Discussion: Lineups For The Two Nights Of The First Democratic Debate Announced

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How did all of the top people except Warren get grouped together on the second night? Dems trying to rig this for someone in particular?

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If anything, this is good for Warren as she should outshine the lesser candidates she is facing…

The 2nd night will be far more muddled…

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I understood that they would take the top candidates and separate them equally between the two nights. This is just wrong.

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That’s why it looks like the fix is in. Seems they should have at least split up the top 5 instead of cramming 4 into one go.

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I am not sure of that. She has been put in the “kiddie pool” and will be missing when the other top candidates compete.

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“The day after, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), former Vice President Joe Biden, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-NY), tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang and self-help author Marianne Williamson will take the stage.”

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I was noticing that Warren and Sanders were on separate nights, which might be good for now, but eventually there can be only one (to cite a well-known movie line). I was hoping to see how Biden would do against Warren, but I suppose we will see instead how Biden and Sanders do against each other.

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There was a report earlier in the week that the lineup would be chosen by some sort of lottery system. Look already at the persons saying “rigged”.

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How are they splitting the moderators? All both nights or divvied up?

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I’m not a Warren supporter (not that I oppose her either), but this lineup seems to substantively disadvantage her. By placing the four other top five candidates (Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg and Harris) together, the organizers are putting a target on her back and at the same time not giving her a target. In addition, the other debate is bound to draw a larger audience because it has four of the five leading candidates.

If this was random, random was a really bad call — because as comments here already show, it is breeding distrust. If it wasn’t random, one has to wonder about whether there was an agenda.

Fair and easy would have been to draft Biden into one debate and then to draft the next two alternately into each debate (according to RCP or some other polling average) into the other debate. If you used RCP, this would have yielded: Biden, Buttigieg, Harris, Klobuchar, Bennet, Inslee, Castro and others in one debate, and Sanders, Warren, O’rourke, Booker, Yang, Gillibrand and others in the other debate.

(It so happens that Biden facing off against other moderates/liberals, and Sanders being pitted against Warren would be great dynamics for helping to clarity those respective lanes.)

It think the Warren folks have legitimate cause to ask serious questions about the rationale.

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Though 2nd night has the potential to be a ‘car wreck’, that possible debacle, a) makes for great teevee and b) puts Biden n Bernie in the crosshairs.

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Agree, I see this as more of a potential hit on Warren. However, if she absolutely wipes the floor with her group, I can see how it would give her a boost coming out of the debate.

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There was literally no possibility of doing this, without some group of people crying “FIXED!!”.

Its part of why I was checking in on this thread…was wondering how deep in I would go before I ran into it.

Only got to the first comment, and there it was.

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Kinda wonder if it’s for ratings purposes.

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Though I agree with most, Biden’s group is basically the ‘death bloc’.

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Um, yeah, there was. Take all of the top polling people and divide into two.

Don’t stuff everyone except one on one night. Not fair to any of them.

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It was a random draw. There are five top candidates, right? Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Harris. The closest grouping possible would have been 3-2, unless you consider all five together on the same night preferable - odds of which would have been 32 to 1. Conspiracy isn’t a substitute for math.

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Well, if you’re looking for silver linings in Warren getting stuck in the JV debate, at least this way it gives her a buffer where she won’t have to directly attack Joe Biden. Let Bernie/Buttigieg/Harris sling those arrows.

But 4-1 is also disappointing.

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