This is an untrue statement. Information gathering has been ongoing and more very significant information (such as the tax records from Deutsche Bank and much more) was coming up.
It’s not the same. While technically not required for a charge of obstruction, an underlying crime is important to sell it to the public. Nixon hired people to burgle his opponents’ offices. Trump had a couple of unproductive meetings with Russians. That difference, imho, matters a whole hell of a lot as far as the politics of an impeachment is concerned.
It’s just a possibility. “Intentionally undercutting Democratic leadership messaging” might be a great move politically in the primary season (and even one that Pelosi would welcome in some circumstances – she’s a very skilled politician, well-used to this kind of obfuscating strategy when it would be helpful).
In any case, what Warren said was factually correct at the time. You haven’t even critiqued her actual words – and they were right. If you think it was the wrong strategy, fine… Pelosi ignored Warren’s words. I don’t care if Warren projected an “incorrect” strategy in which she’d have no influence on anyway – that was all messaging. Messaging is different than actual strategy, especially in a primary. I think she got the messaging right, since lots of Americans don’t pay tons of attention, and being the first to call for an entirely justified impeachment is a very simple and concise message… far simpler and concise than the actual political strategy which takes a while to explain.
Simple and concise messaging is fine. Even good and strong in some circumstances. I think this is one of them.
Conspiracy, extortion, treason …
Your complaint that he needs to have criminal charges against him to make impeachment stick has to be considered in the light of his DOJ’s insistence that it won’t file any against an incumbent President.
I didn’t make that complaint in any way. I said it’s important politically to have an underlying crime if you are going to impeach for obstruction of justice. Mueller’s report specifically addressed the fact that even though collusion with the Russians couldn’t be shown, that doesn’t mean obstruction didn’t happen.
Bingo. Although I would add that her results in 2018 suggest how unsuccessful a politician she is.
Exactly. Think of any successful prosecution of a mob boss, after years of patient groundwork. Now think of someone in the prosecutors office who wanted to move forward much earlier, before they had their ducks in a row. That person is not vindicated because the careful patient approach was ultimately successful.
It’s clear that the winds are blowing into Warren’s sails. She’s the candidate that’s generating the most enthusiasm, and unlike Bernie in 2016, she doesn’t have the reputation for being a completely fringe candidate.
As I see it, the real challenge for Warren - as it was for Sanders in 2016 - is to get more Black and Hispanic support. I think Sanders arrogantly overlooked the Black vote, and just assumed that his message of progressive change was a formula that should be self-evident and that he didn’t need specific messages for specific communities. We can already see that Sanders himself is rethinking that approach in this election, and it will be critical for Warren if she wants to take her campaign and election chances to the next level.
It’s Wednesday, so we’ve got this week’s update of the polling average.
First, one housekeeping note: I said before the most recent debate that, after the debate, I was going to extend the time I included polls from 2 weeks to 2.5 weeks. And this week, it makes a big difference, because three A-rated polls taken right after the last debate - Fox News, NBC/WSJ, and Survey USA - wouldn’t have made the 2-week cut, but do make the 2.5 week cut. And they were really the last three good polls for Biden, and they were just kinda so-so for Warren, at least from the perspective of now; they were really pretty good for her at the time.
Meanwhile, on top of Quinnipiac’s poll last week showing Warren in the lead, we now have Monmouth and YouGov saying the same thing.
Polls included in this week’s average: the aforementioned A-rated Fox News, NBC/WSJ, Survey USA, Quinnipiac, and Monmouth; the B-rated Emerson, plus the weekly YouGov, Morning Consult and now Ipsos as well, apparently; and the C-rated and daily updated HarrisX, plus a C-rated Zogby poll that’s also in that group that needed the extension from 2 to 2.5 weeks to continue to be included.
Anyhow, the numbers:
Candidate Date 8/14 8/21 8/28 9/04 9/12 9/18 9/25 10/2
Biden 30.1 28.6 28.5 29.8 26.5 28.5 28.4 27.6
Warren 17.0 16.2 16.8 19.0 17.6 18.6 21.5 22.4
Sanders 17.1 15.2 16.9 16.0 17.9 16.9 16.8 16.4
Buttigieg 5.6 4.7 4.7 5.2 5.0 5.7 5.8 5.6
Harris 8.2 7.2 7.2 6.8 6.6 5.6 5.2 5.1
Yang 2.0 2.5 2.6 2.5 2.8 3.0 2.9
O'Rourke 2.6 2.7 2.1 1.4 3.0 3.0 2.4 2.4
Booker 2.5 2.3 2.3 2.1 2.9 1.9 2.2
Everyone else < 2.0
And the comparison with other averages:
Candidate Average RTF RCP Econ
Biden 27.6 26.1 26.0
Warren 22.4 24.4 22.0
Sanders 16.4 16.7 16.0
Buttigieg 5.6 5.6 6.0
Harris 5.1 4.7 5.0
Yang 2.9 3.3 3.0
O'Rourke 2.4 2.1 2.0
Booker 2.2 1.4 1.0
If I’d cut it off at 2 weeks as in the past, the numbers would have looked extremely interesting: Biden 25.3, Warren 24.1, Bernie 16.5, Pete 5.7, Harris 4.5, Yang 3.0, Beto 1.9, Booker 1.6. Maybe I should have done it that way, but I’d said I’d do it the other way, and I figure it’s better to do it as I said I would, because otherwise there’s the inevitable temptation to do the numbers the way they would look best for my preferred candidate.
I agree. Won’t matter by next week anyway.
As of this morning, Survey USA and NBC/WSJ have aged out, even with the new cutoff.
So as of right now, my averages would be Biden 26.1, Warren 22.5, Bernie 16.8, Pete 5.5, Harris 5.0, Yang 2.8, Beto 2.3, Booker 1.9.
Fox News will age out between tonight and tomorrow, and Zogby a day later.
reported
Not sure what galen “reported,” but anyway…
Now it’s looking like Bernie himself has “aged out.” 
These numbers are likely to change significantly in coming days.
There’d been an ad spam post just prior, that’s since been disappeared. 
I should have figured that out! Thanks.
I dunno - most of his followers are pretty devoted. I’d expect them to wait and see whether Bernie’s going to be up to resuming his campaign before the numbers shift much as a result of this. He might lose a couple of % points right away, but still be at 14-15% for at least a few weeks, would be my guess.
Unless he announces sooner than that that he’s suspending his campaign, of course. But he’s a stubborn old guy, and aside from what just happened, he’s in surprisingly good shape. So I don’t expect that to happen unless it becomes obvious to him that he really, really can’t continue. And I think it would take him at least a few weeks for him to come to accept that.
Honestly I think Sanders’ heart episode could impact Biden more thatn Sanders!
Sanders is not too far off from his floor, those “devoted followers”. He could lose* a few* based on perception of too old, but anyone leaving on that basis are pretty unlikely to switch over to the next oldest candidate. Otherwise so long as he does not suspend and gets back on the trail within 10 to 14 days (which is not unreasonable), his floor voters will stay true to him.
But a larger number of other voters who have not been Sanders supporters, some of who have been saying “Biden” are giving the question of nearing 80 more consideration than before. Biden is very far from his floor if he even has one. Some who have been beginning to reconsider that maybe Warren is just as electable could have these thoughts be enough to tip their balance. Timing is important and even a small push when the car is already with forward momentum out of the snow bank is of big impact.
Might be! But it would probably be hard to tell whether Biden’s support was slipping (a) because of this ridiculous Hunter Biden crap, or (b) because of Bernie’s heart problems, or (c) because he’s an uninspiring candidate whose support was slipping anyway.
The argument that “76 and 78-year old Biden and Bernie are too old, so we need to all go over to 70-year old Warren” isn’t too persuasive to voters.
This is a prime chance for 37 and 54-year old Buttigieg and Harris to make a comeback by advertising their youth, but they’re probably too far behind in the polls for that now.
I don’t think it’s about numbers, it’s about appearance and performance. IMO, Warren appears much younger, sharper, and more energetic than Biden. We’ll see if others agree or not.
To build what case? Or was she just going on a fishing expedition, hoping to turn up the Holy Impeachment Grail in his tax records?
I mean, yeah, we all expect that Trump’s tax returns will provide evidence that he’s a crook. But at this point, it’s likely to be no bigger or smaller a deal than the stuff we already know about, such as the whole emoluments thing.
We already knew he’d committed horrific abuses of children at the border, truly appalling human rights violations. That was, and is, way more impeachable than some financial skulduggery. Ditto the ten instances of obstruction of the Russia investigation that Robert Mueller was kind enough to lay out for us all.
There was no equivalently big case that Pelosi and the House Dems were building towards. And the Ukraine extortion just fell into their laps. I think the burden’s on you to prove that there was any case at all.