Your next 2020 Democratic presidential primary thread: Now we're serious

and the dominant narrative that came out of last night is "Bloomberg Bombs/Gets Merked"

xps

but yeah, last night's seemed to get much more visibility than the last handful of debates, which is a great thing

People do watch these debates, and of those who don’t , more have their antennas up for “winners & losers” post mortems than usual because of the whole “electability” emphasis, which is augmented even further wrt to candidates whose chief selling shtick is premised on electability rather than policy. Every dip in the polls and poor debate scorecard for a Bloomberg or Biden has a doubly damaging effect.

I genuinely didn't think many people watched these things! I'm glad to see that last night's edition was so well-attended.

For anyone who missed the big show and is now catching up on clips, in addition to the highly-recommended Warren highlight reel I would also highly recommend seeking out a Bloomberg lowlight reel. Spread that shit around. I think my favorite moment, in response to questions about existing NDAs among his employees, was something like, 'maybe someone didn't like a joke I told (audience booooooos)'. It was great, he's a putz.

but yeah, last night's seemed to get much more visibility than the last handful of debates, which is a great thing

It was broadcast on network television, as opposed to some of the other recent ones which were only on cable news channels.

Also, it’s no longer last year and voting has started and there aren’t 24 candidates anymore.

carry the 5, divide by 15, yes. that's about 20% of the democratic electorate

most of whom don't really have a good reason to actually vote for him. if he gets anything close to 20% i'd be stunned.

xp i'm guessing that $67b is like a russian winter, dems. choose strategy well, it could take a long time with a sad end if you don't?

I think there was genuine curiosity about Bloomberg this time, and given how spectacularly he tanked even people who didn't watch are going to be aware of it.

Given my past acumen wrt predicting the outcome of political races, my dismissal of Bloomberg as an obvious fucking clown whose only advantage is the power to shit bags of money means he can look forward to a minimum of three or four terms as our glorious new god-king.

even the people I work with who don't really follow this know Bloomberg sucked last night

The debate, as entertainment, was by far the best I've watched in a decade, including the 2016 debate in which the GOP candidates stood in Reagan's plane.

Mike Bloomberg's presidential campaign website (https://t.co/neNB1A8G9j) displays a periodic popup that states people in certain states are signing up as volunteers. How terrific!

But here’s a secret: that message is falsely generated using some good ol’ JavaScript. pic.twitter.com/QOKXgToL1v

— Arunesh Mathur (@aruneshmathur) February 12, 2020

NEWS: Warren refuses to disavow a superPAC created for her, saying the men in the race either have superPACs or are billionaires— so she and Klobuchar should have them too.

— Annie Linskey (@AnnieLinskey) February 20, 2020

not saying anything specifically except that this is kinda sus

In its upload to YouTube, @NBCNews cut out the part of the debate where the candidates were asked if the popular vote winner in the primary should be the nominee and every single one except Bernie Sanders said 'not necessarily.' https://t.co/PczIIzaoHr

— Walker Bragman (@WalkerBragman) February 20, 2020

A Trump-loving FB friend seems to think Bloomberg won. He posted something about how he loves to see him "firing off on all these socialist crazy clowns".

uh

This sounds like the profile of the type of person who thought Sarah Palin won the VP debate against Biden

Warren is the best at speaking on the fly.

Trump himself, in 'insentient stopped clock' mode, thought that Bloomberg ate shit last night, so

not saying anything specifically except that this is kinda sus

would be even more sus if they aired his views on this subject 4 years ago

I think we can all agree that the real losers last night were the American people

Sund4r, did your Trump-loving FB friend by chance vote for Obama in '08 or '12? And if you pour soy sauce on him, do his nerve endings fire wildly, sending his tentacles into a fit of spasming that might almost suggest the presence of brain activity?

this dehumanizing rhetoric should be offensive to Americans of all stripes, regardless of political party or how many mansions they own

I'm sorry, Pierre. Thank the Mormon god that you're here to maintain civility among the heathens.

Bernie hogging the headlines daily since December
citation needed

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Wednesday, February 19, 2020 1:34 PM

Okay, sure. Maybe things aren't as bad as I imagined, but still... How about: mentions of candidates in article titles at 5 most circulated US newspapers (USA Today, WSJ, NYPost, NY Times, LA Times) and top 3 most visited News websites (foxnews, cnn, huffpo) as of 1:48PM EST, 2/19/20

Trump: 40+
Bloomberg: 35
Sanders: 15
Buttigieg: 6
Warren: 4

Source: me and Ctrl + F

Update:

Mentions of candidates in article titles at 5 most circulated US newspapers (USA Today, WSJ, NYPost, NY Times, LA Times) and top 3 most visited News websites (foxnews, cnn, huffpo) 3:57 PM EST, 2/20/20

Trump: 35
Bloomberg: 29 (32 if we’re counting the nickname ‘Bloom’)
Sanders 20
Buttigieg: IDK
Warren: 8

someone's polishing up their resume!

The campaign manager also said he's “not sure” Bloomberg will beat Sanders on Super Tuesday and that "it may be there’s not much campaign in March after that date."

So, uh, that's where the Bloomberg campaign is at right now! https://t.co/EZ7hAzb823

— Cristina Cabrera (@crismcabrera) February 20, 2020

xp. sanders is the front runner and yet gets way less coverage than bloomberg? is that the point you're making?

I mean they ran a fucking barrel of fish for president and now they're acting surprised some shots landed

xp. no, you ding-dong. the first thing I said was 'Maybe things aren't as bad as I imagined, but still...' which is typically interpreted as a mea culpa.

keep a shooter with a chopper
turn you to an organ donor

I’m honestly not seeing how Warren has received less or less charitable coverage than Bernie.

Good news, data is a thing now!

Past month: Sanders 17,931 / Warren 5,720

Past week: Sanders 3,836 / Warren 919

So, roughly three times as much?

(Mentions of 2020 candidates on CNN, MSNBC and FOX News 24 hours a day 7 days a week using data from the Internet Archive's Television News Archive processed by the GDELT Project. https://api.gdeltproject.org/api/v2/campaign2020/campaign2020?dm=rawdem&ts=1w)

You may also have heard a smidgen about the NBC/WSJ poll that not-very-accidentally left her out. Perhaps those who aren't noticing the weirdness in coverage of Warren simply don't care to notice it, or don't think it matters.

we should do ilx next.

he's basically been the frontrunnner for the last week/ month, and she's coming in 3rd and 4th. that's probably to be expected.

i don't really care to get into a pissing match on who the media has ignored or attacked the most over the last year, but i'd say Sanders has a pretty good claim on that honor.

just accept that everybody thinks their candidate has been mistreated by the media

Nah. I don’t think that’s a given. Certainly Sanders (Biden) is covered less than some think he should be, but he’s still covered a lot more than Warren (Klobuchar).

I really don’t think it’s a pissing match, and I don’t think Bernie Sanders, currently in lead, is the benighted victim of a media blackout or target of planned ignoring, especially given the 4 or 5 times mentions he receives for every one of Elizabeth Warren’s.

he does seem to get a lot of weirdly pointed questions at the debates. "are your supporters too mean online" jfc gtfo with that shit

i mean you could say that, but it's pretty hard to ignore the breathless paens bestowed on Klobuchar, Pete, and even to some degree Mike.

media personalities are rich, at least as far as cable news and NYT/ WaPo/ etc go. the people who sign their checks are richer still. it's not shocking that they bristle at the thought of someone who might make them ever so slightly less rich.

xxposts

all that to say, if Warren had placed first (or second re delegates) in IA and first in NH, and had either commanding leads or fairly close second place expectations polls-wise in upcoming states, all while Sanders is coming in 3rd and 4th, i suspect you'd see those numbers of mentions reversed.

now would the coverage still be weird and negative? probably.

As far as "highest rated" goes... Were there any Democratic prez debates before '84? I don't remember any. Teddy def didn't debate Jimmy. I know Mondale said "Where's the beef?" to Hart.

1976
The first debate took place in Boston on February 23, with Birch Bayh, Jimmy Carter, Fred Harris, Henry M. Jackson, Milton Shapp, Sargent Shriver, and Mo Udall participating.

A second, a month later, had Carter, Frank Church, Harris, Jackson and Udall on the panel. And in May, with now-front runner Jimmy Carter boycotting, Church and Udall participated in a third.

1980
Despite repeated calls by Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy, President Jimmy Carter refused to debate.

wow I'm amazed Chris Matthews hasn't waxed rhapsodically about the clash of Scoop Jackson and Birch Bayh

(unless he has)

Can't seem to find footage of the '76 stuff. Probably has something to do with it being pre-CSPAN.

i'd be willing to bet that if that was on a network, it was on Sunday afternoon.

man, Shriver thought he'd get a good bounce from being McGovern's running mate?

hell, I remember long ago, in October and November, when we noted how Sanders was getting no coverage.

And the many misleading cable news graphs where he'd be put behind someone he was leading or be left out of headlines.

The media is mostly incompetent and a bit corrupt.

Look who owns most of the big media companies.

they ran a fucking barrel of fish for president and now they're acting surprised some shots landed

Gefilte 2020