Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Fight Night Four: Flash Points

On the whole, I'd rather not aggravate my carpal tunnel with the remote, going back and forth between this and Cole v. Severino, but I'll be here for ya (tomorrow and on Twitter tonight).

Update: Early start means a fresh elbow. Astros 4, Yankees 1, bottom of the 9th.


The fourth Democratic presidential debate will be on Tuesday, October 15, at 8 pm ET at Otterbein University, outside of Columbus, Ohio, and broadcast by CNN.

So if you've been following the primary to this point, you know that a) it's now a three-person race, with b) the leader, Joe Biden, slowly fading into a tie -- in some recent polls slipping behind -- the steadily rising Elizabeth Warren, followed by Bernie Sanders ... c) who may have lost or gained momentum as a result of his cardiac event, depending on who you listen to, what your bias is toward him, whether you belive the polls accurately represent his strength, etc.

Tonight's face-off is co-sponsored by the NYT, and their preview is the best.


Expend one of your ten free looks (that's what the Times gives me each month for not being a subscriber but having a log-in and getting some e-mail from them) and read it.

Old Uncle Joe needs a strong performance.  In an unusually-timed interview later this morning, prodigal son Hunter appeared on teevee for questions about his former Ukraine employment that now threatens the Trump presidency with impeachment.

For the majority of the Democrats running for president, and even one notable surrogate to Joe Biden himself, there is a sense of confusion as to why Hunter is choosing now to finally speak up about the extent of his business ties in Ukraine and China.

“I wouldn’t have put Hunter on the air,” former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a top surrogate for Biden, told The Daily Beast. “I think the more you respond, the more you’re playing into Donald Trump.”

Rendell, who said was not involved in any discussions about the matter, wondered aloud about the thinking behind it, before doubling down. “There’s a danger in playing Trump’s game,” he said bluntly.

For Team Biden, Hunter’s interview on ABC News’ Good Morning America is an opportunity to clear the air and turn the attention back to the widespread corruption running rampant in the Trump White House. It will also give the younger Biden a chance to present facts in his own words to counter Trump’s misinformation campaign.

[...]

Rival campaigns weren’t so sure.

“This is insane that they would do it,” a senior adviser to a Democratic opponent said.

Multiple aides to 2020 candidates found the timing suspect and speculated that Hunter Biden’s move to go public automatically puts the debate moderators in a position that they can’t ignore it on Tuesday night.

“Everyone else had laid off of Joe Biden,” the senior adviser added. “Now that’s all gone. I would bet $100 it’s the first question. If it is, it’s a major disaster.”

“Why even put it out there to answer for that?,” another rival campaign aide asked. “Now it’s fair game that a moderator can bring it up.”

Biden, flanked by Warren and Sanders, ought to get pummeled by them and by the rest of the field as well.  Warren should finally get some attention from her challengers.

(H)er new status as near co-front-runner comes with fresh pressures. In the earlier debates, other candidates have been more keen to target Biden than her.

Considering she bills herself as the candidate with a plan for everything, Warren's lack of specificity on how to pay for her health care proposal is an obvious target for her rivals.

Some analysts see the omission as a device to allow her to track more to the center in a general election after avoiding alienating liberal voters who want a single-payer health care system and to abolish private insurance.

She has also had some staff problems.




"Rigged", you say?  Surely not again.


So this goes -- although not directly -- to Tulsi Gabbard's boycott threat, and why I remain hopeful she'll bust a Kamala on Warren at some point tonight.

Warren's hypocrisy came into tighter focus yesterday, as Indigenous Peoples Day has overtaken Columbus Day in the socio-politically correct revisionism our American history is undergoing.


Just facts, not attacks.



"Non-binding".




I'll beat this horse until it's dead or the corporate media starts doing the same job on her that they do on Bernie.  Regarding the senator from the Green Mountain State, his mission this evening is to demonstrate he's up to the rigors of campaigning, to say nothing of the job of being president.

As new polling suggests Sanders’ heart attack may harm his chances to win the nomination, his campaign is working to project normalcy, even as Sanders remains at home under doctor’s orders. Sanders is set to make his first public appearance outside of Vermont since the health scare on Tuesday night at the fourth Democratic presidential debate in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio -- an appearance his campaign hopes will quiet doubts about whether he can win the nomination.

[...]

In a new HuffPost/YouGov survey, 88% of registered voters say they’ve heard at least a little about Sanders having a heart attack. The news appears to have taken a toll on perceptions of his health -- just 19% of voters say they believe he is in good enough physical condition to serve effectively as president for four years. By comparison, 43% believe former Vice President Joe Biden is in adequate health, with 53% saying the same of President Donald Trump and 66% of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

... Just 28% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters say they think Sanders is in physical condition to serve effectively, compared to the 59% who say the same of Biden and the 81% who say the same of Warren.
 
More broadly, a 56% majority of voters say they believe Sanders’ age would make it difficult for him to serve effectively as president, with 44% saying the same of Biden, who was born the year after him. Only a third are similarly concerned about Trump’s age. Warren, perhaps helped by the fact that many voters believe her to be younger than she is, fared best on the metric, with just 16% saying her age would make it difficult for her to serve.

No question it's a tall order.  Nothing he can do to quiet the haters; he must convince the doubters.  He was judged by a harsher standard than "Early Stage Dementia/Bleeding Eye" Biden long before his heart attack, which is probably why he ran himself into the ground demonstrating vigor on the campaign trail.  Now he needs to do only a little bit more than all the others instead of a lot more ... especially in going after his friend.

He hinted at a more aggressive approach toward Warren in an interview with ABC News' This Week on Sunday.

"There are differences between Elizabeth and myself," he said.

"Elizabeth, I think, as you know, has said that she is a capitalist through her bones. I'm not."

If Sanders is to win the nomination he will need to check Warren's momentum amid signs she has eclipsed him after he put issues like economic inequality, Medicare for All, and corporate responsibility at the top of the Democratic agenda in his 2016 presidential bid.

For all the the targets on the front-runners' backs, there should be plenty of shots fired at them from the ones in the rear.  If they're not too busy -- in the short time everybody will have -- shooting at each other, that is.


I expect it to be Boot Edge Edge that will be taking the most potshots at others and receiving the most incoming as well.


I'm certain after tonight's festivities that I'm going to be disliking Snotty Little Petey even more than I do now, and I already can't stand him.


Lily-livered Donkeys are terrified that Beto's call for mandatory gun buybacks and taxing churches who outlaw gay weddings are *clutch pearls, faint* "going to hand re-election to Trump".  At least  Cory Booker punched back at Buttigieg.


Surely there will be some challengers besides Beto and Booker ready to knock Petey flat on his cornucopia of neoliberalism this evening.

Klobuchar, another crappy centrist pretender, got an assist from Bill Maher this past weekend.


Yeah, these are the people who bastardize the word 'progressive'.

As for Steyer and Yang ... well, I would hope they both get the least amount of talk time.

Moving on:

One of the Democrats' billionaires who dropped out months ago is rethinking his candidacy in light of Biden's souffle'-like collapse..


Just what we all were waiting for.

In minor party news:


Okay, that's enough.
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