pundits and political prognosticators are confounded by what happens in our elections. On Wednesday night, we will learn how the debate moderators adjust to having the most diverse group of candidates on stage for a presidential debate. If there is an attempt to force them into the centrist vs far left narrative, the moderators are likely to get schooled.
Joe Biden seems much more prepared to be on stage this time around.
What were the protesters yelling about? I couldn’t understand them.
Booker said that Trump most likes Democrats pitted against each other and proceeded to play referee. Thank you Booker for condemning intraparty division!
This group is better than the ones last night.
They’re actually letting people speak a bit tonight rather than cutting everyone off after 10 seconds.
The moderators are doing a better job tonight. Last night was mud wrestling. Tonight is more arm wrestling.
Booker, Castro, and Gillibrand looking good tonight (especially as VP candidates).
Why the heck is there not a single question on defending American democracy??
Russian hacking? Robert Mueller’s warnings? Republican refusal to enact Election Security? Voting results without a paper trail that cannot be audited? Extreme gerrymandering? Voter suppression? Reform of the Electoral college?
Not a single f-ing question???
Former Republican – Because CNN got to write the questions, and their plan is take down Democrats, not Trump. No horse race that way.
Former Republican, those questions will be brought up when there are fewer contenders.
Pragmatic Progressive, CNN is not the enemy and they have been very strongly critical of Trump, so what you say has no validity, sorry to say!
Booker acknowledged the importance of election security, mentioning the fact that Republicans and Russians were targeting the suppression of African American voters.
Thank you Cory for pointing out how Cambridge Analytica influenced the election in 2016.
I think overall, Biden is doing MUCH better than the last time. His opening speil was the best, and although he has gotten attacked from all sides, and at times has stumbled a bit, overall, he is doing ok, and I don’t think anything will change in the poll numbers.
Last night’s debate was rather lame. There’s been some cringy moments here but there’s at least some actual vetting going on in this debate. Both for candidates and their ideas.
Cory Booker torched Trump good over his authoritarian rule and calls for his impeachment. #ImpeachTrump
KUDOS to Castro saying “Moscow Mitch”!
Harris looking strong in describing how weak Trump is as a predator.
I think that Yang might get a poll bounce. His performance was better than last time.
Did Biden give out the wrong website for his campaign in his close? What was that 30330 number?