The Democratic Presidential Debates

mrussel1 said:

Spiritual_Chaos said:

mrussel1 said:

And for the record, Biden won his senate seat from a Republican and was a huge underdog, with almost no money.  Good for Joe to not be petty enough to contradict a silly point.  

Then he brought the death penalty back like it was a The Eagles reunion like the true mensch he is. Good for him he didn't bring that up to lure some Trump voters over.

(Sanders disputing the 30 years thing was a bit cringey. But it seems like he didn't pick up on her saying "30 years" so whatevz. He should have just said "when did I lose an election?" and bring the pressure back on her to have her facts straight) 

Yeah good point.  Funny that you failed to mention the violence against women act, hate crimes, sex crimes and other liberal priorities that were in the same act.  But I guess if you were a senator you would have been able to pass such a bill without any compromises, so good for you.  
Warren's artificial box of 30 years was stupid, arbitrary and designed to drop a zinger.  Someone should have said "yeah, but Liz, you're the only one here that was a Republican in the last 30 years".  

mrussel1 said:

pjl44 said:

mrussel1 said:

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

OnWis97 said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

OnWis97 said:

Dems continue to eat each other.  

Can we just give trump his 4 more years and move on?

That does seem to be what the Dems are aiming for.    From what I've heard so far, I'm glad my TV reception was such that I couldn't watch it.  I probably wold have cringed through the whole thing.   It's depressing as hell to watch this shit come down.

I don't think it is, but geez...maybe I need to tone down my scrolling through Twitter, but given how thin the margin can be in swing states, I feel like angry supporters of primary losers are going to stay home (except for those that vote Trump out of spite). The question is, can the party unite behind the eventual winner like it did for the most part (minus a few Hillary supporters) behind Obama?  I envision high-fives among Bernie supports in 2016 when Trump won...and I'm concerned they'll be doing it again this fall.

Twitter definitely leads you astray.  Remember all the talking points about how left the party was at the beginning of the campaigns, and twitter was the source for all that consternation. But when the polling came out, the cumulative moderate vote is 10 points higher than the cumulative progressive vote.  And that's if you consider Steyer a progressive.  I don't know that I do or not.  But either way, it still looks like a moderate party to me.  

I think it is a moderate party overall, though there are some people that want to take far-right-Trumpism and counter it with being far-left (strategically bad, imo).

The question is how unified it can be.  It doesn't take too much spite to swing a couple of purple states.  I hope that come about May, we're all pretty certain about who the nominee is going to be and then the dedicated candidate-followers can have ample time to see it as Trump vs. X and be reminded of what's at stake.

Yes, agreed.  People who are unwilling to compromise typically don't stand to actually lose anything if Trump gets re-elected.  Sure they'll wring their hands for the immigrants, the gay community, the poor that are losing their food stamps.  But will the Bernie Bros lives actually change very much?  Will those middle and upper middle class white people be in a materially different spot in 4 years?  Probably not.  

I can't believe I'm making another Bernie defense, but I think the Bernie Bros thing (especially as distinctly as you laid it out) unintentionally erases the voices of people of color and women who support him. Hell, the guy got early endorsements from Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, and Tlaib. I think it's reasonable to attack his platform (and boy would I), but I think it's marginalizing to be that reductive about his base.

Yeah I'm not saying that all Sanders votes are Bernie Bros, uncompromising in nature.  But they do exist and there's little doubt that his supporters did not vote at the same level that Hillary voters went with Obama in 2008. And my point is that they have little to lose, truly.  

mrussel1 said:

BTW - can someone tell me what this means? 

“Look at the men on this stage,” she grinned. “Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women: Amy and me. And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican anytime in the past 30 years is me.”

What are the ten elections that Biden and Bernie are part of, with that loss?  Is she talking about Sanders losing on the nomination in 16?  Biden in 08?  Does that really count?  When Warren loses Iowa, does that mean she's lost an election?  

It seems to be an odd point.  I'm sure it was tongue in cheek, but sill a bit odd. And for the record, Biden won his senate seat from a Republican and was a huge underdog, with almost no money.  Good for Joe to not be petty enough to contradict a silly point.  

Jason P said:

pjl44 said:

mrussel1 said:

BTW - can someone tell me what this means? 

“Look at the men on this stage,” she grinned. “Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women: Amy and me. And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican anytime in the past 30 years is me.”

What are the ten elections that Biden and Bernie are part of, with that loss?  Is she talking about Sanders losing on the nomination in 16?  Biden in 08?  Does that really count?  When Warren loses Iowa, does that mean she's lost an election?  

It seems to be an odd point.  I'm sure it was tongue in cheek, but sill a bit odd. And for the record, Biden won his senate seat from a Republican and was a huge underdog, with almost no money.  Good for Joe to not be petty enough to contradict a silly point.  

The whole thing was a setup. Team Warren planted that story ahead of the debate to get the idea of "a woman can't be President" into the ether. Once she gets the question on it, she can go into that soliloquy. And, yeah, she has to be counting lost primaries.

By the way, beating her chest about beating an incumbent Republican in Massachusetts is hilarious. I lived through that whole chain of events. Scott Brown pulled a horseshoe out of his ass running against a lazy Democrat in a special election. Everyone knew he was getting waxed when his seat came up again.

Didn't the dude that Scott Brown beat fuck up some basic knowledge about the Red Sox or Celtics that made it obvious he hadn't watched a game with serious interest once in his life?  Like a week before the election?  dead man walking in that town ...

Jason P said:

Joe has to have a big smile on his face today.  Didn't have to do anything last night and now most of his real competition will be tied up in an impeachment trial.  Granted I didn't watch, but the thing to beat Joe is to get him talking and wait for the damage to self inflict.  Seems like his opponents could have set a whole batch of verbal landmines around him and just sat back and waited for him to step on one.  

I'm not sure if Warren is still seriously running or if her goal is to drag Bernie out into the deep water where they both drown.  

pjl44 said:

mrussel1 said:

BTW - can someone tell me what this means? 

“Look at the men on this stage,” she grinned. “Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women: Amy and me. And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican anytime in the past 30 years is me.”

What are the ten elections that Biden and Bernie are part of, with that loss?  Is she talking about Sanders losing on the nomination in 16?  Biden in 08?  Does that really count?  When Warren loses Iowa, does that mean she's lost an election?  

It seems to be an odd point.  I'm sure it was tongue in cheek, but sill a bit odd. And for the record, Biden won his senate seat from a Republican and was a huge underdog, with almost no money.  Good for Joe to not be petty enough to contradict a silly point.  

The whole thing was a setup. Team Warren planted that story ahead of the debate to get the idea of "a woman can't be President" into the ether. Once she gets the question on it, she can go into that soliloquy. And, yeah, she has to be counting lost primaries.

By the way, beating her chest about beating an incumbent Republican in Massachusetts is hilarious. I lived through that whole chain of events. Scott Brown pulled a horseshoe out of his ass running against a lazy Democrat in a special election. Everyone knew he was getting waxed when his seat came up again.

mrussel1 said:

pjl44 said:

mrussel1 said:

BTW - can someone tell me what this means? 

“Look at the men on this stage,” she grinned. “Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women: Amy and me. And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican anytime in the past 30 years is me.”

What are the ten elections that Biden and Bernie are part of, with that loss?  Is she talking about Sanders losing on the nomination in 16?  Biden in 08?  Does that really count?  When Warren loses Iowa, does that mean she's lost an election?  

It seems to be an odd point.  I'm sure it was tongue in cheek, but sill a bit odd. And for the record, Biden won his senate seat from a Republican and was a huge underdog, with almost no money.  Good for Joe to not be petty enough to contradict a silly point.  

The whole thing was a setup. Team Warren planted that story ahead of the debate to get the idea of "a woman can't be President" into the ether. Once she gets the question on it, she can go into that soliloquy. And, yeah, she has to be counting lost primaries.

By the way, beating her chest about beating an incumbent Republican in Massachusetts is hilarious. I lived through that whole chain of events. Scott Brown pulled a horseshoe out of his ass running against a lazy Democrat in a special election. Everyone knew he was getting waxed when his seat came up again.

I agree, setup.  And I still think it was precipitated by Team Bernie going negative last week.  This was the counter and it was a pretty hard punch.  

pjl44 said:

mrussel1 said:

pjl44 said:

mrussel1 said:

BTW - can someone tell me what this means? 

“Look at the men on this stage,” she grinned. “Collectively, they have lost 10 elections. The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they’ve been in are the women: Amy and me. And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican anytime in the past 30 years is me.”

What are the ten elections that Biden and Bernie are part of, with that loss?  Is she talking about Sanders losing on the nomination in 16?  Biden in 08?  Does that really count?  When Warren loses Iowa, does that mean she's lost an election?  

It seems to be an odd point.  I'm sure it was tongue in cheek, but sill a bit odd. And for the record, Biden won his senate seat from a Republican and was a huge underdog, with almost no money.  Good for Joe to not be petty enough to contradict a silly point.  

The whole thing was a setup. Team Warren planted that story ahead of the debate to get the idea of "a woman can't be President" into the ether. Once she gets the question on it, she can go into that soliloquy. And, yeah, she has to be counting lost primaries.

By the way, beating her chest about beating an incumbent Republican in Massachusetts is hilarious. I lived through that whole chain of events. Scott Brown pulled a horseshoe out of his ass running against a lazy Democrat in a special election. Everyone knew he was getting waxed when his seat came up again.

I agree, setup.  And I still think it was precipitated by Team Bernie going negative last week.  This was the counter and it was a pretty hard punch.  

Yes, also true. You're talking about the script his volunteer were working from?