Get over it, folks. One minute in one debate isn't going to

[MineralMan]

shift things much. While Kamala Harris got a zinger in on Biden in the debate, time keeps passing, and so does people's attention to such things. Yesterday's brouhaha gets forgotten almost immediately by almost everyone.

Harris got a bounce in the immediate post-debate polls. Will it last? Maybe. We'll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, the news cycle has moved on and there's a new shiny object to look at today.

How long is it before the first caucus in Iowa? Really? That long?

Oh, well...

[zaj]

1. Arrogance doesn't serve you or Biden well in this case

[MineralMan]

2. OK, then.

Thanks!

[hlthe2b]

3. Iowa caucuses 7 months away.. Lots will happen between now and then...

Given the attention span of most Americans, it is unlikely ANY one thing, one statement, one performance, or even one "scandal" is going to be the deciding factor.

I'm pleased we have a strong line-up. I'm also anxious for some winnowing to occur...

[MineralMan]

5. Yes, exactly. Many things will come up to get people's attention.

Negative information is less likely to persist than positive information, though. That's why opponents save their strongest attacks until immediately before an election. Remember the final attack against Hillary in 2016 - the supposed renewed look at Hillary's emails. That was effective, because it came out immediately before election day, and had an impact because of that. That was a low blow, to say the least, and ended up not even being true, but it might have cost enough votes to swing the election.

What happens this early is long forgotten by the time to vote in the primaries.

[True Blue American]

6. You are not alone

And Mineral Man isright. A long time until November 2020.

Anything can happen. there is no need for Democrats to attack each other. They need to keep talking about what they plan on doing.

[sacto95834]

40. People's Attention

What a performance like Harris had in the first debate, brings interest to her and perhaps if one is truly undecided, will look up her positions and see if there is substance to the "performance." The internet has changed the way politics works in a profound way - it makes getting information easier.

Before the internet, if one saw Harris and didn't know her, one had to be really care to go look up campaign material. I think once you find background material and you like what you read, you are more likely to become a supporter that won't change with the next sound bite. We were more affected by what we saw on television or print.

[Thekaspervote]

4. Agree!! Thx for posting

[ananda]

7. Agree

I'm not worried about it at all.

My faves are Biden, Warren, Buttigeig, and Harris
in that order.

I would gladly vote for any of them.

[empedocles]

8. And, the reported backlash against Harris won't last long publicly.

Except, perhaps, not at some private, executive level it may well last.

[MineralMan]

10. That's true, too.

It's important to remember, I think, that we're all on the same side in this. We are not each others' enemies. The enemy is sitting in the White House. Not a single one of our Democratic candidates agrees with any of us 100% of the time. That's not the point. They all agree that the current administration is horrible.

Negative campaigning at this stage of the race hurts those who go negative more than anyone else.

We are all Democrats.

[oasis]

9. She who has a dislike for "food fights" needs to lead the way. nt

[MineralMan]

11. Everyone needs to think about the consequences of negativism.

It's not what we need. The goal is improving the national situation, not dishing dirt on fellow Democrats.

[mcar]

12. People seem to think this one debate

Was the only one. There are many others. I have no doubt Biden will have better nights and others worse. It happens.

[MineralMan]

14. Yes. Once the field has thinned down, the debates will be more about

substance and getting one's plans across. Right now, there's not enough time to really address any serious issue.

I hope that candidates who clearly do not have any possible path to the nomination will soon take themselves out of the campaign.

[mcar]

16. We need Senate candidates!

[MineralMan]

17. That, too.

Personally, I'd like to see Castro and O'Rourke debating over the Texas Senate race, instead of the presidential race right now.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. That's true of all of the one-minute teapot tempests, I think.

If this isn't forgotten entirely it will just be added to the rapidly-growing pile of Primary Campaign Things That Happened and will not appreciably help or hurt either candidate in the long run. It will be the aggregate of Primary Campaign Things That Happened that will make a difference, not a single thing in a single debate. There's lots more to come; stay tuned.

[MineralMan]

15. Yes indeed!

[democrank]

18. Post-debate l'm concentrating on the excellent ideas many candidates have.

From younger to older and back again, I heard a lot of serious, insightful proposals. There are many months to go and anything....anything can happen.

[MineralMan]

19. I agree with that approach.

What I'm learning is that almost all of the candidates are bringing good ideas to the table. A couple don't seem to be contributing much, but they're not doing well, anyhow.

All of the candidates can learn from the others, too. I hope that is what comes from this crowded candidate field.

[democrank]

20. I'm hoping some people that didn't vote last time or voted in a different direction

hear some of the candidate’s good ideas and give us a shot. I particularly like the way Buttigieg explains why he has taken a certain position and I love the way Elizabeth Warren speaks to the moral issues that seem to get lost.

There hasn’t been much discussion here about Michael Bennett’s debate responses, but I thought he did very, very well. He seemed to speak straight from his heart and had a lot of good ideas. I honestly don’t like the way we hear from the same handful of leaders while others with less name recognition (but good proposals) get drowned out.

[MineralMan]

21. Well, it's going to be difficult for those who aren't already

polling well to rise much in the polls, I'm afraid. There are lots of good, solid candidates who don't stand much of a chance in this crowded field.

It's still possible that one or two of them will rise, but it looks to me like the field is narrowing itself, based on the poll results. I think that's a natural thing, based as much on name recognition as anything else, but that's how it all works, I guess.

[Lochloosa]

22. "There you go again"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_you_go_again

"There you go again" emerged as a defining phrase of the 1980 presidential election.[2] The phrase has endured in the political lexicon in news headlines, as a way to quickly imply that an opponent is engaged in hyperbole or even hysterical comments.[3]

[LincolnRossiter]

23. I don't think a narrative of "Joe sinking fast" can really take hold absent a series of consistent..

polls or some actual significant gaffe. He's the frontrunner in large part due to general favorability and name recognition. That means his support is always going to be a little somewhat "softer" than the candidates who have to earn every point, day by day, in this very campaign. But he was so far in front of all the other candidates and the country is so hungry for normalcy, he probably has a little cushion. Not so much that he can coast his way to the nomination without doing anything, but enough that he isn't going to be knocked out every time one of the up-and-comers gets a zinger.

And Kamala's bump is already fading. That's the nature of a "bump." I think she's solidified her position as a serious candidate (which is something notable) but she hasn't taken over anything in this race.

Biden needs to go out and sell himself as committed, energetic, and flexible--as well as dependable. If he keeps his black support anywhere close to where it is, he just needs to do well in the first couple of contests and the southern primaries will put this away for him.

But there's a lot of road between here and Iowa.

[MineralMan]

24. I saw Kamala Harris as a strong candidate when she

held her announcement rally, which I think was the first of those in this campaign. Her speech that day was an out of the ballpark hit. She's very, very good at the podium, and that's a big boost for her.

She had poor name recognition at the time, but her speech identified her as a definite serious contender. She's developing a stronger recognition as the campaign goes along. Now, she's up in the group of contenders, which she needs to be to continue.

My gut feeling at the beginning was that she'd make a helluva VP nominee, and I still feel that way. I don't believe she can win in the General Election at this point, though. I'd be very surprised if she moved herself up far enough to be in strong contention. Bernie Sanders, as of today, is still in second place, and his poll numbers haven't changed much at all.

I think he'll hold that position, at least for a while longer, but Elizabeth Warren is knocking on the door to replace him in that spot, I think. Really, she appeals to the same bloc of primary voters that Bernie does, and her detailed plans for all sorts of issues are working in her favor.

Can anyone bump Joe Biden out of first place? I don't know. It will be interesting to see where those who are polling for candidates who won't be in the race after a while move. If they move to Biden, then he's likely to hold on and become the nominee. If enough of them move to Sanders or Warren, he'll be in a real fight, though.

Harris? Well, I think she'll do fine, and will probably be in the third position in the polls as we move into the actual primary voting season. That's a prime spot for consideration as the VP nominee, I think.

That's my assessment at this point.

[treestar]

25. I know, people so overreact to every little thing

So much can happen between now and the primaries.

[customerserviceguy]

26. Her zinger

might get her a temporary bounce, and a lot of backlash, but it still produced millions of dollars for her campaign that are not going back to the donors should they have a change of heart about it.

She laid down a blueprint for injecting money into a struggling campaign, and I'd be surprised if others didn't use it.

[MineralMan]

27. Well, raising money is always a need for candidates.

[customerserviceguy]

28. Yes

and there are ways of doing it that do not damage party unity, and those that do. The rapid rate of cut-down in the debate schedule puts heavy pressure on a lower-tier candidate to do something desperate while they still have a chance.

[MineralMan]

29. I agree. As you point out, however, those who are not polling

well often feel a sense of desperation and sometimes make a poor decision to go negative. I understand that and don't fault anyone for making that sort of mistake, unless it becomes a habit.

[customerserviceguy]

30. We disagree on this

Going full-bore nasty is the way that Trump cleared the field for his first-ballot nomination. We have to avoid getting into the same mud with him, or else the mushy middle can be told, "Well, they all do it."

I'm hoping that Sen. Harris pays a price for this, and quickly, so that it will discourage others from making sound bites that will be used in GOP attack ads in the general election, because you know where those ads are going to bite our nominee.

[brush]

31. Biden bought it on himself. For some inexplicable reason he reached back...

forty years to talk about his interactions with segregationists and the term "boy", and insult to AAs. Big mistake.

Over his very long career he certainly could've mentioned innumerable ways he worked with those of differing opinions but he chose long-forgotten racists and the word "boy".

And Harris was not the only AA who took offense. Booker did as well, along with most AAs under 50. It was an unforced error by Biden so don't blame Harris for expressing her feelings about it.

Biden's staffers need to help him tighten up his game by having him run his intended comments by diverse staff members to he doesn't step in any more mine fields of his own making.

I hope that happens as he is the one who can wipe trump up and down the debate stage.

[customerserviceguy]

32. I fully acknowledge that the whole

"boy...son" part of the discussion was disagreeably clumsy, on a par with Biden's "clean and articulate" remarks about Barack Obama. But, Obama did not lash back at Biden for this, showing himself to be the better person. When he picked Biden to be his VP, he became a living symbol of the power of forgiveness, and this helped him win the election.

What Sen. Harris risks is looking like someone who will always take every opportunity to gut her enemies, even if they also have a D behind their names. It will make it easy for Trump to portray her as being an example of the stereotypical "angry black woman" that scares a lot of the same white people who voted for Obama. Booker has fallen into the same trap himself, and it is a clash with his brand of love and kumbaya that he was promoting before the debates.

Joe Biden does need to run his shtick by his staffers, so that they can point out better ways of saying things, but it might not work. Also, there' a danger in it. The intent behind his gaffes is not to marginalize anyone, and if he looks too heavily scripted, his perception as a genuine person might suffer from it.

[brush]

33. "...clean and articluate" is minor compared to the segregationists/boy...

remark. And Harris is not Obama so don't expect her to react the way O did. And pls don't blame Harris for being good at politics.

I'm AA and the "boy" reference was just so unnecessary I just don't get why Biden even went there. Let's hope his staff saves him from more of these missteps as he can beat trump. He just has to get through the primaries, but that doesn't look like it's going to be easy.

[customerserviceguy]

34. It became minor

only because Barack Obama didn't make anything out of it. Had he done so, he would have sacrificed some of his legendary cool, which not only helped him get elected, but made him a better President for being that way.

Yes, I had to really scratch my head over the "boy" thing, it simply added nothing at all to the basic story of how you sometimes have to work with people whose views you detest. However, the Dunkin' Donuts/convenience store/Indian accent thing was worse than the "boy" remark. He was actually dissing people who were working in a capacity as lower-paid employees in a job where many people look down on them, and reinforcing that.

[brush]

35. I haven't heard of the Dunkin' Donut incident. I have heard of the recent...

remark at an LGBTQ event that "mocking a gay waiter five years ago was ok." (He should've said 25 years ago).

I swear, I don't know if he's going to get to the general if these unforced errors keep occurring. His staff has got to get with him so he can run proposed comments by them to see if they may be offensive. I want that to happen as he can mop the stage with trump during a debate.

[StarfishSaver]

38. One thing that's troubling about this whole thing is that when Biden said something that

many African Americans found offensive, they were dismissed, accused if overreacting, told their reaction was not valid and they had no right to feel offended by what he said.

But when Harris said something that they found offensive, but they attacked her, insisting that she had no right to say what she did and that they had every right to be angry and offended.

Once again we're reminded that people of color who speak up about race - whether they are responding to a slight or making a statement that some white people might find offensive - more often than not have their feelings and opinions dismissed and criticized while the feelings of white people are to be given paramount attention and extraordinary deference.

The double standard and sense of privilege is on full display here.

[brush]

39. Spot on. I wasn't looking at it that way but now that you mention it...

there doesn't seem to be a huge overreaction to Harris calling Biden on it during the debate (and she's not the only one offended by it. Booker was and I dare say most AAs under 50 were also).

Let it go people, let it go. If things continue as they are, there will be plenty more gaffes/unforced errors coming. The "mocking a gay waiter five years ago was ok" remark just recently at an LGBTQ event is the latest.

[Gothmog]

36. It is a long time until Iowa

[MineralMan]

37. It is, indeed.