On Wednesday, another 10 candidates will take the stage after their peers battled it out over health care policy, taxes and electability for nearly three hours on night one of the debates.
Do the moderators actually allow anyone to answer a question with more than one or two words?
The key thing people are looking for is who can take on Trump. Harris won that hands down last time and sheāll need to recreate that again. She has an opportunity because neither Sanders nor Warren really focused on Trump much as they got bogged down on health care and in responding to poorly framed questions rather than turning the question around to address their vision.
Biden has an opportunity to re-center himself as the statesmen who knows that the priority is to take out Trump, not to implement āstructural changeā or the ārevolutionā. The question is whether he has done his homework and whether heās gonna get psyched out by Harris and Booker.
On the HC issue, Harris has a great opportunity to sell her well reviewed/received plan which does appear to bridge the gap in the party and provide a real answer for preserving and building on Obamacare to get to universal coverage. Sheāll have to see it though. Outside of Tulsi, the rest of the supporting cast (Booker, Castro, Gillibrand, Bennet and even DeBlasio) are better than night 1ās supporting cast. It should be a better debate.
If Bennett and Yang want to do comedy, they should dress up as Franken and Paulsen.
Or maybe we can get Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks to come as Biden and Bernie.
Not just take him on, but beat him, and the Republican machine (which includes McConnell). We want (or need) someone who can make the unruly coalition of Democrats work well enough to counter the cheating and electoral advantages that are built in for Republicans. Losing is never fun, but it means so much more this time that it has in decades. The problem is that the prescription for winning isnāt necessarily obvious, and too often it is just presented as a way of selling a personās preferred candidate.
Purely as a guess, I am going to predict that Biden will try to retain his nice guy image while also trying to fight back. I further predict that in trying to have it both ways, it wonāt go particularly well, but may not be the problem he had last time. I also predict that I may be entirely wrong.
I would hope that, overall, it is a better debate, but we will have the same moderators, in style if not actually the same people.
Edit: Sadly, it appears that the moderators will be the same people.
For Biden to win the nomination he has to show that he is purely focused on beating Trump. It has to show in his preparation, his answers, his tone, his ability to turn questions to the main rationale for his entering this race. He showed that when he launched his campaign. For the past 2 months he has been inconsistent and at times straight up bad.
Harris, having also seen her up close, does the preparation, delivery and thinking on her feet well. Sheāll be there. Her challenge will be to take skewed moderator questions intended to generate controversy and attacks from people like Biden or Tulsi, deflect and turn it back around on Trump within that terrible 30 second time frame.
Esteemed Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson correctly pointed out that [not a direct quote] āall of the moderatorsā questions were designed to pick a fight.ā
This TPM post is more of the same.
For FSMās sake, folks, the isnāt a cock-and-dog fight, a steeplechase where a moat on the other side of the last obstacle is specifically designed to insure both of the horseās front legs are broken, the rider violently thrown to a most certain broken neck.
This resembles democracy as owned and presented by corporate media. Itās truly a dog-and-pony.
Just a sec ā¦
Cockfighting ā
Dogfighting ā
Dog ā
Pony ā
Thatās all Iāve got. Except for the vipers ā¦.
I just want all the mediocre white guys OUT
.Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) quickly caught on, launching himself into the headlines by dredging up Bidenās old stances on race-based issues that align less well with the modern Democratic Party than that of his early career.
of course, its completely out of the question that Cory Booker, as a black man that (ETA: Biden^^) had demanded an apology from, might actually think that Bidenās lies about his record on bussing are meaningful.
BTAIMā¦
What I will be watching for is what the mods do. Theyāve gotten a lot of flack for their use of GOP frames in their questions, and initiating conflict instead of seeking content. Would love to see them called out on it.
Especially by DiBlasio. Heās the only āsingle payerā advocate on the state AFAIK, and it will be interesting to see if/how he objects to marginalization of the position held by 64% of Democrats.
^^total brain freeze. originally typed Trump. I guess iām giving away my anti-Biden feelings, huh?
I want my N-Y-E-Tee!
Iām dreading Booker/Harris going after Biden tonight. I really donāt want the Big Dems to fight (Biden, Warren, Sanders, Mayor Pete, Beto, Booker and Harris). Plus it didnāt really help Harris out long term, she had a bump but, it faded away and Biden was back to double digit leads.
I just want them to focus on Trump and Policy.
I am loving this so much!
Money for fluffing,
Cause the Mitch aināt free.
Harris is not intending to bring up those issues per her team. Her focus is on going after Trump and selling her health care plan.
I can tell you from having spoken to her and having watched her up close that sheāll be very well prepared and will turn every issue to hitting Trump and tapping into the grand challenge that faces us all.
Incidentally, I had asked her 2 weeks ago whether her team would have a policy statement to explain the transition to M4A by this debate. I told her that I thought that she would be grilled on this issue of health care. She told me āyesā, which is the first time that she had answered that question affirmatively in the 4 months that people have been peppering her and the campaign on the topic. Lo and behold, she followed through on what she told me and got the plan out before the debate.
I read the article on Franken in the New Yorker. It confirmed what I thought and added a lot of detail. If a lot of other people read it Gillibrand will be even more toast than she already was. Itās her last appearance at these things.
I think Biden really needs to make a connection with voters tonight. While he has a comfortable lead nationally, heās only at about 24% in both NH and IA. So I donāt think āstatesmanā is going to work for him tonight. He canāt be above the fray ā he has to look and sound like heās going to fight for the ideas that motivate Democratic primary voters.
And that creates a problem for Biden, because heās been running more of a general election campaign so far, and quite frankly has never done well in either of his previous Presidential primaries.
If she does that she wins.
This is all excellent news, if accurate.
This is a big opportunity for her.
Iāll be watching for Gabbard trying to sabotage Harris tonight.
Iām convinced her mission is to ratfuck the stronger Dems.
