I'll be the first to admit, I didn't watch or listen to them. We had tickets to the Brandenburg Concertos on period instruments. It was freaking fantastic! I've never heard them performed live. But back to the topic....

From what I've read, the general consensus is that the "winners" were Bernie and Warren.

I read that Bernie yelled a lot and threw his arms around.

I read that Elizabeth Warren has the skill of being able to deliver wonkiness in terms that make sense and anyone can understand.

I read that Mayor Pete had two major highlights: a comment about how the GOP is complicit by not standing up to the racism from the WH, and his explanation that nothing will change without significant structural reform, which is his "thing." (I agree, but then again I've been on Team Buttigieg for years now.) I heard he gave a painstaking and not very successful defense of what some see as slow progress on race relations in South Bend.

I read that Marianne Williamson gave a very impassioned speech about environmental racism (which is very, very true).

I read that Bullock did a good job--a Phoenix rising from the ashes, as it were.

Anything else? What grabbed you guys? Did you even watch?

I watched some. The moderation was firm, but it seemed firmer for some than others. That may have evened out had I watched more. Ryan looked good. Bullock seemed unprepared somehow. Williamson was inspirational and better than the last ones. Bernie was animatedly delusional as usual.

A moderate is what it will take to beat Trump, but I don’t think a moderate can prevail in today’s Democratic Party.

It's a Hobson's choice. A progressive may lose moderates; a moderate will not be able to hold some progressives who'd rather see the world burn than take something less than what they view as a 100% perfect candidate.

Quote from Warren - in case you haven't heard it yet.

"I remember when people said Barack Obama couldn’t get elected. Shoot, I remember when people said Donald Trump couldn’t get elected. But here’s where we are. I get it. There is a lot at stake, and people are scared. But we can’t choose a candidate we don’t believe in just because we’re too scared to do anything else. And we can’t ask other people to vote for a candidate we don’t believe in. Democrats win when we figure out what is right and we get out there and fight for it. I am not afraid, and for Democrats to win, you can’t be afraid either."

This more than anything else represents what I believe is the path to progress. I think it is a similar path that worked for the tea party and got Trump elected. No balancing on eggshells trying to make the middle happy, but finding the strength to unapologetically fight for what you believe to be right...

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:
Quote from Warren - in case you haven't heard it yet.

"I remember when people said Barack Obama couldn’t get elected. Shoot, I remember when people said Donald Trump couldn’t get elected. But here’s where we are. I get it. There is a lot at stake, and people are scared. But we can’t choose a candidate we don’t believe in just because we’re too scared to do anything else. And we can’t ask other people to vote for a candidate we don’t believe in. Democrats win when we figure out what is right and we get out there and fight for it. I am not afraid, and for Democrats to win, you can’t be afraid either."

This more than anything else represents what I believe is the path to progress. I think it is a similar path that worked for the tea party and got Trump elected. No balancing on eggshells trying to make the middle happy, but finding the strength to unapologetically fight for what you believe to be right...

So, exactly what do you do when you fight for what you think is right and a majority of the party decides that they think something else is right? Last time, the Bernie Believers ran off and sulked. Do you decide that you know better than a majority of the party, and take your ball and go home?

By the way, you will note that it took quite a while for the Tea Party to get a candidate that was one of their own. Quite a while. And then they got a free spending, budget busting real estate developer. Which is not exactly what they said they wanted.

The tea party didn't prevail because they were scared. I think Warren is wrong here. The Bernie-ites and others on the far left aren't scared. They're angry, exactly like the tea party was angry. The problem is, there isn't a unifying theme (like evangelicism) that has united the far left. They're just angry, and angry enough to sit out this election as well.

Same sentiment, just different sides of the coin.

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
The tea party didn't prevail because they were scared. I think Warren is wrong here. The Bernie-ites and others on the far left aren't scared. They're angry, exactly like the tea party was angry. The problem is, there isn't a unifying theme (like evangelicism) that has united the far left. They're just angry, and angry enough to sit out this election as well.

Same sentiment, just different sides of the coin.

Wait, I believe the tea party prevailed because they weren't scared to say what they believe. Did you think I meant the opposite?

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:
Quote from Warren - in case you haven't heard it yet.

"I remember when people said Barack Obama couldn’t get elected. Shoot, I remember when people said Donald Trump couldn’t get elected. But here’s where we are. I get it. There is a lot at stake, and people are scared. But we can’t choose a candidate we don’t believe in just because we’re too scared to do anything else. And we can’t ask other people to vote for a candidate we don’t believe in. Democrats win when we figure out what is right and we get out there and fight for it. I am not afraid, and for Democrats to win, you can’t be afraid either."

This more than anything else represents what I believe is the path to progress. I think it is a similar path that worked for the tea party and got Trump elected. No balancing on eggshells trying to make the middle happy, but finding the strength to unapologetically fight for what you believe to be right...

So, exactly what do you do when you fight for what you think is right and a majority of the party decides that they think something else is right? Last time, the Bernie Believers ran off and sulked. Do you decide that you know better than a majority of the party, and take your ball and go home?

By the way, you will note that it took quite a while for the Tea Party to get a candidate that was one of their own. Quite a while. And then they got a free spending, budget busting real estate developer. Which is not exactly what they said they wanted.

I'm not sure how to articulate this...
It is my feeling that 'playing it safe' and "playing to the middle" translates into the perception of "believing in nothing" - leading to voter apathy.

Of course everyone that supports any of the Dem candidates should support the one that ends up with the nomination...

Thing is, most Americans support Medicare for all (something like 70%), 2/3 of Americans support free college, a similar number support a higher minimum wage. So, I don't think the problem is what a majority wants. It seems pretty clear what a majority wants.

The problem is the make up of the Democrats in congress, where we've got blue-dogs and reps from swing states that need to be tip-toed around.

They support it because they haven’t seen the bill for all this free stuff.

Yea, we're we've been racking up new debt for years and added a new way to do it with the tax reform from a couple of years ago.

We can't keep spending money we don't have, no matter how good we think the programs are. And even if we can figure out how to pay for it, with a divided legislature, it's unlikely anything the Dems dream up will pass a Republican Senate.

We're so screwed.

quote:

Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
They support it because they haven’t seen the bill for all this free stuff.

Depends on who pays for it.

Go back to Eisenhower income tax rates and there’s no problem.

Remember how he used to be a Republican?

I'd like to see a full accounting of what we spend on our military and on how much taxes businesses actually pay after all tax loopholes are applied.

I think, but do not know for sure, that these things cost us so much money that we could fund a good portion of the things progressives would like to do in terms of health care and education by fairly modest cuts in these areas. Eisenhower did, after all, warn us about the military/industrial complex.

I do not disagree that we need a strong military and I do not think that business should be throttled. I just think that our expenditures are way out of balance and we should look at that problem before we say that we can't afford to use taxpayers' money for programs that are of direct benefit to those taxpayers.

That's an absolutely logical and reasonable approach. Unfortunately logic and reason are in short shrift these days.

There's no support for people in the center who might want to work across the aisle to come up with a plan. The Turtle would totally shut this kind of initiative down.

Sorry for the pessimism.

quote:

Originally posted by Bernard:
Thing is, most Americans support Medicare for all (something like 70%), 2/3 of Americans support free college, a similar number support a higher minimum wage. So, I don't think the problem is what a majority wants. It seems pretty clear what a majority wants.

The problem is the make up of the Democrats in congress, where we've got blue-dogs and reps from swing states that need to be tip-toed around.

We won in November by being the party that wont take away your health care.

Now some candidates are actually proposing to strip millions of people, including me, of their private health insurance.

Insanity. Will guarantee a Trump win because even I'm not voting to take away my own health insurance.