She meant the Miss Cleo shit.
To be fair i’d rather take Williamson than virtually any contemporary GOP.
Beto bravely shifting to the middle.
It is nice to hear some adults talking though.
It’s not going to be you, Rep. Ryan.
Yeah, it’s been great to hear actual adults acknowledge reality and debate whether one solution or another is best.
Warren still impressed me the most. She showed time and again that she’s smart and has given all the issues a lot of thought. Bernie did well as well. Buttigieg did pretty well but wasn’t as visible. Steve Bullock made a strong debut from Montana. John Delaney actually did pretty well tonight, I thought. Amy Klobuchar had her moments, as did Hickenlooper. O’Rourke is done I think, he just sounded very sound-bitey. I thought even Williamson did better than O’Rourke in that way. She spoke with more conviction. Tim Ryan did pretty well, except for the whole Chief Manufacturing Officer thing, as if that will magically bring manufacturing jobs back.
Yea, I’m not sure of a path forward for O’Rourke now. It seems like he read Nate Silver’s critique but is too deep now to throw in the towel, but his heart doesn’t seem to be in it. He doesn’t have that car salesman’s enthusiasm you need in politics.
He would do the country a favor if he ran for a seat in his state instead.
Pete once again did a good job. Here’s not only eloquent in his answers, but he was able to make sure they fit in the time allotted.
I doubt he can win a primary against the heavy hitters, but he’d make a powerful VP pick.
I missed the first 2 debates, but I caught this one at a debate watching party and I now present to you the following hot takes:
- Tim Ryan spent most of the debate looking terrified, having realized that the debate algorithm had put him on stage with a bunch of raving socialists who were 5 minutes away from guillotining his ass
- Buttigieg was good! This was my first time seeing him in person and he was surprisingly charming
- Wild eyed Bernie Sanders screams at camera: “THIS IS NOT RADiCAL!” I kid because I love; I thought he was consistently great throughout.
- Delaney was decent on climate, though he had this weird tic where he would do this (nervous?) smile when it was not at all appropriate
- Warren was a big-dick swinging bully through most of the debate. I was afraid she was going to just flat out make Delaney giver her his wallet at one point. She also has surprisingly dangerous looking lower teeth, and occasionally she would make little reflexive half-mouth movements like she was fantasizing about tearing into the entrails of the billionaire class. She looked way younger than 70.
- Sander’s hair needed to be poofier. Always be poofing
- Buttigieg says that “the racial divide lies within me”. I’m only a year out of high school so I giggled.
- Beto brings up reparations. THaNks for that. Marianne Williamson at least puts a dollar figure next to reparations, which is more than you usually get. In general, having only been exposed to her through memes before, I found her to be more intelligent and reasonable than I expected. Not a great presidential contender but not flat out crazy.
In general the debate format was terrible, as it prevented digging into any serious ideas or differences, and was instead just a constant merry go round of pivots and new distractions and generated drama. If I saw a conversation like that on this forum I would be rolling my eyes at all the heat and no light. The best that can be said for it is that it gives you some idea of how the candidates would perform on a general election stage or in a contest against the republican nominee.
In the post-debate coverage, Warren sat down with CNN’s posse of pundits and took a bunch of questions on the details of her plans. She’s very convincing when she has time to expand her answers. Even on the toughest issues (“how do you convince 100m Americans to ditch their current insurance”), she makes a lot more sense when she’s allowed more than 240 characters of response time.
I’ll vote for any Dem nominee, but I really hope the ticket is some combination of Warren, Harris and Buttigieg.
I agree with all of your points, and this one made me burst out laughing.
!
It would make me so happy to see any one of them take Trump down. I mean, I’ll be delighted no matter who beats Trump. But each of these three people would make it especially delicious. A Clinton-esque wonk, a hard-ass former prosecutor who’s a minority and a woman, or a young gay vet? Can we have all three?
-Tom
I didn’t watch the debates, but caught a tiny bit of the after-debate ‘spin’ room. Some reporter to Warren: “Are you afraid if you win you’ll alienate voters like trump did?” Warren blinked. “What?”
(Unfortunately she kinda dropped the ball on the answer.) Seriously, what the ever living fuck is wrong with our media? It looks like from the sound of it, CNN and especially Jake Tapper did a shitty job of ‘moderating.’ I hope candidates start taking a page from Sanders and start pushing back against the media.
Since I’m a Dave Roberts fan boy, here’s a thread. Link to his first post, image of a couple highlights:
JFC, keep her away from kids…
I get the strong feeling that this is going to be the “Who cares?” debate. Went up against The Bachelorette finale, which dominated social media discourse…and none of the candidates really made significant enough noise last night to hit the headlines.
We’ll see if that changes tonight with Grampy Joe once again in the crosshairs.
Every debate in July of the pre-election year is going to be “who cares?” I’m a politics junkie and I don’t care. Debates need to go away. They’re totally useless in their current format. There has to be a better way for candidates to introduce and distinguish themselves.
Eh, if the debates cull the herd a bit and also help to mainstream some good ideas, that’s a modest enough success perhaps.
But yeah, the first debate is big…because it’s the first debate. After tonight, the next debates aren’t until September, and those may be more interesting as we head towards the J-J event in Iowa.
While I agree in theory, CNN seemed to be tripping over itself trying to make Williamson into the “winner” last night. I get she’s good TV, but ffs.