I agree. I’m pulling for Booker in any case.
And then we’d be back where we started with too many candidates on the debate stage. It’s so close to Christmas that I don’t think this debate will move the needle much, but we’ve got to get the field narrowed, even if it is all white.
Obama also had a white mother. Tulsi and Obama both grew up in the same place - Hawaii, where cultural diversity is more the norm. In terns of racial background, the only difference between the first black President and Tulsi, who you don’t recall anyone calling a person of color is 1/4 ancestry or less.
Is this for the December debates? Yang and Tulsi have 3 out of 4 qualifying polls each. They each have only one more poll to qualify. Booker has zero qualifying polls out of 4. He would need 4 qualifying polls in the next week to qualify. That would be an amazing feat, possible but there would need to be 4 polls that upticked for him in a short time. December debate qualifying spreadsheet put out by Politico writers.
All of this BS is why it was a mistake for the parties to get involved in debates at all. Until very recently, debates were arranged by negotiation between the campaigns and organizations that wanted to host them, and any disputes about participation could thus be offloaded onto those entities rather than tainting the entire race. I have no idea why the DNC continued its involvement after getting nothing but strife for arranging things in 2016.
Part of Obama’s skill as a politician was that he was everything to everyone. To nerds, he was the nerd candidate. To jocks, he was the jock candidate. He even managed to brand himself as more Irish than the guy whose name started with “Mc”.
If we had anyone else who had that skill, we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now, because we’d all already know who the Democratic nominee was.
We sure didn’t already know who the Dem nominee would be on 12/5/2007, despite Obama’s skill as a politician.
No one who saw Obama throw out a first pitch at a baseball game would confuse him for a jock.
I’m not really sure how much of a jock vote there really is. George H W. Bush had the wimp factor even after playing college baseball and flying planes in WW II. Gerald Ford was seen as bumbling even after his career playing college football. No one voted for Bill Bradley in 2000 because of his basketball career.
I have to agree.
I don’t know what the answer is.
I remember a time when debates of sorts would occur in the editorial sections of the NYT and Washington Post but I doubt that would work these days
Surprised Klobuchar is still running, she is a distant 3rd in the moderate camp.
She probably has enough money for now, it’s likely she does not have a big staff like Harris.
Exactly. That was Harris’ and Beto’s downfall. Hiring expensive staff was their downfall. It is a good move until it isn’t. The Scott Walker campaign suffered a similar fate last cycle.
Not a dropout yet, but Tulsi announced via Twitter that she’s not attending the next debate even if she qualifies. Of course, we’ve seen this movie before, but I think she knows she’s done.
I know it’s 2020 now, but I don’t think Julian Castro is worth his own thread. He’s out.
Oh, and Williamson just announced she’s laying off her entire campaign staff. So she’s all but done regardless if she officially pulls the plug.
I feel so neglected. Hardly any nags! Maybe they’ve all been auto-routed to the spam folder. Or maybe, since I don’t give online, they don’t have me targeted. I’m so sad.
Meanwhile, from a few hours ago, a Newsweek piece on who’s left.
Thus only Bennet, Bloomberg, Booker, Buttigieg, Delaney, Gabbard, Klobuchar, Patrick, Steyer, Williamson, and Yang remain to drop out. Who’s next? Probably not self-funding zillionaires unless they don’t make a debate cutoff. When will the next go? By the first primaries.
If I had to guess, it would be Booker as he can always return to the Senate and might be a VP candidate. I wish it was him rather than Steyer on the debate stage last time, but I don’t think his campaign has a viable path forward.
Marianne Williamson has apparently laid off her entire campaign staff.