bluewater
bluewater's JournalDems Are Starting to Freak Out That Their 2020 Field Isn't Shrinking
The networks are cool with it. But voters and top officials are concerned that the upcoming debates may end up being as messy as the last.
There will be no great winnowing. At least not yet.
After four nights of debates featuring more than 20 Democratic presidential candidates, the televised fall contests were supposed to be the moment where the party’s presidential field would be cut down to size.
But instead of entering the getting-serious phase of the race for the nomination, the Democratic National Committee, television networks and candidates themselves are bracing for a long haul—starting with the strong likelihood that enough candidates will qualify to require the debates to be split up again. Already nine candidates have secured spots for the Sept. 12-13 forum in Houston, and several others appear poised to qualify. At most, 10 candidates are expected to appear onstage together and a spokesperson for the DNC did not clarify how the group would be divided over two nights if more than 10 qualify. A recent DNC memo also granted the campaigns more time to qualify for the subsequent October contest, meaning that even more could potentially participate in the debates deeper into the fall.
Party officials and some campaign veterans insist that a crowded debate stage (or even two) isn’t an altogether bad thing. Many point out that voter engagement picks up much later in the fall, and argue that the eventual nominee will emerge battle-tested from a prolonged nomination process. At a minimum, party leadership will avoid the criticism that they got in 2016, when it was perceived that they tried to smooth things out for Hillary Clinton.
But there is also growing anecdotal evidence that Democratic primary voters are increasingly exhausted with the large field. And privately, some campaigns have grown eager to have the top-tier candidates onstage alone with each other, so as to showcase their direct policy contrasts.
The DNC seemed to be eager for that too. Following the first two debates, the committee raised the threshold for candidates to qualify, requiring any candidate to hit 2 percent in four polls, and have at least 130,000 unique donors, a measure intended to weed out the less serious contenders. But that criteria has had a perverse side-effect, insiders fear, by creating incentive structures for candidates that are largely unhelpful.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/2020-election-democrats-are-starting-to-freak-out-that-their-field-isnt-shrinking
One Month out from the September 12th Debate...
And it's August.
My predictions for the next 4 weeks:
1. Trump will say something racist.
2. HarrisX polling will release 37 online poll results.
( check out this link to get that joke: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primaries/democratic/national/ )
3. Trump will DO something racist.
4. All the candidates will be working on their Iowa and New Hampshire ground games.
5. Trump will invite a racist to the White House.
6. All the candidates will be issuing policy statements that no one pays much attention to because it's August and it's hot.
7. DU posters will start OP's on all of the 37 HarrisX online polls released.
8. A racist will say something supporting tRump.
9. Everyone will be hoping the September 12th debate is not split over two nights!
Iowa corn poll may signal trouble for Joe Biden.
'Ear this, America: A uniquely unscientific poll of Iowa voters suggests Joe Biden is struggling to maintain his front-runner status in the Democratic presidential primary race.
Just 24% of Iowa State Fair goers “voted” for Biden by dropping a kernel of corn in his jar in a fair display designed to predict the winner of the nominating contest.
The vice president out-husked his closest rival, Pete Buttigieg, who drew 16% in the Cast Your Kernel contest. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was right behind with 15% and Sen. Kamala Harris took 11%.
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1160907695404322816
That margin reflects a closer contest than most national polls, and shows that the vice president may be in for a rocky start when the voting starts with the Iowa caucuses next February.
Of course, you butter be ready for plenty of ups and downs before that frosty night.
Hillary Clinton won the 2016 Kernel contest in a landslide, but barely eked out a win against upstart Bernie Sanders in the actual caucus. Sanders is trailing badly this time with just 9%.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-iowa-corn-poll-joe-biden-20190812-vunsn5oxonhxjjjjfvg5u2aswm-story.html
Harris says Trump is waging a 'campaign of terror' against minority communities
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., accused the Trump administration of waging a "campaign of terror" against minority communities in America, pointing specifically to the recent Mississippi food processing plant raids that picked up 680 suspected undocumented workers.
Noting that the raids last week arrested predominately Latino workers, the Democratic presidential hopeful said she believes Hispanics feel targeted in America. In an exclusive interview with "Meet the Press," Harris also questioned why the raids occurred so close to last weekend's mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, the largest targeted attack on Latinos in modern American history.
"We must point out and never condone anyone who uses their power in a way that fans it. But the reality is that these are forms of hate that are not new to our country, which have in the history of our country taken lethal proportion, and, still today, take on lethal proportion," she said.
"This administration has directed DHS to conduct these raids as part of what I believe is this administration's campaign of terror, which is to make whole populations of people afraid to go to work," Harris said. "Children are afraid to go to school for fear that when they come home, their parents won’t be there.”
The raids hit several work sites in Mississippi, with immigration officials hailing it as the "largest single-state enforcement action in [the] nation's history."
Community leaders and immigration advocates have criticized the administration's handling of the raid, pointing to the effects it will have on children whose parents were apprehended and to lack of criminal actions against the employers specifically.
When asked about the decision to hold the raid shortly after the El Paso shooting, where the shooter told police he was targeting ‘Mexicans,’ acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan told "Meet the Press" Sunday that the timing was “unfortunate.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/harris-says-trump-waging-campaign-terror-against-minority-communities-n1041171
Biden faces challenge from Warren in Iowa
Joe Biden has had a steady lead in Iowa polls, but Democratic strategists say Elizabeth Warren is rising and poses the greatest risk to him in the Hawkeye state.Iowa has long been seen as a tough state for Biden, as its caucus-goers tend to go for more progressive candidates.
That would seem to fit the bill for Warren, though she is battling fellow progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for support among Iowa caucus-goers.
A Monmouth poll released last week provided great news for Warren, showing her with 19 percent and ahead of both Sanders (9 percent) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who won 11 percent.
But Biden was still in first, with 28 percent.
“I would definitely say she’s is the largest threat to Joe Biden,” Pat Rynard, founder of the popular Iowa Democratic news site Iowa Starting Line, said of Warren.
“My main observation is that she is the coalition candidate. She is the one in the field who can appeal to progressive activists while not scaring away the rest of the voters.”
Democratic consultant Tracy Sefl, who hails from Iowa, said Warren — who spent the first 5 months of her campaign tailor-focused on the state — is gaining traction because her campaign fits well with what Iowa voters want.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/456904-biden-faces-challenge-from-warren-in-iowa
Some labor unions split with Biden on 'Medicare for All'
Labor leaders dispute candidates’ claims that single-payer will leave their members worse off.Joe Biden and other moderate Democratic candidates opposed to “Medicare for All” have cast the plan as anti-labor, arguing that it would leave union members worse off by stripping them of the health care benefits they painstakingly negotiated.
But not all labor unions agree.
Only a few major unions have come out against the single-payer system that would all but eliminate private insurance, while many others remain undecided and some of the biggest labor groups in the country have embraced the plan.
Those supporting Medicare for All — or at least not yet ruling it out — say health care increasingly dominates contract battles, consuming bargaining power that could instead be directed toward raising wages and improving working conditions.
“When we’re able to hang on to the health plan we have, that’s considered a massive win," Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told POLITICO. “But it’s a huge drag on our bargaining. So our message is: Get it off the table.”
It's true that union workers are wary of giving up hard-won benefits, even when promised a plan that covers more services for less money. That’s why Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Beto O’Rourke, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and John Delaney, among others, have invoked organized labor in recent debates and candidate forums to argue against mandatory single-payer health insurance.
"I've been listening to a lot of folks in labor who have said to me, 'Look, we negotiated contracts where we've given up wages for these health care benefits, and under the Medicare for All plan we would lose them, or we would be certainly in fear of losing them," Harris said days after the debate at a forum in Nevada hosted by the public sector union AFSCME.
But single-payer backers have hit back, asserting that union members would benefit from a government system that effectively guarantees comprehensive benefits and takes health care out of labor negotiations.
“We will do what every other major country on Earth does — guarantee all of you health care so you can sit down and negotiate decent wage increases,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who wrote the Senate Medicare for All bill and made the policy the centerpiece of his 2016 presidential bid, told the AFSCME forum in Nevada.
It’s an argument that resonates with many labor leaders.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/11/joe-biden-medicare-for-all-unions-1456179
Inside Warren's early-state sleeper campaign
The working idea: to mobilize a force not only on election days, but also to move Congress on issues for which there is broad existing public support.
By Jonathan Allen
Late last month, Gabriel di Chiara Spada, a political operative for Sen. Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign, showed up at The Writer's Block bookstore in downtown Las Vegas to hear children read emotional accounts about President Donald Trump's plan to end the "temporary protected status" for immigrants from certain countries.
"Separating families is wrong, no matter which agency or program or court is responsible," he tweeted along with a picture of an 8-year-old girl reading an op-ed about children who are U.S. citizens being cut off from parents who are not. "The words of these kids proves it."
It's a bit unusual for a presidential campaign's staff to invest time in events that aren't directly related to the candidate's election. But for Warren's team, it's all part of the plan: A small army of her organizers has deployed to early-voting states and embedded into local communities.
"She is generating buzz because her campaign shows up everywhere," said one prominent Nevada Democrat who asked to remain anonymous to give a candid assessment. "Every time there’s a community event, there is Warren representation there."
By pitching in locally, Warren's organizers hope to demonstrate at a personal level that they are investing in the concerns of the same voters — and potential volunteers — whose support they are courting for the Massachusetts Democrat at the federal level. It's just one part of a political organizing operation designed to match Warren's message of igniting a movement, voter by voter, that creates "big, structural change" in the country.
"We have to build something that has a line through the primaries, through the general election, through getting Congress to do big things," said the Warren campaign's chief strategist, Joe Rospars, who worked on Barack Obama's two winning bids for the presidency.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/inside-warren-s-early-state-sleeper-campaign-n1039781
Kamala Harris: My 3AM Agenda
Kamala Harris
Published on Aug 8, 2019
This election is about American families and what wakes them up in the middle of the night. My 3AM Agenda offers and delivers tangible benefits that improve Americans’ daily lives; including Medicare for All, giving working and middle-class families an overdue raise, and guaranteeing women are paid equally.
Learn more at kamalaharris.org/3AM.
Beto and Warren call Trump a "white supremacist"
Beto O'Rourke and Elizabeth Warren call President Trump a "white supremacist"
Other 2020 Democrats, like Joe Biden and Cory Booker, have not gone as far in their condemnations of the president
by SHIRA TARLO
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke both said they believe President Donald Trump is a white supremacist — the fiercest denunciations yet of the commander-in-chief's rhetoric from Democratic presidential candidates.
Warren told the New York Times "without hesitation" that Trump is a white supremacist who has "done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country."
"He has given aid and comfort to white supremacists. He's done the wink and a nod. He has talked about white supremacists as fine people," Warren told the newspaper, seemingly referring to Trump's infamous "both sides" defense after the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a self-professed neo-Nazi killed a counter-protester.
"Donald Trump has a central message," she added. "He says to the American people, if there's anything wrong in your life, blame them — and 'them' means people who aren't the same color as you, weren't born where you were born, don’t worship the same way you do."
O'Rourke, meanwhile, said on Wednesday that the president made it "very clear" that he is a white supremacist who has "dehumanized or sought to dehumanize those who do not look like or pray like the majority here in this country."
The pair's pointed declarations follow last week's back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, which left at least 31 people dead and 53 injured.
The shooter accused of carrying out the massacre in El Paso wrote in a racist screed that "this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas," directly echoing Trump's repeated warnings of "an invasion" at the border ahead of the 2018 midterm election cycle.
https://www.salon.com/2019/08/08/beto-orourke-and-elizabeth-warren-call-president-trump-a-white-supremacist/
Warren highest FAVORABILITY in IOWA poll
Monmouth University
Poll type: Live
538 Rating: A+
2020 DEMOCRATIC FIELD – IOWA PARTY VOTER OPINION
__Favorable, Unfavorable, Net rating___
Biden...... 73 19 +54
Sanders... 58 33 +25
Warren.... 76 14 +62
Harris...... 68 19 +49
Buttigieg.. 68 11 +57
Booker..... 56 16 +40
Klobuchar. 50 17 +33
O’Rourke.. 43 24 +19
Castro...... 47 13 +34
Steyer...... 34 25 +9
Bullock..... 22 19 +3
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_ia_080819/
Disclaimer : These polls are more than 6 months out from the Caucus, and hence are early polls. No single poll should be over emphasized.
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