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Showing posts sorted by date for query beto sema. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Monday, September 20, 2021

The Beto/redistricting Wrangle

Tex Donks are orgasmic, but the scoop from Axios has them jumping the gun.

According to David Wysong, O’Rourke’s former House chief of staff, no decision has been made yet. “He has been making and receiving calls with people from all over the state,” Wysong said.

“We hope that he’s going to run,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the state chair of the Democratic Party. “We think he’ll be our strongest candidate. We think he can beat Abbott because he’s vulnerable.”

Polling reveals that Hinojosa is the blind hog who found a truffle.


Also the Texas 2036 poll, showing widespread dissatisfaction with the state's direction.


"Inching closer".  Calves are already cramping across the Lone Star State.  I saw nothing referenced anywhere about Beto's previous condition that voting rights legislation pass the Congress before he jumps in.  And speaking of snark, I saw a lot more than I expected.


This tweet, and the subsequent argument about whether he took O&G money or didn't, illustrates the leftist/liberal divide better than any.


The good news is that this will at least quiet the talk of Joe Straus coming out of retirement.


Redistricting is a bigger topic; the first maps for Senate Districts dropped over the weekend, and Fort Worth's purple SD-10 (held by Beverly Powell) is a goner.  Republicans Donna Campbell (SD-25) and Dawn Buckingham (SD-24) would have to square off, which must be why Buckingham is running for Land Commissioner and not re-election.  Expect more and worse from Joan Huffman's committee.


Katya Ehresman shows us how to get involved in the redistricting fight.


I have a few more posts regarding the abortion law.


Read here at KXAN if the WaPo's paywall is a problem for you.


Obviously not the accomplishment he thinks it is.


Last:


Julie Cloud and David Currie at the San Antonio Report underscore that.  I'm not in the habit of posting rebuttals that make sense from Pastor Jeffress; it's been a strange week just passed.  After all, last Monday we were bracing for a hurricane.  Have you forgotten?


Two more environmental things.


The Texas Living Waters Project sees the American Rescue Plan Act as a historic opportunity to invest in our water infrastructure.

And some criminal and social justice posts.


This CBS Sunday Morning piece ...


... and Koppel's discussion with some of the tourists ...


... is the perfect lead-in to Jen Rice's thread about the eviction crisis.


A long read and worth every minute of your time.

Here's some more items to close today.


The Great God Pan Is Dead is looking forward to fall art season.

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Thursday, April 16, 2020

Race for the White House Update: All Aboard

-- Bernie went first ...

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president, pledging to help him defeat President Donald Trump in the general election as the two agreed to launch a series of task forces to work jointly on policy matters.

"We need you in the White House. I will do all that I can to see that that happens, Joe," Sanders said to Biden during a livestream broadcast by Biden's campaign on his website and on social media.


And following our refusals to get in line behind him, began the early recriminations.

Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that it would be “irresponsible” for his loyalists not to support Joe Biden, warning that progressives who “sit on their hands” in the months ahead would simply enable President Donald Trump’s reelection.

That might appear to be more directed specifically at those who would be planning on not voting, as opposed to those of us who will be voting for someone other than Biden or Trump.

I'm rolling with the old Bernie anyway.


He built a movement for a political revolution and then, when it was sabotaged again by the establishment, trudged back to rejoin them.  That is, after all, what he said he would do, repeatedly; support the nominee.  A lot of people felt surprised, disappointed, let down by that (not me).



-- Obama came out second, with the best gaslighting ever.

"The Democratic Party will have to be bold," he added, arguing that Biden has the "most progressive platform" of any Democratic nominee, even though many progressives who supported Sanders remain skeptical of Biden.

Not that.  This.

It becomes more adorable with each passing day to reminisce about how we spent a year following the twists and turns and what-ifs of a Democratic presidential primary between 20-some candidates. After all the noise, Joe Biden just had to hold on to South Carolina to get Democratic voters to effectively nominate him by acclamation. Cool. So much of that time, too, was spent debating whether Democrats needed a return to the halcyon days of the Obama administration or a bolder agenda of structural overhaul. Did Barack Obama go far enough? was a fundamental question of the primary. It was mostly unspoken, as answering with the negative risked taking the most popular Democrat’s name in vain.

And then, the day after the last remaining competitor drops out and endorses the presumptive nominee, Obama himself comes out with the answer: Hell, I certainly wouldn’t run on the Obama platform.

“You know, I could not be prouder of the incredible progress that we made together during my presidency,” Obama said in a video released Tuesday morning, in which he endorsed Joe Biden. “But if I were running today, I wouldn’t run the same race or have the same platform as I did in 2008.”

What refreshing candor bullshit.  I can't wait for the "I exerted no influence on the candidates who all quit their campaigns simultaneously just prior to Super Tuesday" tell-all interview/book.




-- And in a small plot twist, Elizabeth Warren -- coming in from her sabbatical -- makes it a three-for-three for Rapey Joe.

Was this orchestrated also by Maestro Obama?  Does it presage Liz as VP?  That's going to enrage the K-Hive if so.  And perhaps miff Stacey Abrams, who's taking her campaign for the job public.

-- So ... keep revolting inside or outside?


Personally I have gotten the most satisfaction from doing both, strategically and each at the proper time.  So for the moment, voting for Bernie in remaining primaries will give him delegates to go to the convention and influence DNC rules in the future (as in the past; restricting the votes of superdelegates to the second round, for example).

But after that, it's time to #DemExit.



Here are some of your options at the top of your November ballot.






Don't write Bernie's name in, please.


This is exactly what happens in Harris County; I've seen it.  It may be what happens in every Texas county.  Some states do allow write-ins, like California (I am told); you should check with your state's elections administrator and find out.



I'll post more later about other minor leftist parties that don't have a presidential candidate this cycle -- building the movement in-between presidential cycles is critical -- and how to address accusations of "privilege" from duopolists.

-- The Libertarians lost Lincoln Chafee last week, so Michigan Congressman Justin Amash is considering leaping in, and Jim Gray (former CA Superior Court judge and the party's 2012 vice-presidential nominee) has already taken the plunge, adding a little excitement to that primary.
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Thursday, February 27, 2020

The state of the #TXSen Democratic Primary

It's a crine-ass shame that our corporate media not only picks their favorite candidates, to the exclusion (read: blackout) of all others, but then refuses to perform the due diligence to learn, and disclose, that one of their favorites is laden with heavy, reeking baggage.

I'll get to that in just a moment.  Let me open with the premise (you're welcome to disagree) that Bernie Sanders is going to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.  There is, unsurprisingly, major fuckery afoot to stop that from happening.  Again, whether efforts to subvert democracy by the Democratic Party establishment succeed or fail is -- or for now, will be -- a conversation for another day.

Today we'll start with the postulate above.  And if you buy that, then ...


Despite my longtime denigration of polls and polling, I tend to place more faith in the pseudo-science as Election Day draws closer ... despite the outcome of the presidential election in 2016 defying even the prognostications of the once-mighty Nate Silver.  (Hey, I believed him and them too.)

So Bernie's on a roll; he'll emerge next Wednesday morning with a bushel full of delegates; his various challengers are in assorted stages of disarray, and only some treachery is going to stop his nomination.  And with those circumstances, and with the Senate in desperate need of flipping blue so as to enact his sweeping reforms ... why is a Libertarian who voted in the GOP primary in 2016 and a self-confessed gun nut -- she stands for everything Beto O'Rourke fought against ...


... leading a dozen candidates by a mile in the race to replace John Cornyn?  The strength of her campaign seems to be, as it was in 2018 when she ran for Congress against John Carter, based on her military service.  Oh, and she also rides a motorcycle.

If you believe what the so-called smart people in Texas politics say, MJ Hegar will be followed into the runoff by a man or a person of color, and that sounds a lot like Royce West, the Dallas state senator with a long service history, many endorsements from his peers in the Lege, and a proud record of Democratic conservatism that Texas Donks are renowned for.  (Once upon a time, before they were called Blue Dogs, they were Boll Weevils, Reagan Democrats, Goldwater Democrats, Shivercrats, and other less-flattering monikers, but back then they were also all Kluckers.  Far be it from me to suggest that an African American conservaDem be classified with white racists.)

Hegar and West don't support Medicare for All, don't support the Green New Deal, but do support a host of middling half-measures and corporate centrist views that have been demonstrable failures in the Senate by Democrats of their stripe for many, many years.  A new generation of Texans needs new blood and fresh thinking.  These two ain't it.

Chris Bell, as I have blogged and Tweeted a thousand times, is a horse's ass of a different color.  He boasts of being progressive, but endorsed Bill King over Sylvester Turner in the 2015 mayor's race in which he failed to make the runoff.  That's not progressive (though to be fair, he might have told the truth if he'd simply amended his declaration of being "the most progressive in the race" to "the most progressive between King and Turner", although that's not much better).

And we know that Bell couldn't beat Rick Perry in 2006 in a four-person race for governor, losing votes to Kinky Friedman (not progressive) and Carole "Grandma" Keeton Rylander Strayhorn (also not progressive).  This is supposed to tell us, inexorably, that progressives can't win in Texas.  So sayeth the paid political class, pundits, and what have you.  We also know ad nauseum that Lone Star Dems have run nearly no one but conservaDems -- there have been a couple of exceptions -- and lost every statewide race since the mid-90's.

And then along came Beto O'Rourke in 2018.  Without digressing too much, Beto's shooting star has turned into a small meteor falling in the barren West Texas desert.  His close loss to Ted Cruz 1.5 years ago, his flameout in the White House sweepstakes last November, and his heavy bet on a longshot bid to flip a statehouse seat in Fort Bend County last month give him the look of a flash in the pan, in fact.  He's avoided making an endorsement here, though one candidate has staffed her campaign full of Beto alumni.

Amanda Edwards, the former at-large Houston city council member who is the fourth "favorite" in the race, has the solid pedigree and the consultant-speak down pat.  She's gotten some late media assistance, probably too late, but maybe the Black woman vote is undersampled in the polls and she sneaks into the runoff.  Does "Moderate Millennial" bang anybody's shutters?

That brings us to Cubic Zirconia "More Mexican/Good Stock", aka Christine Costello, aka Cristina TzintzΓΊn Ramirez.  As the nickname I've given her implies, she has considerably less worth than what you might see at first glance.  Not for lack of promotion by the Texas Tribune and their CEO and co-founder Evan A. Smith, that's for sure.

So in the absence of any good journalism, you should read all the way through John's thread.


It's ten Tweets, with a few links and some video and audio.   CTzR has not responded, as best as I can determine, to any of the allegations above.  She and Hegar have recently squabbled over a few things, so it's not like Ms. TzintzΓΊn Ramirez plays the "lalala I can't hear you" game.

John G and me are biased, of course.  He works on Sema Hernandez's campaign and I've been a supporter, financial and social media and otherwise, since her run against Beto in 2018, where she got a fourth of the primary vote, winning several counties.


Despite that, she was dismissed by Smith at the TexTrib (according to Hernandez.  Smith has not responded to the allegation below).


The voters in the Texas Democratic primary are currently in the process of rendering a verdict on the viability of Hernandez's candidacy, but I do not think the seriousness of it has ever been -- or should have been -- in question.  And in any case, Evan Smith would not be the judge of who is or isn't a serious candidate, no matter how deep our democracy has sunk into oligarchy.

So if any of this is something you'd like to have a say in, at the ballot box, between now and next Tuesday evening, please go to it.  As a reminder:


See you at the polling place.
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Monday, January 13, 2020

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance marks some of our Republican leaders' more egregious conduct in this week's roundup of the best blog posts, Tweets, and news from around and about our Great State.

Our devout Christian governor turns into Judas again.


Our lazy-eyed indicted attorney general is busy getting government off our backs.


From the Strange Bedfellows Department, Karl Rove shares the same concerns (with Dennis Bonnen) of Donald Trump that Barack Obama has of Joe Biden's campaign.


But Trump has bigger crawfish to boil than Rove; he doesn't want to be eclipsed by his junior partners in Austin.  Failing (for now) in starting WWIII with Iran, he's going on the attack against our air and water, via the EPA.


So we need to elect some environmental guardians in 2020.  Steve Taylor of the Rio Grande Guardian covered the Democrat running for Railroad Commissioner who visited the Rio Grande Valley this past weekend.

Chrysta CastaΓ±eda at a breakfast meet and greet at Mi Casita Adult Day Care in Pharr, Texas.

Asked about her top campaign issues, CastaΓ±eda spoke mostly about the need to eliminate the flaring of natural gas in Texas oilfields.

“We have had laws on the books for 100 years that prevent the waste of our natural gas, which, currently, the oil companies are lighting on fire. The oil is produced along with natural gas and they flare the natural gas rather than take it to market,” CastaΓ±eda said.

“If we turned that natural gas into electricity, it would be enough to power the city of Houston. There is so much waste going on. ... My opponent will not enforce that (100-year old) law because the oil companies find it too costly to follow the law. I will enforce the law.”

In Democratic presidential candidate developments, New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg spent last weekend on a bus tour of Texas.  He met with supporters in San Antonio and Austin, kicking off on Saturday in Dallas, where he campaigned with television's Judge Judy.  The Houston Chronicle reported former mayor Pete Buttigieg made a three-day trip to the Lone Star State last week; he hosted two Dallas fundraisers and a private meeting with local Democrats at Paul Quinn College.  And Joe Biden will attend an event this week in Dallas, along with a fundraiser hosted by former mayor Mike Rawlings.

But some Democrats don't think this is enough.

"We had a moment where it felt like Texas was important to everybody, and then it slid to the back burner," said Harris County Democratic Party Chairwoman Lillie Schechter, reflecting a sentiment several other Texas Democrats shared with The Texas Tribune.

The fear is that a few weeks of television advertising and a few pit stops in the state as candidates blitz the rest of the South are not sustaining investments toward making Texas a battleground state and making progress down-ballot, like winning the state House of Representatives.

PDiddie at Brains and Eggs posted a two-part weekly Dem prez update focused on tomorrow's debate and the re-ordering of the leaders due to Bernie's surge and Biden, Warren, and Buttigieg's foundering, as well as the usual snark.  There will be an update on Tuesday about the debate and the latest on the Warren/Sanders 'she said/he said' bullshit.

There was a Texas Senate candidate forum in Houston over the weekend, and the candidates blasted both Greg Abbott and John Cornyn.

Amanda Edwards, left, Victor Hugo Harris, Jack Daniel Foster, Jr., Sema Hernandez, Adrian Ocegueda, Annie Garcia, Michael Cooper, Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, Chris Bell, and Sen. Royce West, right, are shown during the U.S. Senate Candidate Forum at the Green House International Church, 200 W. Greens Rd., Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020, in Houston. 
Photo: Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Grassroots activist Sema Hernandez of Pasadena, who finished second to then-U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke in the 2018 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, said Abbott’s refusal to accept additional refugees was particularly unseemly because so many of those refugees were, she said, a direct result of U.S. military and economic policies.

“This is the damage we have inflicted in over four decades, 40 years, of neoliberal policies,” Hernandez said.


Kuff interviewed the three Democrats running in HD134: Ann Johnson, Ruby Powers, and Lanny Bose.  Update: TXElects has the full candidate list available for subscribers.

Our Crib Sheets have been updated with the Green Party’s candidate slate. They now include the 347 Republicans, 328 Democrats, 90 Libertarians, 14 Greens and 44 independents who have filed for the state’s federal, statewide and legislative offices on the ballot in 2020. Any candidate who did not file by the December 9 deadline may still seek to become a certified write-in candidate. Otherwise, the fields for 2020 are set.

Absent a write-in candidacy, 32 legislative incumbents are unopposed for re-election: Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock) and Reps. Ernest Bailes (R-Shepherd), Diego Bernal (D-San Antonio), Terry Canales (D-Edinburg), Sheryl Cole (D-Austin), Tom Craddick (R-Midland), Nicole Collier (D-Fort Worth), Yvonne Davis (D-Dallas), Jay Dean (R-Longview), Art Fierro (D-El Paso), Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth), Jessica GonzΓ‘lez (D-Dallas), Mary GonzΓ‘lez (D-Clint), Ana Hernandez (D-Houston), Kyle Kacal (R-College Station), Ken King (R-Canadian), Brooks Landgraf (R-Odessa), Ben Leman (R-Iola), J.M. Lozano (R-Kingsville), Mando Martinez (D-Weslaco), Will Metcalf (R-Conroe), Ina Minjarez (D-San Antonio), Lina Ortega (D-El Paso), Dade Phelan (R-Port Neches), Four Price (R-Amarillo), Richard Raymond (D-Laredo), Toni Rose (D-Dallas), John Smithee (R-Amarillo), Chris Turner (D-Arlington), Gary VanDeaver (R-New Boston), Armando Walle (D-Houston) and James White (R-Hilister). All statewide and congressional incumbents seeking re-election have opponents.

Transitioning from electoral politics to some of the social and legislative matters that impact our beloved Deep-In-The-Hearta ...


Grits for Breakfast has doubts about a proposed judicial appointment system.  Amber Briggle at Love to the Max documents how to pass an equality ordinance.


SocraticGadfly looked at the New York Times' 1619 Project, trying to claim that year, not 1776, is the keystone to US history, and says BOTH it AND its major opponents are all wet.

Rogelio SΓ‘enz at the Rivard Report notes that children of color are already the majority in many US states.  The Bloggess presents her TED talk.  And some just wanted to blog about weed.



As Fort Worth gets ready for their Stock Show and Rodeo, Bud Kennedy at the FWST brags that the attendees will find a revitalized Cowtown, aimed at the '21st century cowboy'.


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Thursday, August 15, 2019

How many Democrats are running against Cornyn?

Is it five?  Is it "at least seven"?  Is it eight, as the Tweeter below has repeatedly pointed out?


Or is it nine?  That's also how many Ballotpedia has.

... former Congressman Chris Bell, Pastor Michael Cooper, Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards, failed judicial candidate Jack Daniel Foster, Jr., failed congressional candidate MJ Hegar, Berniecrat Sema Hernandez, failed gubernatorial candidate Adrian Ocegueda, civil right activist Christina Ramierez (sic) and state Senator Royce West ...

I believe the point would be that none of them -- however many you choose to believe exist -- are named Beto O'Rourke.  Nor will be, if you simply take his word for it.


A few more corrections:

Howie Klein (he's the blogger known as DWT) might have pointed out that Bell is also a failed gubernatorial, Congressional, state senatorial, and mayoral candidate who endorsed the Republican, Bill King, over Sylvester Turner in the 2015 runoff.  I should know.

Klein does have a lot of issues with spelling, grammar, logic, and knowledge of the situation here, as Gadfly has already pointed out in the comments there, though someone he references as Nancy -- presumably not Pelosi -- being the "worst brain-lacker" could have been more coherent, particularly for someone whose job title includes the word 'editor'.  But Howie can at least count higher than five, and he does not have a degree in mathematics, which means he doesn't have a blind spot the size of his ass or the color of what comes out of it.  (Klein may or may not have an issue with parentheses.)

Seriously.  You think it might be racial?  Or is it just about the money?

Cooper also fell short in his bid for D lite governor two years ago.  And Hernandez, with less than $5,000 raised, earned nearly 25% in the last US Senate primary against ... you know who.

A few more disclosures:

Hegar, the early money leader, was exposed as a GOP voter in the 2016 primary and a supporter of Libertarian causes and their presidential candidate that year, Gary Johnson.  As best as I can tell, this escaped notice during her near-miss for Congress in 2018.  Hegar is by far the most conservative candidate in the race: no on M4A, no on GND, come and try to take my guns, etc.  I truly hope we have seen the last of these DINOsaurs in the Texas Democratic primary after 2020.

Edwards is flush with consultant-speak, particularly on healthcare.  She and West both advocate for expanding the ACA, not Medicare for All.  If I were moderating a debate with either of them standing before me, my question would be: "What are your plans for healthcare if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare next summer?"

TzintzΓΊn Ramirez has become the most intriguing candidate to state media of late, as she has hired several of the folks that worked on O'Rourke's landmark run against Ted Cruz.  This would be everybody's final clue that it's Democratic presidential nomination-or-bust for Beto.  More importantly, TzintzΓΊn Ramirez appears to be coat-tailing Democratic progressive Elizabeth Warren, a candidate whom establishment Donkeys and teevee talking heads love much more than the real deal, as has also become obvious this week.  More about this point of contention in tomorrow's 2020 Update.

I think everybody knows where I stand in this race.


If you're going to be in or around the Metroplex before Labor Day weekend, you can catch five of the candidates at this forum.  (I'd be willing to bet there will be more than five in attendance by then.)


Does anyone have questions?
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Friday, July 12, 2019

The Weekly Twenty Twenty Update

So much has happened over the past seven days that I'm not certain I got it all posted here.  If you saw news that I missed, hit me up in the comments.


-- Many observers, including me (as you know if you've been following these Updates for awhile) see the race coalescing around a five-member top tier -- which Nate Silver has separated into two -- followed by a handful of second-level players; the kind of candidates whose fortunes can turn on debate performances, like our native sons JuliΓ‘n Castro and Beto O'Rourke, for example.


I won't excerpt Silver because you should read it all and also because for the first time this cycle, I believe he's got it mostly right.  As Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money blogged, I might also put Castro up with Cory Booker and not tied with Beto and Amy Klobuchar, based on the first debate and the fact that I doubt Bob has a comeback left in him, no matter what his new money man may be planning.

In order to emphasize my minor differences with the stat nerd formerly known as poblano, my top group is, in order and matching the most recent post-debate polling: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Bernie Sanders.  In fifth, and almost on a tier by himself: Pete Buttigieg.  And then Booker and Castro.  And then the rest.

I'll profile the top seven after I get past some of these breaking developments.

-- Go deeper with that NBC/WJS poll here.  Again, if this is your bag, the datapoints and crosstabs are revealing.  I'll touch on some of them below in the frontrunner capsules.  If you like your polls aggregated and graphed, then RCP is the best source for that.   

Don't forget that these national horse race polls cannot accurately reflect the way we elect our presidents, by state Electoral College vote.  They are a product of the corporate media and the establishment, political consultant world in order to create a narrative, generate spin and momentum, manufacture consent (or dissent, as the case may be), etc.  We can't change this system without a bonafide revolution, one that starts by getting all the money out of our politics. /rant

-- As Eric Swalwell checked out, Tom Steyer checked in.  (I haven't seen any compelling reason to reference Joe Sestak to this point.  Have you?)  Here's nine things to know about Steyer besides his teevee ads urging Trump's impeachment, and a short interview he conducted with Rolling Stone.  He has also proposed national referenda voting, which is true democracy-style stuff.

It’s part of Steyer’s new structural reform plan, which also proposes fairly novel ideas like 12-year term limits on members of Congress, a national vote-by-mail system, public campaign financing, giving the Federal Elections Commission more teeth and different composition, and imposing independent redistricting commissions to tackle gerrymandering.

Swalwell barely made last month's debate, edging out Steve Bullock, who is probably the one who replaces him on the stage in Detroit at the end of this month.

-- Let's get to those second debate details:

(As of July 5), 21 candidates have passed a modest qualification threshold for the July debates, either hitting 1 percent in three qualifying polls or getting 65,000 donors. That’s one more candidate than the Democratic National Committee has said it will allow on stage across the two nights, meaning someone has to get cut.

The DNC’s tiebreakers prioritize candidates who hit both the polling and financial thresholds, followed by candidates who only have the polling benchmark, sorted by poll average, and then candidates who have hit only the donor mark.

Fourteen candidates have crossed both of the thresholds, according to a POLITICO analysis, virtually guaranteeing their spot on stage on either July 30 or July 31: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Jay Inslee, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang.

One of those 21 was Swalwell.  So Bullock has a lane to a podium; I'm not sure if he's worth it.

CNN put out the new rules for Rounds 3 and 4.

The upcoming Democratic presidential debates will feature opening and closing statements and two hours of debate time each night, representatives for more than 20 candidates competing in the primary were informed (earlier this week) by CNN.

CNN is airing the much-anticipated Democratic National Committee-sanctioned debates live from Detroit at 8 p.m. ET on July 30 and 31. Dana Bash, Don Lemon and Jake Tapper will serve together as the moderators for both debates.

[...]

The window to determine debate eligibility closes on July 16, and candidates will be informed the next day if they will be invited to participate in Detroit. On July 18, CNN will air a live draw to determine the specific candidate lineups for each debate night.

More at the link about colored lights and no 'show of hands' questions and penalties for interrupters (looking at you, Senator Gillibrand).

-- The biggest local news was that H-Town gets the third debate in September.  This might be our consolation prize for losing the DNC convention to Milwaukee.  Even with a culled field, we ought to see this event super-charging our municipal elections.  Let's just hope there isn't a hurricane.

Okay then ... on to the leaderboard.

1. (and still wilting) ... Joe Biden

He lost half of his support among African Americans after his geriatric debate performance.  Some speculated as to whether he has a hearing loss.

And yet ... he still leads the field, is still perceived to be the strongest opponent to Trump.  It does make you wonder about all those Teds out there.

The Bidens' tax returns revealed them to be multi-millionaires in just two years after they left Washington.  A similar development didn't affect Bernie (though his income was much lower) and I suspect this will have no impact on Uncle Joe's standing.  In an interview earlier this week Biden claimed that Kamala Harris taking him to the mat in the first debate over busing was something "the American people didn't buy".  That's false, as plainly evidenced in the polling.   If he had said 'old, white, Catholic, conservative Democratic-voting Americans', he'd have been correct.

If Joe flops again in Detroit, there are two women ready to grab the lead.

2. Elizabeth Warren

First, Warren is scooping up some of the voters that Biden is losing, not just Harris.  Second, Warren and Biden have some history as antagonists that is a simmering pot, waiting to boil over.  Watch CNN's debate draw (on July 17 18 at 7 p.m. Central), because if the two of them wind up going on the same night, this will be the story.  Warren also criticized, albeit very delicately, her relationship with the Obama administration when she created the CFPB but was passed over as its first director, prior to being elected senator.   From The Nation:

“But it is the case that I see a government that increasingly works for a thinner and thinner slice at the top and leaves everyone else behind. Until we take that on and break the stranglehold that the obscenely rich and powerful hold over our country, we can’t straighten out much of anything else.”

(Author Joan Walsh) noted that she had worked in Obama’s administration for a while and that, for all the good he did, he didn’t break that stranglehold, either. Why? She paused. “I tangled publicly with the administration over trade and over the regulation of big banks. Tim Geithner and I” -- here she chuckled -- “had battles that spilled onto the public stage.” In (Warren's book) A Fighting Chance, she laments, “The president chose his team, and the president’s team chose Wall Street.” But now she defended Obama, arguing simply, “Barack Obama stood up for the consumer agency when a lot of folks in his administration didn’t want to, when others were willing to throw it under the bus.”

Warren is the only front-runner appearing at Netroots Nation this weekend.  The Washington Times' take is a pretty funny read.


One last thing about voters of color: it was four years ago at Markos Moulitsas' annual gathering of high-income, expensively educated, overly centrist white liberals when Black Lives Matter activists stormed a stage where Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley were speaking, and chanted "Say Her Name", just days after Sandra Bland had died in the custody of the Waller County Sheriff's Department.  And O'Malley said, "All lives matter."

Warren is probably better prepared for a demonstration, just in case.

3. Kamala Harris

I still think Kamala is not doing anything with her pin of Biden at the first debate.  She did get that nice polling bump, but she has walked back her position on busing, and her waffle on Medicare For All is just ridiculous.  That was last week's news, though, and I just don't have much of anything that seems relevant reported about her for this week, except for Chris Cillizza and Harry Enten's ass-munching and this, which has received extremely little attention.

I'm with Caity Johnstone: I believe Harris is an oligarch's wet dream.

4. Bernie Sanders

Plenty of haters still want to write him off.  As regards his poll numbers, I feel that his base is under-represented in the sampling.  Here's a few statistics that don't get reported much by the corporate media that lead me to that premise.


And this Tweet encapsulates my full contempt of campaign finance reporting.


With respect to polling that matters -- early primary states -- Bernie and Warren are neck-and-neck in New Hampshire.  This will be the fish-or-cut bait moment for one of them ... depending on Iowa's results previously and South Carolina's polling.

5. Pete Buttigieg

His standing among black voters even in South Bend, Indiana now obvious to all, Mayo Pete released his 'Douglass Plan' to fight racial discrimination in the US.  And Change Research -- a pollster with a C+ record as scored by FiveThirtyEight.com -- has Boot Edge Edge suddenly leading Iowa by seven points.  Feels like an outlier, but should he pull off this upset, it truly scrambles the race.  (What does Biden do if he loses both early states?  The same thing Kamala does: push all in on South Carolina.)

Still don't see anything for Buttigieg but strategic influencer in 2020, but, you know, shit can happen.

6. Cory Booker, Julian Castro

The second debate at the end of this month gives both a fresh chance to score some points on those ahead of them.  Between now and then, they have a chance to improve on their standings.  Castro went to Milwaukee for the LULAC convention where he joined Beto, Bernie, and Warren as they spoke to delegates, televised by Univision last night.


After the town hall, viewers were asked to declare their favorite.  The only Latino in the race came in fourth out of four.


Harsh.  Jim Schutze at the Dallas Observer also delivered his blistering critique of Castro's tenure at HUD, and Branko Marcetic of In These Times reposted his neoliberal record as San Antonio mayor.  This is what happens when the media suddenly perceives you as having a realistic chance of winning.  Castro has always been too centrist for me, but I keep thinking he's going to break through at some point.  The #Destino2020 poll, Internet-based though it is, can't be too encouraging.

I couldn't find anything newsworthy or noteworthy to post here about Booker.  He's not coasting but he's not grabbing any headlines, either.  Treading water in sixth place out of more than 20 isn't bad at this stage, but Booker is another guy I thought would be doing a little better.

7. Beto O'Rourke 

Like Biden, I'd like to see him go away, but we're stuck with him for awhile longer.  I just don't have anything left to to say about O'Rourke, good or bad, that hasn't already been said.  I think that with both Chris Bell and Royce West's (pending) entry into the race against Cornyn, all that is left to him is to endorse one of the two runoff participants -- which I will mark today as West and Sema Hernandez -- at some point next spring or summer.  Maybe the winner of the presidential nomination taps him as running mate and makes Texas really competitive for next year.

Couple more things worth mentioning:

-- Howie Hawkins is leading a Green Party charge for ballot access across the country.


Related: Texas Greens joined Texas Libertarians in a lawsuit against the high filing fees -- and short signature-gathering period -- that the Legislature mandated when it granted them ballot access in 2020 by lowering the percentages in past elections for qualification.  Gadfly has the press release.

-- Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan, who quit the GOP on July 4th because Trump is a lunatic and Pelosi won't impeach him, won't rule out a presidential bid.  The Libertarians would soil themselves if he would run under their flag, but he seems to have other plans.

In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, he did not rule out a rumoured run for the White House.

“I believe that I have to use my skills, my public influence, where it serves the country best,” he said. “And I believe I have to defend the constitution in whatever way works best.”

Such a campaign from the right could complicate Trump’s hopes of re-election in 2020. On CNN, Amash defended his role as a founder of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, a key support bloc for the president on which many place much of the blame for deadlock in Congress.

Amash also said he believed he could win re-election as an independent.

The most likely Libertarian nominee IMO today would be John McAfee.  If Amash runs only in Michigan, he ruins Trump's re-election chances.

-- A really excellent development:

Six states plan to use ranked choice voting (RCV) for their 2020 Democratic primaries or caucuses, including for all early voters in Iowa and Nevada, and all voters in Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas and Wyoming. These states will adapt RCV to Democratic Party rules: last-place candidates will be eliminated and backers of those candidates will have their vote count toward their next choice until all remaining candidates are above the 15 percent vote threshold to win delegates.

State parties made this change because they realize allowing voters to rank their choices -- especially in a crowded field that includes many experienced and well-funded candidates -- makes everyone’s vote more powerful. RCV has the additional advantage of putting an end to vote splitting, the problem of “spoilers” and even the possibility of a nominee who lacks majority support inside the party.

It’s a bold move, and it comes at a time when many presidential candidates including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bennet, William Weld, Andrew Yang, Seth Moulton and Beto O’Rourke have indicated they support RCV.

Iowa and Nevada will also do caucus by phone.

Democrats in the early presidential contest states of Iowa and Nevada will be able to cast their votes over the telephone instead of showing up at their states' traditional neighborhood caucus meetings next February, according to plans unveiled by the state parties.

The tele-caucus systems, the result of a mandate from the Democratic National Committee, are aimed at opening the local-level political gatherings to more people, especially evening shift-workers and people with disabilities, whom critics of the caucuses have long said are blocked from the process.

*whew*  That's it.  What do you have for me?
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