SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[FireNexus]

Yeah. Whatever, dude.

[Ziggy Stardust]

I wouldn’t be able to point to a specific example from the debates without more legwork than I care to do at the moment, so you can take that for what you will.

That's fair. I don't think it's worth asking you to spend all that much thought on it, I was mostly wondering whether there was some very specific thing off the top of your head. Your reply was more than detailed enough.

Phony, yes. Morons, usually not.

I guess this is where we will have to agree to disagree. I've never come out of a presidential debate thinking any of them seemed particularly intelligent.

[The Romulan Republic]

The time constraints of debates, especially if you don't know the questions in advance, make it hard as hell to come up with a coherent, nuanced answer on the spot (speaking as someone who did debate all through high school and university). You have to be really good at conveying an idea in a way that sounds memorable while also being clear and concise, and you don't have time to go into detailed explanations.

[Ziggy Stardust]

That's not really the problem. Sure, the debate format makes it difficult to go into detail, but I've seen plenty of debates at other levels (e.g. university) where people are actually making coherent arguments and counter-arguments. The problem has more to do with politics, and the culture of politics and campaigning. Their is a risk-reward calculus at play, and they know (as their various advisers no doubt tell them non-stop) that there isn't enough reward associated with making fact-based arguments to bother with it. The trick to political campaigning is, and always will be, emotional appeals to a broad base, which is best done through focus grouped sound bites. I think it's disingenuous to say, "Oh, well, surely they WANT to make more nuanced arguments they just don't have the time!" Even if you gave them 30 minutes for each question and time to prepare, they aren't going to give anything other than sound bites and stump speeches, because there is no tangible benefit for a candidate to stray from that formula. Expecting them to do so is as foolish as expecting the next Marvel movie to stray from the same formula the past 10 have used; if it makes trillions of dollars, you aren't going to change a damned thing.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's not really the problem. Sure, the debate format makes it difficult to go into detail, but I've seen plenty of debates at other levels (e.g. university) where people are actually making coherent arguments and counter-arguments. The problem has more to do with politics, and the culture of politics and campaigning. Their is a risk-reward calculus at play, and they know (as their various advisers no doubt tell them non-stop) that there isn't enough reward associated with making fact-based arguments to bother with it. The trick to political campaigning is, and always will be, emotional appeals to a broad base, which is best done through focus grouped sound bites. I think it's disingenuous to say, "Oh, well, surely they WANT to make more nuanced arguments they just don't have the time!" Even if you gave them 30 minutes for each question and time to prepare, they aren't going to give anything other than sound bites and stump speeches, because there is no tangible benefit for a candidate to stray from that formula. Expecting them to do so is as foolish as expecting the next Marvel movie to stray from the same formula the past 10 have used; if it makes trillions of dollars, you aren't going to change a damned thing.

I do not believe that there is automatically a choice between facts and emotions- a skilled presenter can (with a certain selectiveness as to which facts they focus on) use facts and present them in such a way as to evoke an emotional response.

[The Romulan Republic]

Warren joins Castro in proposing that illegal immigration be made a civil rather than criminal offense:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... ngs-report

2020 presidential hopeful Julián Castro on Tuesday praised Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a top tier candidate, for joining him in his call to decriminalize illegal border crossings.

"Thank you, @ewarren, for joining me on this issue. We shouldn’t criminalize desperation—it’s time to repeal this terrible law," Castro tweeted.

“We should not be criminalizing mamas and babies trying to flee violence at home or trying to build a better future. We must pass comprehensive immigration reform that is in line with our values, creates a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants including our DREAMers, and protects our borders," Warren said in a statement to HuffPost.

Warren told The Washington Post earlier this month that she would seek to repeal criminal penalties for people apprehended while crossing the border.

Sawyer Hackett, a spokesperson for Castro, cited the former Housing and Urban Development secretary's call to repeal the law in April as one reason he is "undeniably a leader on big ideas during this primary."

"This was an idea championed by immigration activists and experts for some time, but not adopted by mainstream political leaders until Julian Castro's People First Immigration platform," Hackett tweeted.

"Every candidate will call for ending family separation, this is the only way to guarantee it," he said.
Castro called for the repeal of Section 1325, the law which makes illegal entry a federal misdemeanor, in April.

The former San Antonio mayor said the law has been weaponized to target immigrants.

Warren's reported support for decriminalizing undocumented border crossing follows reports of alleged unsanitary and unsafe conditions at migrant detention centers.

On Tuesday, it was announced acting Customers and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner John Sanders will be stepping down later this month.

Updated 4:42 p.m.

Gutsy move, which the Republicans will use to rally their base against paranoid fantasies of "invasion" and "illegal immigrant voter fraud", but I think the time has come for proposing such radical changes. The campaign of outright ethnic cleansing against immigrants and Latinos demands a radical response.

And Warren keeps showing who the real progressive leader is in this race.

[FaxModem1]

Meanwhile, Sanders works to eliminate Student debt: Vox

Bernie Sanders’s free college proposal just got a whole lot bigger
Sanders wants to cancel all student loan debt.

By Tara Golshan Jun 23, 2019, 10:28pm EDT
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Sen. Bernie Sanders speaking at Indiana University in 2016 at a presidential campaign event. Scott Olson/Getty Images
Part of Vox’s guide to where 2020 Democrats stand on policy
Sen. Bernie Sanders’s proposal to make college free in the United States just got bigger: He wants to erase all student debt too. All $1.6 trillion of it.

The Vermont senator will unveil the most ambitious higher education plan in the Democratic 2020 presidential primary so far on Monday. The proposal would make two- and four-year public and tribal colleges and universities tuition-free and debt-free, and erase the roughly $1.6 trillion in student loan debt currently owed in the US, paid for by a tax on Wall Street.

Currently, about 45 million Americans have student loans. This would cancel debt for all of them — regardless of their income or assets. That’s a notable difference from Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s free college proposal, which also provides broad debt relief but caps it for households with incomes over $250,000.

Sanders is proposing funding streams to states, tribes, and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to allow them to eliminate undergraduate tuition and fees. The bill would also increase spending on work-study programs and build up federal grant programs for low-income students for additional costs related to getting an education, from housing and transportation to buying books.

The proposal would cost $2.2 trillion over 10 years, which Sanders says would be paid for with his Wall Street tax. He proposed a Wall Street speculation tax in 2016, which would raise small levies on buying and selling stocks, bonds, and derivatives; many experts estimate it could raise hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Sanders’s office cited progressive economist Robert Pollin’s projection that the tax would bring in $2.4 trillion in revenues over 10 years.

Free college is one of Sanders’s signature issues. He’s called the prohibitive costs of higher education a “national disgrace.” It was one of many proposals that distinguished him in the 2016 presidential primary against Hillary Clinton, who argued the government shouldn’t subsidize education for the wealthiest Americans. Three years later, it’s clear that Sanders’s vision is ascendant in the Democratic Party.

“We believe definitionally that if you are the upper elite, that you by definition would not have had to take out student loans,” Keane Bhatt, Sanders’s spokesperson, told Vox. “There is something to be said about simple, intelligible policies that build broad constituencies.”

Sanders’s newest College for All Act, briefly explained
Here’s how Sanders’s College for All Act would work:

The federal government would give states and tribes at least $48 billion per year, through a two-to-one federal dollar match program, if states commit to eliminating tuitions and fees at public universities and colleges.

To receive the federal funding, states and tribes would have to meet some requirements: Essentially, they’d have to show the Department of Education that they will maintain higher education and need-based financial aid funding and rely less on adjunct faculty to teach classes. States and tribes would also have to show that they can cover the full cost of higher education for the poorest families, those who earn less than $25,000. For tribal colleges with at least 75 percent low-income student enrollment — students eligible for the Pell Grant — the federal government would cover 95 percent of costs to eliminate tuition and fees.

The federal funding has restrictions: It cannot go to administrators’ salaries, any merit-based financial aid, or non-academic buildings like shiny new football stadiums.

While this is a universal program — students from any financial background would benefit from the elimination of tuition — the proposal specifically targets lower-income students by increasing the federal Pell Grant program, tripling funding for the work-study program, and creating a dollar-for-dollar federal match to states to eliminate additional costs related to going to college.

HBCUs and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) would also qualify for this federal funding. Sanders’s proposal allocates $1.3 billion per year to reduce tuition and fees at private nonprofit universities and colleges with at least 35 percent of students from low-income households. Roughly 200 institutions would be eligible, Sanders’s office said.

A supporter of Sanders’s free college proposal at Sanders’ first campaign rally in Michigan at Eastern Michigan University February 15th, 2016
A supporter of Sanders’s free college proposal at Eastern Michigan University on February 15, 2016. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
The proposal also caps student loan interest rates to the same rate the federal government pays for its debt.

All told, this bill, introduced with progressive Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), is a more expansive version of Sanders’s original 2016 free college proposal. What was originally a tuition-free proposal with a provision for refinancing student loans has become a debt-free and tuition-free proposal.

It’s a clear departure from the free college plan that Clinton proposed and Sanders endorsed as the 2017 College for All Act. That bill would have eliminated tuition and fees for families making up to $125,000, conceding to Clinton’s argument that the government shouldn’t have to cover costs for families who can afford to send their kids to college.

There are several Democratic candidates in the field right now who share those concerns, but Sanders is no longer heeding them.

How Sanders’s plan compares to other Democrats in the race
Sanders’s 2016 campaign normalized free college in Democratic politics. In the current field, Warren and Sanders have similar proposals with one main difference.

Warren’s student debt relief is means-tested. As Vox’s Ella Nilsen explained, Warren’s plan cancels $50,000 in student loan debt for every person with household income under $100,000, and offers “substantial debt cancellation” to every person with household income between $100,000 and $250,000. Those making above $250,000 wouldn’t qualify. In total, Warren’s plan is estimated to cost $1.25 trillion over a decade — almost a trillion less than Sanders’s.

The more centrist Democrats in the race, like former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), are proposing free two-year community college, although Biden supported four years of free college in 2015.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has backed various proposals, including the more moderate Clinton/Sanders plan that eliminates tuition and fees for families that make up to $125,000 a year.

Meanwhile, other candidates also have put forward cost-relief proposals. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is proposing no-interest federal student loans. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is backing debt- and tuition-free college for lower-income families, and tuition-free college for middle-income families.

The big question: Will states buy in?
Sen. Bernie Sanders Holds Campaign Rally At Brooklyn College
Sanders walks onstage to speak at Brooklyn College on March 2, 2019. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Because public colleges in the US are run at the state level, implementing a universal tuition- and debt-free college program requires the states to buy in. Sanders’s proposal, like Warren’s, requires states to enter a voluntary agreement with the federal government. As Nilsen writes, “if states don’t want to take the money, their universities are left out of the equation.”

This is the uphill battle associated with all federal-state partnership programs — and it can backfire, as with the Affordable Care Act, where many conservative states rejected the health care program’s Medicaid expansion despite a far more generous federal match.

Sanders’s team doesn’t see the ACA as a cautionary tale, though; some red states voted to expand Medicaid in the 2018 midterm elections, as Bhatt, Sanders’s spokesperson, pointed out. And that won’t be a concern for private historically black colleges that might want to participate.

One of the other biggest criticisms of universal free college and debt relief proposals is an argument Clinton made in 2016: The government shouldn’t be subsidizing school for people who can easily afford it.

“Getting to free college for everybody is not a very progressive way to approach this because a lot of wealthy kids will benefit from that,” Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), who’s running a more moderate Democratic presidential campaign, told a voter at an Iowa campaign event in May. Buttigieg made a similar argument in April.

But in Sanders’s book, Americans are entitled to “the right to a complete education.”

“You have lower-class people, middle-class people, upper-middle-class folks all getting student debt relief and bolstering the value of college,” Bhatt said of Sanders’s vision. “If Ivanka Trump decides she wants to go to [Pennsylvania State University], there is no problem with that. That’s part of the thinking.”

Showing that Sanders is actually trying to improve the nation right now.

[The Romulan Republic]

Sanders and Warren both have strong plans for free college and student debt. Sanders' is a bit broader in scope and is to be funded by a Wall Street speculation tax, while Warren's does not erase debt for those above a certain level of wealth and is funded by a tax on the wealthy.

[Elheru Aran]

Warren's plan is better in the long term though. Sanders' only forgives -current- debts across the board, and apart from some cursory notions about making student loans more affordable, doesn't do anything else. Warren on the other hand is doing more for the lower and middle classes by making college itself more affordable, iirc. I forget the exact arguments and data points and can't link because my phone sucks, but there was a good article about it on I think Slate.

[The Romulan Republic]

A poll from the Left-leaning MoveOn shows where the Left's support is going this primary:

https://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/el ... 2663237964

Biden: 14.9%.
Sanders: 16.5%.
Warren: 37.8%.

Warren may be running second (though still ahead of Sanders) nationally, but among the Left-wing base, she is decisively in the lead. Which means that likely all Bernie has left for a base are those who are the Burn It All/Bernie or Bust crowd (those that didn't abandon him when he endorsed Clinton last time), and a smattering of white men who like Leftist economics but don't feel comfortable with Social Justice or female/minority candidates. Which is a shame, because he has actually stood for some good policies and principles, and he did at one time have a much broader base than the Bernie Bro narrative acknowledged. But unless something significant happens to turn those numbers around, I'd say Sanders' goose is cooked. Warren has successfully outflanked him to the Left on key issues, and has just flat-out run a better campaign. Its clear right now who has emerged as the true progressive standard-bearer in this race.

[The Romulan Republic]

The full debate, for any who (like me) missed the broadcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ6MrDO0kgY

[The Romulan Republic]

A glowing portrayal of Warren's performance from the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-gauntlet

There was one dominant figure on the very crowded stage in Miami at the first TV debate of the 2020 presidential election.

She happened to be the smallest and oldest figure in the middle of the pack, but it made no difference. Elizabeth Warren towered over the opening sequence of the first Democratic debate and its biggest questions on the economy and healthcare.

There’s a reason why Warren has risen steadily in the early polls to the point where she is threatening the previously safe space occupied by Bernie Sanders as the insurgent challenger to the establishment frontrunner.

Yes, she has a plan for everything. But more than policy proposals, she has the rare ability – especially for a senator – to talk about the big complex stuff in simple and direct ways.

Midway through the debate, she was lobbed a meatball of a question about gun violence. She talked with great empathy about kids asking her the toughest questions at her town halls: how would she keep them safe as president? She threw in a statistic about children dying not just in mass shootings but on the streets, and quickly rattled off a series of policy ideas. But most of all, she spoke with a sense of purpose and urgency: “Gun violence is a national health emergency in this country and we need to treat it like that.”

The debate moderators did their very best to goad the other candidates to attack Warren, citing their previous criticisms and qualms about her ideas about breaking up big tech companies or abolishing private health insurance. But her rivals backed away from the fight, while the Massachusetts senator argued repeatedly that the country needed to do big things. “What’s been missing is courage,” she declared early on.

The contrast with most of the men on stage was sharp. Beto O’Rourke, the supposed rock star congressman standing next to her, went missing for so long it was hard to remember the name of his first hit song. Every time he tried to get into one of his grooves, someone knocked him off his rhythm. There was plenty of emphasis in each of his answers but precious little point.

The man who walked all over his riffs was his Texas rival, Julian Castro – previously a fringe figure with no obvious path to getting noticed. But Castro’s signature policy area – immigration – is the most sprawling and under-reported scandal of the Trump administration, which became an enormous asset to him during the debate.

Castro was no doubt helped by a news cycle dominated by a shocking photo of a Salvadoran father and daughter drowned on the banks of the Rio Grande. Still, the former housing secretary and mayor of San Antonio was as compelling and comprehensive on immigration as Warren was on the economy.

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “It should also piss us all off.” Castro challenged the other candidates to change the law that currently criminalizes the undocumented migrants who cross the border. It was a challenge that Beto, strangely, couldn’t seem to address head on.

Wednesday’s debate was often an exercise in shadow boxing. The real targets of the candidates’ punches were absent on the night but loomed large nonetheless: Donald Trump and Joe Biden, two old white men who better get used to this kind of treatment.

Trump might be used to starting fights from the safe distance of his Twitter account, but he isn’t used to watching a cable TV loop where he is everyone’s punching bag. You can rest assured that he will absorb all the best Democratic attacks with the sound judgment and self-restraint he displays whenever he’s considering the superior popularity and record of Barack Obama.

As for Biden, he is about to experience something highly unusual on this, his third campaign for the top job. As the frontrunner, he is a unifying target for the scrappy, desperate mob chasing him.

As the debates grind on through the summer and fall, the jabs at Biden will grow more pointed and coordinated – until he reaches the same stage Hillary Clinton did in late 2007, when she equivocated so badly that she suffered a dismal night on the debate stage.

In case you can’t remember, the candidate who pounced on Clinton’s indecision was one Chris Dodd, the otherwise decent and entirely forgettable Connecticut senator. At this point of the cycle, Obama was himself a dismal debater who only warmed up to the process in the latest stages of the primary cycle.

Wednesday’s debate was as strangely compressed as the cartoon White House that NBC News chose to use as a backdrop to the stage.

There were ten candidates who struggled to get as much time to make noise as a bag of popcorn in a microwave. There were five moderators who represented the warring fiefdoms inside the peacock kingdom of NBC. Thanks to a sound malfunction, several of them managed to talk over their rivals even when they weren’t on stage.

Some of the candidates never broke out of their own clichés. Cory Booker was repeatedly the only candidate who lives in an inner-city neighborhood that is raked by gun violence. Tulsi Gabbard most definitely served in the military and wants to stop America going to war. Bill de Blasio apparently did lots of great things in New York.

Several of the male candidates looked alternately surprised or confusingly belligerent about being on stage.

But it was Amy Klobuchar’s experience that carried the biggest warnings for Joe Biden – and anyone else in the centrist bloc of the Democratic party.

Her pitch of Midwestern reasonableness and purple state compromise was ripped as a complacent and compliant acceptance of the status quo. Her promise that she could beat Trump by reaching his voters seemed premature. Her citing of Obama’s compromises sounded like reaching back to a long-lost time when Democrats still believed there was someone reasonable on the other side of the aisle.

Those days are gone, after two and a half years of Donald Trump and the Republican party he has reshaped with lies, delusions and plain old derangement.

Whether Biden understands that reality – as Warren clearly does – may be the biggest question of this first phase of a very long primary season.

Castro also seems to be widely regarded as having done well to distinguish himself, while O'Rourke is getting roundly mocked.

[Elheru Aran]

Warren's plan is better in the long term though. Sanders' only forgives -current- debts across the board, and apart from some cursory notions about making student loans more affordable, doesn't do anything else. Warren on the other hand is doing more for the lower and middle classes by making college itself more affordable, iirc. I forget the exact arguments and data points and can't link because my phone sucks, but there was a good article about it on I think Slate.

Ghetto edit to add:

https://slate.com/business/2019/06/bern ... lysis.html

Due to time constraints, I'll just quote the key line:

The problem with Sanders’ approach is that while it would forgive a lot of graduate school debt sitting on the books today, it does little to address the problem of graduate school debt going forward. His bill would cap interest rates on all student loans at 1.88 percent which, sure, would be helpful. But it wouldn’t lessen the amount students need to borrow in the first place, and that’s the more serious issue.

When you consider that part of Warren's plan is making public colleges tuition-free, her plan seems more sustainable long term. Not to mention that a tax upon the wealthy is probably a more reliable form of financing her plan than gambling upon the stock market is for Sanders'. If the economy tanks, most of the wealthy will stay pretty wealthy, but it would do the stock market, and anything gaining money from said stock market, no favors.

[The Romulan Republic]

Second night full debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX7hni-zGD8

Short summary: Harris thrashed Biden good. She hit him on immigration (he looked to me visible frightened when the moderator pressed him on the question of whether to deport people who had committed no other crime, then hedged his answer), and on racism and busing. Harris was quite strong overall, though she was one of the worst for abusing the time limits. I think she will rise in the post-debate polls, and Biden will fall. I would not be shocked now if the final showdown was between two female candidates, Warren and Harris- a race I don't think anyone expected, but one I would welcome.

Biden ran far too much on the past. It seemed, again, like his core platform was "I'm friends with Obama". I did appreciate him raising the "smart guns" point in the gun control debate.

Bernie gave some good solid answers on immigration (somewhat surprisingly) and on how to protect Roe v Wade, I thought, but didn't really answer the question of what he would do if Roe v Wade were overturned by the Supreme Court, beyond pivoting back to Medicare for all and how it would ensure womens' reproductive rights (somehow). He had too much of a tendency to just piviot to talking points, which they all do, but Bernie seems perhaps particularly inflexible in the debate format at times. I've seen him address a wider range of issues well in other contexts, like social media, but he does not come across as a graceful debater. And his inability to clearly articulate how he would make one of his core policies (Medicare for all) actually work beyond very broad generalities was embarrassing. He also got laughed at when he claimed his former stance on guns being a states' rights issue was misrepresented, and Maddow replied that it was a quote. I don't think he'll lose much from tonight, but I don't think he'll gain anything either.

Buttigieg handled the issue of policing and racism in his mayoral administration about as well as he could hope to, acknowledging failure, noting that he had to remain impartial in an investigation but that the officer's body camera was turned off in the recent shooting, and sympathizing with the family of the victim, and pledging to resolve the issue as President. However, Swalwell landed an effective hit, I thought, when pointing out that Buttigieg could use his power to fire the police chief, to which Buttigieg seemed to have no clear answer.

Overall, Buttigieg gave good, detailed policy responses and spoke well. I think he did alright. But the issue of police violence and racism will continue to dog him.

Gillibrand and Bennet seemed to get a lot of time for minor candidates. Gillibrand did well I thought, she might rise in the polls. Bennet mostly just seemed very beligerent in tone.

Yang got very little time compared to probably anyone else, but his overt play in his closing for Trumpist votes makes me wary, especially from a candidate who is known for attracting an Alt. Reich following. His loyalties are suspect.

Hickenlooper and Swalwell did not stand out much to me, though Hickenlooper seems a man out of time with his constant attacks on "socialism". I did appreciate his referring to Trump's family sepparation policy as kidnapping. Swalwell went after Biden on age early on, and took a very strong stand on guns, supporting a mandatory assault weapon buy-back.

Williamson just struck me as odd, though she did give some good responses. Her characterization of Trump's immigration policy as "kidnapping", "child abuse" and "state-sponsored crimes" needed to be said.

The moderators did seem to favour certain candidates a bit, as usual, but did a pretty good job pressing for answers when people didn't answer the questions.

The questions as to what candidates would pick if they could get only one major issue passed were interesting. Some cheated and gave long lists. Bernie rejected the premise. Swalwell said guns. Buttigieg mentioned election reform, I think, which would have been my answer. Yang referenced his basic income plan, I think.

On which country they would prioritize resetting our relationship with, again, some cheated. Bernie seemed to be saying "the UN". Others mentioned Europe as a whole or NATO. Yang said China and North Korea.

On what the biggest threat to America was, "Trump" was obviously my favorite answer.

[The Romulan Republic]

If I were to pick a winner for tonight, it would be Harris, though I think that Gillibrand may also rise. Biden tonight was a clear loser, and while they had some good moments, I don't think Bernie or Buttigieg did enough to salvage their faltering campaigns.

[The Romulan Republic]

Best commentary on the debate is from Stephen Colbert:

Kamala Harris: "I just want to leave you with a couple of things"

Stephen Colbert: "Joe Biden's balls."

Yup, that's pretty much how it went down.

[LaCroix]

Told you she got what it takes. I'm still rooting for her.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, after the first round of debates I can honestly see the primaries boiling down to Warren v Harris, though Biden is a big enough name I expect he'll still be viable for a while, and if Bernie is determined to stick it out to the bitter end like last time, he's probably popular enough in certain regions to net some delegates as well (which will give him leverage on the platform, especially if its a contested convention).

I am skeptical that any but those four will actually get delegates, but things could change yet.

[Coop D'etat]

Biden owns the moderate lane without serious rival and that's a far larger component of the Democratic primary electorate than most American liberals seem to realize. This primary is still his to lose and will be so long as he keeps his hold of older African American voters who tend to be moderate and pragmatic, and vote in droves in primaries.

Most of his rivals are trading the very liberal and youth vote without doing much against the front runner so far and I haven't seen anything from the debates that suggests they're doing much to consolidate the left flank or cross over to the moderate lane. Harris probably could have run as a moderate, but has been positioning herself leftwards in a way that doesn't match her record. She's good at TV moments, but it remains to seem if she has any legs outside that.

I don't think American liberals are as influential in this process as they think they are right now. They're more a fraction within the Democratic party that thinks they're the intellectual vanguard rather than the party itself.

[The Romulan Republic]

Biden owns the moderate lane without serious rival and that's a far larger component of the Democratic primary electorate than most American liberals seem to realize. This primary is still his to lose and will be so long as he keeps his hold of older African American voters who tend to be moderate and pragmatic, and vote in droves in primaries.

Most of his rivals are trading the very liberal and youth vote without doing much against the front runner so far and I haven't seen anything from the debates that suggests they're doing much to consolidate the left flank or cross over to the moderate lane. Harris probably could have run as a moderate, but has been positioning herself leftwards in a way that doesn't match her record. She's good at TV moments, but it remains to seem if she has any legs outside that.

I don't think American liberals are as influential in this process as they think they are right now. They're more a fraction within the Democratic party that thinks they're the intellectual vanguard rather than the party itself.

Well, Bernie got to about 45% in the last primary, and Hillary had a stronger starting position than Biden does, I think. Its different this time, of course, in that both the Centrist and progressive vote are split between multiple candidates to a greater degree than 2016, and the party has changed its primary rules as well (perhaps most significantly, there are no winner-take-all primaries any more, and super delegates don't come into play unless no one gets the nomination on the first round at the convention). But I don't think a progressive nominee (particularly one like Warren, who is less polarizing than Bernie) is out of the question.

Biden is still leading in the polls, absolutely, but his position has already weakened noticeably from where he was when he got in (one recent poll gave him only a six point lead over Warren, and I expect that to have narrowed further since the debates). And of course, it is still early days: as one article I read noted (can't recall which one), at this point in 2015, Jeb Bush was the likely Republican nominee.

Edit: I do think the chances of that would be better if Warren and Bernie weren't both in the race (not to mention whatever few votes Yang and Gabbard are peeling off). This is exactly what I was worried about if they both ran, and I'm a bit pissed at Bernie that he didn't decide to stay out after Warren got in first.

I also think Kamala Harris might be more progressive than people have given her credit for. IIRC, when asked if they would support an end to private health insurers, across both debates, only four out of twenty candidates raised their hands- Warren and Bernie (predictably), de Blasio, and Harris. Notably, "anti-establishment" darlings Gabbard and Yang did not. We see here the difference between a real progressive pushing a broad progressive platform, and an outsider with a few good ideas or a faux progressive who gets in bed with the Trumpers.

[The Romulan Republic]

Wow, its looking even worse for Joe than I thought:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... ebate-poll

The percentage of Democrats who say they would vote for former Vice President Joe Biden if the presidential race were held tomorrow slipped by 10 points after the first primary debate.

According to a Morning Consult/FiveThirtyEight poll of likely Democratic voters released on Friday, 41.5 percent said before the debates they would vote for Biden tomorrow, but 31.5 percent said the same thing after Thursday night’s debate.

The apparent decline in support comes after Biden was widely seen as having faltered, including engaging in a stark exchange with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) over school busing.

Harris herself got a nearly 9 point bump, with 16.6 percent of Democrats saying they would support her after the debate, up from 7.9 percent before the events.

Other 2020 candidates had marginal increases or decreases.

Biden defended himself Friday during a speech in Chicago, saying that “I fought my heart out to ensure that civil rights and voting rights, equal rights are enforced everywhere” and that he “never, ever opposed voluntary busing.”

Morning Consult and FiveThirtyEight surveyed, from June 19-26, 7,150 registered voters who say they are likely to vote in their state’s Democratic primary or caucus. That result has a margin of error of 1 percentage point. Then, June 27-28, 1,399 respondents who answered the first round of questioning were surveyed. That result has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Yup, one-day ten point drop. But then, his whole performance basically came off as "Unintentionally racist old grandpa trying to remind everyone he has a black friend."

It looks like his drop is almost the same as Harris's gain, so I guess we know where his support is going. Harris's new numbers put her in the same league as Bernie and Warren in some polls, I believe.

[Ace Pace]

I just want to remind everyone in this thread that in this time relative to the 2016 election, Trump was polling single digits.

[The Romulan Republic]

I just want to remind everyone in this thread that in this time relative to the 2016 election, Trump was polling single digits.

I made much the same point up above.

Ugg, now you're giving me visions of President Tulsi Gabbard, and the absence of any party in America which isn't fully of Assad apologist Islamophobes feted by RT.

[Gandalf]

Finally saw the two debates. For me, the real standouts were Castro and Harris. Castro had clearly thought through his policies, and Harris was similar with a side of tearing down Joe Biden over his record in about one minute.

Hopefully a bunch drop out soon so the actual candidates can get some airtime.

[The Romulan Republic]

Post-debate polls:

https://time.com/5617826/primary-debate ... -slips-10/

The first Democratic primary debates appear to have cost Vice President Joe Biden some of his supporters – at least for now, one poll suggests.

Polling by Morning Consult and FiveThirtyEight before and after the two debates on Wednesday and Thursday suggests that support for Biden dropped by about 10 points among likely Democratic voters, when asked who they would choose if the election were held tomorrow.

Biden had previously enjoyed a healthy lead over the other Democrats. The polling prior to debates, which was conducted between June 19 and 26, suggested that Biden was supported by about 41.5% of voters. At that point, the polling showed Sen. Elizabeth Warren had the support of 12.6% of voters and Bernie Sanders had 14.4% of support.

Biden appears to have slipped in the polls after each debate, his support falling to 35.4% after the first debate and to 31.5% after the second round.

Post-debate analyses suggest that Sen. Kamala Harris’ strong debate performance – coupled with her willingness directly attack Biden, including his civil rights record – posed a challenge for the former Vice President. In one of the most heated moments of the debate, Harris drew attention to Biden’s previous opposition to busing as a tool to promote school integration.

The poll also showed Harris gaining a significant number of supporters. While she had the support of just 7.9% of likely voters before the debate, she had 16.6% of the the support afterwards.

Other candidates appeared to experience smaller gains and losses, according to the poll. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ support rose from 14.4% to 17.3% after the second debate; Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s support grew from 12.6% to 14.4%.

Bernie and Warren both gained slightly over the course of the two debates, Harris gained big time, Biden took a nose dive.

Edit: Note that if Bernie and Warren's totals post-debates are combined, they'd have a .2 percent lead over by Biden. It really underscores my concern that by both running, they are essentially splitting the progressive vote and making a Biden nomination more likely.