Top Tier Dem Debate Thread

Theyre screwing around with intros at the moment which should buy me enough time to get this put together before anything interesting actually happens. Ill go ahead and dive into this

1) I'll be shocked if I actually make it through the whole thing. 

I've been up since 3am because my sleep schedule is nice and fucked for whatever reason, so the odds I'm able to bear with this for 3 hours is pretty slim in the first place. Even though we have all the top performing Dem candidates on one stage for onec rather then split up half-equally among two debates, I still have my doubts that this will unveil anything new or interesting

2) Im only slightly interested in what happens this time

If the past 4 debates put together are any indication, a good 80% of the questions asked to candidates tonight will be repeated questions or rephrased versions of questions already asked earlier in the campaign.... Healthcare, Immigration, Climate Change and Trump in general will probably dominate the question topics tonight, with other issues such as foreign policy being shelved or barely getting light at all

3) There probably wont be an interesting clash between candidates

Biden has been receiving broadsides from candidates all throughout the campaign, and apart from Harris the first time he's weathered them fairly well. Still, the liberal leaning candidates will take shots at him, some of the lesser tier candidates might take a shot at Warren or Sanders for the implausibility of their proposals, but it won't stick since Sanders and Warren have the most unshakable support of any of the candidates on stage right now. 

MAYBE one of the middle tier candidates goes at it with another middle tier candidate (Buttigieg vs Beto, Yang vs Klobuchar, etc). If that happens it will certainly catch my attention and be an interesting talking point for a split second, but overall it wont have much of an impact on the race since the top tier candidates (Biden, Warren, Sanders) either have support that never wavers, or is massive enough where a slight dip in numbers following the debate would be fairly meaningless and return back to normal weeks later.... Only a Rick- Perry-esque 'oops' moment at this point could dramatically shift the landscape of the nomination, and while its easy to think Biden would be most likely to have such a moment, you do have to realize that he's been at this for so long that he's immunized himself from having big screw ups by having controlled smaller ones pop up every now and then, or by waiting for Trump to do something 5 times stupider that everyone remembers instead. 

Warren is giving her intro now and Biden is up next, so lets get started. 

Naturally Biden and Warren tee off on Biden on healthcare..... This whole issue boils down to whether you value policy that is practical and can be implemented upon assuming office, or what policy you think should be implemented regardless of practicality or odds of it being implemented

Klobuchar getting in on it by advocating for just a public option is a solid move on her part. Sanders and Warren aren't going to lose any support to other candidates who also favor single-payer healthcare since theyve been the flag-bearers of single payer for a long time, but Biden is damn sure at risk of losing support of voters who are more centrist on the issue. 

Buttigieg trying to make the same move by putting himself between the center and Sanders by instead pushing for Medicare for All... Does Sanders sound like hes fighting through a sore throat or do you think his mic might be a bit muted since he has a tendency of being the loudest person in any room he's in? 

Harris pulling a Biden move by crediting Obama with the healthcare reforms passed under his term while also trying to station herself away from Bernie. Im surprised the candidates didn't try to do this earlier in other debate opportunities because it might be too little too late for some of them. I think half the candidates on the stage right now have never regularly polled higher than 4% in most polls.

Biden pulling out the Cancer card in response to Bernies accusation that the current system drives people into bankruptcy (a valid point he has) kidn of ending on a dud there. 

Castro does do his homework on issues I'll give him that. He certainly knows more about immigration policies than anyone else on the stage and he also knows a lot of the fine technicals about healthcare as well. he's right that its better to automatically opt-in people into the system is better than only leaving it as a loophole should a worst case scenario happen under Bidens plan like losing your job..... Caught Biden in a bit of a whirl there but leave it to Buttigieg of all people to come in and rain on the whole broadside goddamn..... If Biden or Sanders or Warren got a big win thats oen thing, but for Buttigieg and Castro those kinds of things could extend a campaign another month, let him have that victory so that he can hang in the race, ballsy move to try to rain on the parade

Beto and Castro coming together over race relations in the country regarding the shooting in El Paso is a nice touch, but seriously claiming that he can root out racism is just incredibly short-sighted.... Racism is ingrained so deeply into aspects of society that you cant simply legislate it out of the system, let alone in a 4 year time period.... It takes decades of education to over time raise a new generation to be more accepting of each other, and even then thats no guarantee that it will work since internet and social media tech makes it more likely than ever for people to fall into an echo-chamber where they convince themselves that other races are inferior or sub-human. 

You can make prosecution of crimes and sentencing of gulity people based on race better, thats an obtainable goal, but believing you can root out racism if elected is utopian fantasy. 

Harris getting a BIG fuck-you question from the moderators regarding her previous record and her seeming flip-flop on position she holds know compared to when she was Attorney General or whatever. Attorney Generals dont craft punitive law or dictate what crimes are or aren't punishable, the job is about evaluating the constitutionality of state laws and policies with what the state government and the national government dictates. 

If she was a governor of the state THEN she would be more accountable for policies carried out under her watch, but Attorney General is not the position that a lot of people think it is or make it out to be. 

Klobuchar setting the example showing how senators or governors have more power over the implementation of certain policies on state matters which just proves the previous point. 

Prison reform, as good of an idea as it is, gets pretty stale as a topic when all the candidates agree on the same points..... Non-violent criminals shouldnt be jailed, once you've served your time you should get your rights back, focus more on rehabilitation and job training than punishment, etc..... The fact that Bernie goes so far to think that people in jail should still be able to vote, including the Florida High School shooter (whatever his name is), is the only stand-out policy position regarding criminal justice reform compared to all the candidates shows how uniform the support for reform is among the candidates. 

Mandatory Gun buy-backs is an interesting topic Ill give them that. 

On the one hand, ex-post-facto laws make it illegal for any law to penalize people for something that was previously legal, and the 2nd amendment is loosely defined enough to protect the ownership of certain laws after being allowed as legal, and on the other hand if the argument can be made that compensation of property is followed (via a cash payment that would be part of a buy-back) then MAYBE it could be legal, but I would bet against it as Biden has suggested...... District Judges for the US courts always tend to be more in favor of preserving civil liberties when challenged by federal authority, Im sure that one of them would challenge a mandatory gun buy-back proposal and send the issue to the Supreme Court. 

'Can you name one Republican who would agree with gun control"

Ding ding, thats the winner. Dems cant convince the GOP to agree to anything on gun control short of the NRA filing for bankruptcy and no organization filling the void

The only kind of gun control bill you maybe could get past the GOP would be one for mental health screenings, because the GOP could frame that as a 'people shoot people' issue without blaming guns themselves. Mandatory buy backs and assault weapon bans though will be dead on arrival in the Senate unless the GOP suddenly stops caring about ceding ground on such a core issue, which I dont see happening no matter how many more mass shootings take place. 

"As president, I will not be afraid of the NRA" 

Id like that to be my submission for 'most pointlessly obvious statement of 2019', no shit that a Dem presidential candidate isn't going to bend to the will of the NRA rthe way Trump has, thats like a GOP candidate saying they will not bow down to the will of Planned Parenthood... ffs

Once again any immigration responses are geared more towards being open on accepting people rather than resolving the crisis within Central America that is causing the current mass migration in the first place. Warren almost gets there by 'reestablishing the rule of law' but then she goes down the hole by blaming Trump for manufacturing the crisis for political gain. 

Someone give an answer that isnt just 'throw money at the problem' and you win the fucking issue on this one. Right now Castro is the strongest candidate on immigration simply because he's done his homework more than anyone else on the issue and has incredibly specific policy proposals to address the issues.

This is horrible so far... there is so much ignorance, lying, pandering, etc. on that stage. I'm really at a loss for words. 

"Endless War bad, Afghanistan stability good"

Someone needs to bite the bullet and admit the truth on this: That Afghanistan is fucked, theres no chance to obtain peaceful stability, and the reason for that is because so much weaponry was pumped into the state to fight against the Soviet Invasion of the country that these groups can now withstand any internal and even external assault on them even if its sustained for as long as the war has gone on. 

Aghanistan has no economy, no industrialization, barely any literacy, no freedoms or protected civil liberties.... There's no feasible path to prosperity for the country short of being annexed into Pakistan and Iran, we might as well cut our losses and pull out

Are you really buying all this crap? 

Are you unable to understand the meaning of words....? Seriously, go through this entire thread and see if I'm either buying a lot of what candidates have been claiming up to this point and agreeing with them, or calling out their responses for their lack of practicality and chance of implementation. Pretty much every post I've been poking holes in their responses and have overall been critical of the answers.

If you cant readily observe that then you have a problem. 

I have a glass of whiskey and an arrogant bastard ale to drink... i'm not going to read everything you wrote... all you had to do is tell me so... i'm glad you're not buying it "all" =) That's all ya had to say. 

You kinda have to drink to make it through it.

Yeah... but Trump is worse than "almost" all of these minus the fact i loved how he trolled everyone. Made my buzz a giggle. 

fair enough sorry for the hostility, Ive been up since 3am so I dont exactly have the mental attentiveness I usually do. 

It's all good. I sorta set you up for that. ;p You handle pretty well. 

I've seen you hostile. That aint hostile.

Throwing money at education which the candidates are all singing right now might be the only issue where throwing money at the problem isnt necessarily a bad idea. Considering how much cuts were made to education following the Recession years and the shit salaries in the teaching profession compared to other fields, there isnt a list of simple policy changes that can undo the damage to the system to bring it back to world-class or even top of the pack..... Even private schools, which can often be targeted by candidates on the left, can actually be useful in offering a bail-out opportunity to children in districts where public schools simply failed them due to rampant budget cuts, yet at the same time some charter schools suck up education funding and produce no better results and occasionally even do more harm than good..... 

Education may be one of those rare issues where the simple ideas actually are the best ones..... Raise funding for schools, invest in teachers, keep student-teacher ratios low, but the one easy solution I'm not hearing are curriculum-based solutions such as putting spelling classes and recess back into the schedule and easing up on standardized testing, all of which contribute massively to the current mediocrity of the system. 

God these media political talking people are so out of touch...... 

Man... i hope the new Joker movie is really good and gets under everyone's skin... bc the Joker's perspective of the world is the best at this point. 

"Whats the most professional setback you've suffered, how did you recover from it, and what did you learn from it?"

If the moderators are going to start asking personal philosophy questions that dont really mean anything then I might as well check out now since all the interesting questions that actually could have consequences in a presidential administration have already been asked.... 

Im REALLY hyped to see that movie actually. The fact that i know so little about it despite its rave reviews makes me that much more excited to see it

There's already a shit ton of money spent..like 15k per student..and more than half of that goes to administration.

There's so much room for an overhaul.

Administration is like the one thing that HAS been properly funded... Damn near every other aspect of the system though needs work or an overhaul, often both. 

Understandable, but the last movie I saw to get this much praise from movie critics while also going against the grain of big over-the-top action scenes most superhero movies go with was Logan, and it ended up being one of my top 4 favorite movies of all time (Pacific Rim, Ready Player One, Frozen).... If this movie is the closest thing we get to a DC universe version of Logan, then it will be worth every penny I spend seeing it three times in theaters  

He has many incarnations... that's the problem with Joker. His very start was very dark, then went into funny, then went into funny and dark... then funny, sociopath and dark... so he has a long story in comics at least. I think this one might do the very dark one... which is all good. I love all his versions. And Phoenix is a pretty good actor. My favorite version of Joker is the ultimate troll. Trolling the criminals as he is better, and trolling the superhero's as "who do you think you are to bring your morality down on us" prove it kinda character. I don't think it will be my favorite. I think it will be the darker version... but if they do it right, he's a really interesting character so it should be good. Bc one thing that is true to him is the world created him. 

Alright this sounds like the final remarks and Im already checking out. 

- A lot of the top tier candidates seem like they would like to have Beto as a VP prospect they can mold to whatever their current platform is. 

- Castro certainly had the hardest hitting blows that landed on Biden

- A couple candidates positioned themselves to eat into Biden's support on healthcare by advocating for Public Options or Medicare for All

- Overall no one suffered a catastrophic defeat or gaffe that will cause their campaign to self-destruct

- Buttigieg and Yang kind of receded into the background it seems though that may have just been me. 

Overall Id be shocked if there was a major shift in the polls after this. All of them did equally adequate in terms of not shitting the bed on live tv, once the field gets narrowed down further maybe something interesting sill develop but right now, no dice. 

gnite guys