It was a doozy. The participants abandoned their previous tendencies to be gentle to each other. Rhetorical missiles were flying. Warren beat Blumberg like he was an ugly red-headed stepchild. The others blasted away at Blumberg also. The guy is spending (400 million so far) to buy the nomination. He has commercials that imply Obama is his best buddy. Some viewers even erroneously think that Obama has endorsed Blumberg. Blumberg, the previous Republican Mayor of NYC. Blumberg who was never a particularly strong advocate for Obama. Blumberg, who is literally banking on “Money is Speech” to buy his way to the general election. He would simply be a more pleasant version of T rump, a benign (at first) oligarch. But that unlikely irony aside, I would say that the other debaters have increased their skills in the debate format. Bernie the presumed front runner, had almost no heat put on him, as the debaters were focusing their attacks on Blumberg and others.
Blumberg was out of his depth, this being his 1st debate performance. But he can stay and keep trying to buy the race as long as he wishes. However, he had indicated before he got in the race that he was not going to get in if it looked like Biden would beat Bernie. Yet, he is effectively making Bernie’s chances of winning, greater, by splitting the more moderate candidates constituencies. Bernie has a seemingly solid % of voters who are going to be with him no matter what (tho he does not yet have 50%).
But in order to win the nomination, someone needs to start getting > 50% in some primaries. Blumberg is currently making it likely that more moderate Dem voters are going to be split among Biden, Buttigieg, Blumberg, and Krobachar, thus leaving the field to the liberals Bernie (and/or possibly Warren if she can recover her campaign, with the good debate showing).
All registered voters have their ballot. Mine is sitting on the table waiting for my next trip into town.
Think I’m going to give it to Elizabeth Warren, I fear Bernie, it’s way too easy imagining him being so full of himself that he pulls another “ralph nader” on the country. (may that one rest in the deepest bowels of Dante’s Hell, along side Cheney and Biden as cell mates.)
Primaries are a vetting process. There are going to be some punches thrown. That’s part of it. Generally, someone emerges who can best handle the process.
No one is expected to die from the process. There really hasn’t been much of a circular firing squad, so far. If there is now, maybe that is what’s needed. The time is quickly approaching in which a presumed winner may be identified. Maybe as soon as post Super Tuesday (9 days away).
Normally I don’t pay attention to the debates, except tonight I caught a few minutes of it and it made me think that it’s shaping up to be a New York vs Midwest thing.
On one side you have Sanders and Bloomberg who are New Yorkers (and jews), and Buttigeig, Warren and Klobuchar are Midwesterners. Whoever wins will be against Mr Trump who is of course a New Yorker also. I’m ignoring the Pennsylvanian Biden because he doesn’t seem to have a chance.
OneGuy, you are good for having an different perspective on things. Tho Sanders is from Vermont, I think.
As far as the billionaires in the race, I MUCH prefer Steyers to Bloomberg.
Bloomberg, again showed his inferiority in the debate format, as he is a johnny-come-lately to the process and has not honed direct facile political skill from engaging in the rigors of direct politicking.
I suggest that he drop out, but he can keep pumping in his 100’s of millions of dollars to support someone else, from afar, if he wants.
Yes, Bernie Sanders is Senator from Vermont. Bloomberg is attempting to buy the presidency and he should have never been allowed in the debate, especially for attempting to buy his way in.
The thing is, the Dem Party, I believe, tried to set rules that would be fair for everyone. But the rules that were set, are the rules that must be abided by.
The rules SHOULD NOT BE CHANGED IN THE MIDST OF THE CONTEST. So Bloomberg can trick lots of people into voting for him, or at least considering it, by simply spending half a billion$, and counting,… on TV ads and other political sundries. But I would hope that, by far, most Dems would not fall for it.
The eventual nominee is not clear, yet. If you are forced to bet, I would suggest Bernie as the favorite, right now. But I can’t rule Biden out yet. The real issue seems to be the moderate vs revolutionary (peaceful, democratic revolution, that is) parts of the Dem Party. The split of the moderates among several candidates has to be to Bernie’s advantage. However, southern states will probably mostly go for moderates. But Bernie is way in the lead in California (could he get ALL of the CA delegates?), and he will, also, likely get a decent # of delegates from Texas, too.
Biden will win S. Carolina, tomorrow, but will it propel him to some victories on Super Tuesday? And how much will the billionaires “F” up the nomination process?
The picture should be coming in to better focus after Super Tuesday.
Not only that but Buttigieg (my personal choice of most likely hero of democracy) and Klobuchar, and even Beto O’Rourke have endorsed Joe Biden and said they would be working for his win.
So Joe’s candidacy seems to have arisen, just as Bernie’s candidacy was about to get an insurmountable lead.
We will know some things by tonight, but the California totals probably won’t be available until the end of the week.
But we will get an idea, very soon, as to whether there is still a chance for Joe to catch up and surpass Bernie’s delegate count.
I can already say that the nominee is going to be Bernie or Biden, tho Warren, Bloomberg, and Tulsi Gabbard are still in the race.
And still, I wonder “WTF is Tulsi still doing in the race? Will her Russian masters not allow her to withdraw? It makes no sense.”
Hopefully, tonight, we will have evidence that hundreds of millions of dollars are not going to help Bloomberg buy the election. I really despise his lack of integrity in his own paradigm for justifying being in the race. He said he was getting in because Biden might not be able to defeat Bernie. Now that Biden is showing that he may indeed have the wherewithal, Bloomberg’s continuing presence in the race is probably syphoning off votes that would have gone to Biden. Hence, Bloomberg is not trustworthy.
And Elizabeth Warren? She’s a damn good candidate. Maybe she just can’t process that she is not going to win the nomination despite her tremendous assets.
Anyway, those 3 are quickly becoming superfluous to the race.
Biden would in my opinion be the better choice because Americans seem to think that having a counter weight to the person at the top tends to make for a more balanced government when in reality it’s simply a recipe for gridlock. I will vote for Sanders if he is the nominee but suspect the democratic majority in the house would be in jeopardy if he wins.
Much has been made of the well circulated notion that Joe Biden isn’t as mentally sharp as he use to be. This is a groundless criticism. Far more important in a national leader is something much deeper. That being; do they have empathy, compassion and a basic desire to make the lives of Americans better? These traits are at the core of our personality and generally don’t diminish with age. While it’s true that detail and minutia are vital in formulating public policy, these things fall in the purview of aids and advisers to the president but as Tim mentioned, a manikin from the display window of any department store would be better than the current specimen.