1st DEM Debate Thread: June 26 & 27, Miami, MSNBC & NBC & Telemundo (9-11pm)

[Beet]

Wow this is really unbalanced. It's R1GGED against Warren by the c0Rpor8te DNC who sees her as the most dangerous anti-establ&shment candidate. They think they can contain Sanders, but are worried WARREN can unite the social & populist activist wings and threaten their r1ch donors so they R1GG8D IT! Evil Tom Perez

[Beet]

I don't think this is as bad for Warren as a lot of you seem to think, mainly for the reason that it isn't about who watches the debates (I imagine not that many people will and many of the ones who do are political junkies for whom the debates will mean less) as much as what the news media spins afterwards. And Warren seems guaranteed to get attention from her debate.

Yes.  I mean, the headlines for Debate 1 will be something like: "Warren says big policy words.  [Booker/Castro/Klobuchar] surprises."  Whereas the headlines for Debate 2 will be something like "[Sanders/Biden] says something surprisingly negative about [Biden/Sanders].  Harris was also around."  Warren will almost certainly get positive coverage, while one or more of Biden and Sanders will start to be branded as "negative" - this isn't a bad look for Liz.

I agree.   Having a debate basically to herself is likely a good outcome for Warren.  It also helps that it's the 1st debate.  If the debate order were reversed, there would be a stronger case that it was a bad outcome for Warren, given the massive dropoff in viewership that would be likely with Biden vs. Sanders vs. Buttigieg vs. Harris going down on the 1st night.  As it stands now, it's basically going to be a Warren campaign infomercial* followed by a battle royale between everyone else with a serious chance at winning. 

*On the off chance Warren gets completely upstaged by one of the 1-2%ers, that would be very bad for her.  But if she can't lap that field, she was never going to win the nomination anyway.

I mostly agree, but there's also going to be very high expectations for her, whereas it's going to be hard for anyone to dominate if the moderators feel obliged to give each of 10 candidates equal speaking time. I feel a certain type of good debator (and that likely includes Warren) excels in a 1-on-1 situation where they have time to go more into depth in their ideas, whereas it's tougher to try and condense everything into a 2-minute soundbyte. But we'll see.

[Beet]

Warren was too cautious but I don't think a 10 person stage is necessarily the most revealing format. It rewards quick soundbytes more than serious debate.

[Beet]

Bernie's answer on Roe was really bad.

[Beet]

A common pattern of both nights- last night Castro stood out with an ethnic identity based attack on a white candidate, and tonight even more so Harris. This works in a Dem primary but in the long run it'll only serve to further polarize the parties along ethnic lines. Yikes.