June 25, 2019

Pre-debate Jitters

The Democrats are kicking off the 2020 election season on Wednesday, with Senators Elizabeth Warren (MA) Cory Booker (NJ) and Amy Klobuchar  (MN); former Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro, who also served as mayor of San Antonio; Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (HI) and Tim Ryan (OH); former Reps Beto O'Rourke (TX) and John Delaney (MD; Gov. Jay Inslee (WA); and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio taking the stage in Miami for the first half of the first debate.

Thursday night, we'll be treated to the second half, which will feature former Vice President Joe Biden; Senators Kamala Harris(CA), Michael Bennet (CO), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Bernie Sanders (VT), who is still not a Democrat; Rep. Eric Swalwell (CA); former Gov. John Hickenlooper (CO); South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg; self-help author Marianne Williamson; and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

Each of the participants has achieved at least 1% recognition nationally in approved polls, has raised money from at least 65,000 individual donors, including getting at least 200 donors in 21 states, or both (Biden, Booker, Buttigieg, Castro, Gabbard, Gillibrand, Harris, Inslee, Klobuchar, O'Rourke, the non-Dem, and Warren).

Four other candidates - Rep. Seth Moulton (MA), Governor Steve Bullock (MT), former Rep. Mike Gravel (AK), and Miramar, FL mayor Wayne Messam - failed to make the cut.

There will be no opening statements (yay), but each candidate will have one minute for a closing argument. Answers to questions will be limited to one minute, with 30 seconds  for followup questions, not there'll be much time for them.

Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow and José Diaz-Balart are the talking heads. Holt will be the official moderator of the first hour, with Guthrie and Diaz-Balart joining in; for the second hour, Todd and Maddow will share moderating duties, with Holt joining.  I have not seen the rules for how much time the talking heads (particularly Maddow and Todd) will be able to chew up - that might be one of the more interesting things to keep an eye on. 

There's no defined list of questions that will be asked, and of course no guarantee that each candidate will be asked the same questions or be given the opportunity to chime in on all of the issues.  It's expected that there will be questions on health care, climate change, education (free college, wiping out student debt, and so on), and of course the great divide between rich and poor people and rich and poor corporations. 

We should also expect questions on foreign policy, immigration, race, and gender, and on anything critical SCOTUS decides this last week of their session. 

And, there's the e-word: electability, whatever that means. And impeachment. - don't forget impeachment. 

Dear lord, this could be cluster with one moderator and only a handful of folks on the stage answering questions.

20 candidates.
5 moderators.
4 hours.
3 networks.
2 nights.

What could possibly go wrong?  Or maybe the better question is, what could possibly go right?

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