Who's going to qualify for the Democratic debates?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Can't wait for the DNC e-mails to get hacked, literally every internal communication to be exposed to the public, and the Tulsi campaign to focus in on some low-level staffer saying "god Tulsi is such a whiner" as evidence that the whole thing was rigged.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Oh for christ's sake.  They are using the adults sample because that's consistent with the last ABC/WaPo poll in July.  Literally nothing has changed, the only reason there was even a question is because Tulsi tried to get her tiny fanclub's hopes up when she knew it wasn't gonna count.

People just believe this stuff because it's more interesting.  A grand DNC conspiracy to manipulate rules and keep Tulsi Gabbard off the stage (and for what reason!  what don't they want her to say!) is way more fun to believe than the truth, which is that All Adults was known to be the criterion before the poll even came out.

https://twitter.com/geoffreyvs/status/1170718272746119175

[GeneralMacArthur]

What's the cutoff for this?  Does Tulsi have a realistic chance of making it on stage so Buttigieg can humiliate her again?

[GeneralMacArthur]

This sets up Klobuchar to become the great compromise candidate, able to draw support from all the major constituencies in the party.

Who came up with this graph?  I would swap Buttigieg and Klobuchar's spots?

[GeneralMacArthur]

Poor Yang:

WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee on Monday rejected a request from presidential candidate Andrew Yang to commission four early state qualifying polls ahead of the next Democratic debate in Iowa on Jan. 14.

Yang made the proposal in a letter dated Dec. 21 to DNC Chairman Tom Perez, which was obtained Monday by NBC News, in which he argued that a "diverse set of candidates might be absent from the stage in Des Moines for reasons out of anyone’s control."

"It has been 38 days since a qualifying poll in Iowa, New Hampshire, or Nevada was taken. As you know, big shifts can happen within short periods in this race, as we’ve already witnessed multiple times," Yang wrote.

Yang then asked for the DNC to commission polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina by Jan. 10.

"It would provide an accurate snapshot of the current state of the race and where voters’ hearts and minds are, thus getting ahead of an imminent problem," he said.

The DNC doesn’t typically conduct public polls, though it does conduct private polls for internal purposes, which are not released. In a statement later on Monday, the DNC said it would not sponsor additional polls.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/andrew-yang-asks-dnc-more-qualifying-polls-ahead-january-debate-n1108646

While this request seems reasonable on the outset, I'm sure the last thing the DNC wants is to be held responsible for the outcome of a poll.  Every candidate who is hurt by the poll will say the DNC made the numbers up.

For example, if the poll only gives Yang 3%, his campaign will fuel the idea that the DNC invented the numbers intentionally to exclude him.

If the poll gives Sanders 12% in Iowa or something and he loses Iowa, his campaign will fuel the idea that the DNC intentionally kneecapped him by releasing the poll to generate negative media coverage and an image of weakness.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I am hopeful we'll get a few polls next week, although I'm not positive they'll be early state polls.

Apparently the Des Moines Register is having financial issues right now, so them paying Selzer for a poll seems unlikely. The other major pollsters are probably still hoping to get more national numbers to check public opinion on impeachment. Maybe CBS will get YouGov to poll Iowa?

I dont envy the Yang Gang right now, although its alittle early to be jumping in the conspiracy theory pool, especially when Yang is only polling at 4% nationally on a good day.

It would be shocking if we didn’t get another Selzer poll before the caucus. Maybe not until after the qualification deadline for the debate, though.

We're going to get at least 2 more Selzer polls before the caucus.

[GeneralMacArthur]

10% is right around the threshold for Bloomberg.  Depends how many polls come out between now and then.  He'd probably be getting 12% in NV/SC if he bothered competing there.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Monmouth poll shows Bloomberg at 10%+

That's his 3rd poll.

Has Bloomberg already said if he will debate in NV, considering he's skipping NV and SC ?

He's said a couple times that if they invite him on stage, he'll go.

He just doesn't want to beg for donations for the first time in his career in order to do it.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Monmouth poll shows Bloomberg at 10%+

That's his 3rd poll.

Has Bloomberg already said if he will debate in NV, considering he's skipping NV and SC ?

He's said a couple times that if they invite him on stage, he'll go.

He just doesn't want to beg for donations for the first time in his career in order to do it.

But if he's accepting to debate in NV and SC, despite announcing to skip the states, it's really hypocritical ...

Are the debates only being broadcast in NV and SC?

The NH debate barely even mentioned NH.

They're national debates.

[GeneralMacArthur]

In nearly every state on Super Tuesday, Tulsi got demolished by Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, neither of whom was still in the race.  She also lost in most states to the ghost of Tom Steyer.  Some other fun facts:

CA:  She got fewer votes than Andrew Yang, who dropped out over a month ago.

AL:  She got fewer votes than Michael Bennet, who hasn't been on a debate stage since July.  She also tied with Bennet in Tennessee.

NC:  More than 3x as many people chose "Uncommitted" as chose to vote for Tulsi.

TX:  She lost to Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Steyer, Bennet, and Julian Castro, who dropped out two months ago.  She only finished 0.1% ahead of Roque de la Fuente.

She did finish 0.3% ahead of dropped-out Deval Patrick in his home state of Massachusetts, though, so she's got that going for her.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The pathetic dying gasps of a campaign that never had integrity in the first place.  True bottom of the barrel stuff.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The pathetic dying gasps of a campaign that never had integrity in the first place.  True bottom of the barrel stuff.

The pathetic dying gasps of a campaign that never had integrity in the first place.  True bottom of the barrel stuff.

The post so nice it was posted twice.

Also, what the heck is so wrong with that quote from the Sanders campaign?

Oops, this site is buggy sometimes.

The problem is that a lot of really terrible Rose Twitter people, along with Trump team, have been working together on Twitter to push this idea that Biden is dying or sundowning.  This is exactly the kind of thing that Bernie and his campaign have been pretending to disown.  Oh, the horror!  We've never seen any of this behavior, bit if it does exist, I condemn it!

Except then they turn around and pull something like this, implying with zero subtlety that Biden's so sick that he can't even stand for the debate.

It's obvious that they're playing along with the smear campaign.  A campaign being run by the very people they're pretending to distance themselves from, and the F***ING TRUMP CAMPAIGN.

This is EXACTLY the kind of dog-whistling crap he pulled last time.  And it is disgusting.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The pathetic dying gasps of a campaign that never had integrity in the first place.  True bottom of the barrel stuff.

The pathetic dying gasps of a campaign that never had integrity in the first place.  True bottom of the barrel stuff.

The post so nice it was posted twice.

Also, what the heck is so wrong with that quote from the Sanders campaign?

Oops, this site is buggy sometimes.

The problem is that a lot of really terrible Rose Twitter people, along with Trump team, have been working together on Twitter to push this idea that Biden is dying or sundowning.  This is exactly the kind of thing that Bernie and his campaign have been pretending to disown.  Oh, the horror!  We've never seen any of this behavior, bit if it does exist, I condemn it!

Except then they turn around and pull something like this, implying with zero subtlety that Biden's so sick that he can't even stand for the debate.

It's obvious that they're playing along with the smear campaign.  A campaign being run by the very people they're pretending to distance themselves from, and the F***ING TRUMP CAMPAIGN.

This is EXACTLY the kind of dog-whistling crap he pulled last time.  And it is disgusting.

Oh knock it off MacArthur. Nothing in that quote implied that Biden was losing his mind. You are reading into it what you want to see.

No.  Not OK.  The entire point of the attack is to imply that Biden isn't physically capable of standing.  It doesn't make any sense to attack him for standing instead of sitting otherwise.

It's dovetailing right into the narrative being pushed by the Trump campaign that Biden is physically weak and decaying.  Which is the same narrative they pushed about Clinton in 2016, courtesy of Russia.  And the same narrative that Russia has pushed about other enemy politicians in other countries.

If it were less obvious, I might be inclined to call it a coincidence, but no.  Because we've seen this again and again and again and again from the Sanders campaign.  These dogwhistles to narratives and conspiracy theories being pushed by Trump or Rose Twitter or Russia about his opponents and the Democratic Party.  But you don't even have to agree with me on that to see what's going on here because it's just glaringly, stupidly obvious.

What is the alternative explanation?.  Is the attack supposed to be about something other than Biden's physical health?  Did the Sanders campaign just so happen to start caring about Biden's physical health at the same time that his supporters (whom the campaign totally condemns!) started coordinating with the Trump campaign to push that narrative?

[GeneralMacArthur]

The pathetic dying gasps of a campaign that never had integrity in the first place.  True bottom of the barrel stuff.

The pathetic dying gasps of a campaign that never had integrity in the first place.  True bottom of the barrel stuff.

The post so nice it was posted twice.

Also, what the heck is so wrong with that quote from the Sanders campaign?

Oops, this site is buggy sometimes.

The problem is that a lot of really terrible Rose Twitter people, along with Trump team, have been working together on Twitter to push this idea that Biden is dying or sundowning.  This is exactly the kind of thing that Bernie and his campaign have been pretending to disown.  Oh, the horror!  We've never seen any of this behavior, bit if it does exist, I condemn it!

Except then they turn around and pull something like this, implying with zero subtlety that Biden's so sick that he can't even stand for the debate.

It's obvious that they're playing along with the smear campaign.  A campaign being run by the very people they're pretending to distance themselves from, and the F***ING TRUMP CAMPAIGN.

This is EXACTLY the kind of dog-whistling crap he pulled last time.  And it is disgusting.

Oh knock it off MacArthur. Nothing in that quote implied that Biden was losing his mind. You are reading into it what you want to see.

No.  Not OK.  The entire point of the attack is to imply that Biden isn't physically capable of standing.  It doesn't make any sense to attack him for standing instead of sitting otherwise.

It's dovetailing right into the narrative being pushed by the Trump campaign that Biden is physically weak and decaying.  Which is the same narrative they pushed about Clinton in 2016, courtesy of Russia.  And the same narrative that Russia has pushed about other enemy politicians in other countries.

If it were less obvious, I might be inclined to call it a coincidence, but no.  Because we've seen this again and again and again and again from the Sanders campaign.  These dogwhistles to narratives and conspiracy theories being pushed by Trump or Rose Twitter or Russia about his opponents and the Democratic Party.  But you don't even have to agree with me on that to see what's going on here because it's just glaringly, stupidly obvious.

What is the alternative explanation?.  Is the attack supposed to be about something other than Biden's physical health?  Did the Sanders campaign just so happen to start caring about Biden's physical health at the same time that his supporters (whom the campaign totally condemns!) started coordinating with the Trump campaign to push that narrative?

Say 'sike' right now or I'm actually going to start thinking you've lost your mind.

What's your alternative explanation?  That is the Sanders campaign's motivation for launching this attack?

[GeneralMacArthur]

What's your alternative explanation?  That is the Sanders campaign's motivation for launching this attack?

You cannot possibly expect me to believe that that completely innocuous quote was somehow an attack on Biden's mental health. They were asking why Biden didn't want to attend; the quote goes on to imply that Biden does not want to have to defend his record against Sanders'. That is all that was being implied, and you'd have to have rabbit ears to read it any other way.

I suggest you seek help. Professional help.

No, they weren't talking about Biden not wanting to attend.  Nobody is suggesting that Biden won't attend.  They are attacking Biden for, allegedly, wanting to sit at a table instead of stand at a podium (the Biden campaign response was "wtf? we don't care").

Also I didn't say that this was about mental health.  I said it was about physical health.  But you can read so you knew that.

[GeneralMacArthur]

What's your alternative explanation?  That is the Sanders campaign's motivation for launching this attack?

You cannot possibly expect me to believe that that completely innocuous quote was somehow an attack on Biden's mental health. They were asking why Biden didn't want to attend; the quote goes on to imply that Biden does not want to have to defend his record against Sanders'. That is all that was being implied, and you'd have to have rabbit ears to read it any other way.

I suggest you seek help. Professional help.

No, they weren't talking about Biden not wanting to attend.  Nobody is suggesting that Biden won't attend.  They are attacking Biden for, allegedly, wanting to sit at a table instead of stand at a podium (the Biden campaign response was "wtf? we don't care").

Also I didn't say that this was about mental health.  I said it was about physical health.  But you can read so you knew that.

Woah. All I saw was the Averroes quote. My apologies. I went back to the last page and saw the original Politico article.

This is pretty below-the-belt.

All good