July 10, 2019

CNN Nixes 'Show of Hands' Questions for Debate

Bloomberg Campaign Update By Gregory Korte July 9, 2019

CNN has set ground rules for the second Democratic presidential primary debate later this month -- and there are some notable departures from how NBC handled the first event. One rule, which CNN said it laid down to representatives of more than 20 candidates in a phone call Tuesday: “There will be no show of hands or one-word, down-the-line questions.“

Those questions were some of the most illuminating -- and to some candidates, frustrating -- of last month’s debate. They showed that the Democratic candidates uniformly support health insurance for undocumented immigrants -- a position President Donald Trump quickly seized on. “That’s the end of the race,” he tweeted.

Another question highlighted that three candidates -- Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio -- would eliminate private health insurance and replace it with Medicare for all.

The candidates will learn July 17 whether their poll numbers and fundraising are enough to qualify them for the debate scheduled for July 30 and 31 in Detroit. The exact lineups for each night will be drawn at random.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-09/how-middle-class-joe-biden-made-millions-campaign-update

July 9, 2019

CBS: Gabbard says Harris hatched "political ploy" to "smear" Biden on race

Video at the link:
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BY CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ / JULY 8, 2019 / 5:00 PM / CBS NEWS

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is accusing her Democratic presidential primary opponent Sen. Kamala Harris of staging a "political ploy" to smear former Vice President Joe Biden's reputation and his record on civil rights.

In an interview on CBSN's "Red & Blue" that streamed Monday, Gabbard said Harris has been "leveling this accusation that Joe Biden is a racist — when he's clearly not — as a way to try to smear him." She tweeted a similar sentiment earlier in the day.

(snip)

"Really what she's saying saying is her position is the same one she was criticizing Joe Biden for," she said. "So this is just a political ploy and I think a very underhanded one just to try get herself attention, to move herself up in the polls."

"I think we need to be above that," Gabbard added. "All of us."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-says-kamala-harris-hatched-political-ploy-to-smear-joe-biden-on-race/
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As a fellow female candidate, Gabbard is in a unique position to call out Harris on this, and so far is the only candidate who has. So props for showing some courage. And as a California Harris voter and constituent, I am also in a position to fully agree with what Gabbard has expressed on the matter. Harris needs to apologize and knock off the nonsense before she does more damage.

July 7, 2019

What Kamala Harris and AOC can't make Joe Biden do

By Joe Lockhart | Fri July 5, 2019

Joe Lockhart was White House press secretary from 1998-2000 in President Bill Clinton's administration.

(CNN) Anyone expecting to see a major reboot in the Biden campaign or a Joe Biden 2.0 just doesn't know the former vice president. He knows what he knows, which isn't everything, and is not likely to refashion his image based on a poll or a debate performance.

But the fact that he sat down for an extended interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo does indicate that Biden and his team recognize they need to do some things differently. First, Biden has to get out on the campaign trail more, something he accomplished over the past few days in Iowa. Second, he needs to be more accessible to the media, which help shape the view of many Democratic voters in the early voting states. In short, he needs to not look like the nomination is his to lose, but instead his to win.

Finally, he needs a better pushback to the kinds of charges directed at him in the Democratic presidential debate by Sen. Kamala Harris. Here was one of the more interesting parts of the Cuomo interview. Biden made clear he was surprised not by the attack, but by the way Harris delivered it, in such a personal way. He implicitly charged Harris with a bit of demagoguery — that she criticized his position while holding essentially the same position herself. But he visibly pulled back from elaborating, saying he is determined to stay above what he calls the scrum.

Is this a good strategy? Can he survive in a modern campaign while not going personally after other Democrats? That remains to be seen. What's not in doubt is he's not likely to change his views.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/05/opinions/joe-biden-lockhart/index.html
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This was before Biden's apology speech yesterday, but that would fit in with Lockhart's "Biden 2.0" argument, i.e., that Biden is making adjustments to stay competitive. This seems like the right approach to me ... what do you think?

July 6, 2019

Gloucester Times: Leftover PAC money funneled into Warren's campaign

By Christian M. Wade, Statehouse Reporter, Gloucester (MA) Daily Times, May 2, 2019

BOSTON — As she runs for president, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren has pledged not to accept money from lobbyists, political action committees or special interest groups.

Warren, one of 22 Democrats seeking the party's nomination to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020, has sworn off swanky fundraisers, big checks from wealthy donors and the flow of PAC money that typically permeates a presidential campaign. The pledge is a key plank of her campaign, and she references it in speeches and fundraising pitches.

"You won’t see Elizabeth take a dime from federally registered lobbyists, corporate PACs, or PACs of any kind," her campaign boasted in a recent email blast to supporters, urging them to contribute. "You won’t see Elizabeth cozy up to billionaires and nudge them to dump buckets of cash into a super PAC for her." A review of Warren's reports to the Federal Election Commission suggests that pledge is disingenuous.

Warren's presidential campaign collected $6 million in the first quarter of this year, banking 213,000 contributions from 135,000 donors, with an average donation of $28, her campaign said. She also transferred into her account $10 million in leftover campaign cash from her run for Senate last year, and a political committee she operates with other candidates, according to disclosures filed with the FEC.

https://www.gloucestertimes.com/election/leftover-pac-money-funneled-into-warren-s-campaign/article_f013b2ae-0a8d-53d1-afb1-ce9f80dfcc64.html

July 3, 2019

Chicago Trib: Say it was so, Joe! Biden was right to oppose busing in the '70s

By ERIC ZORN | CHICAGO TRIBUNE |JUL 02, 2019 | 3:33 PM

Trib: Eric Zorn is an op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune with a liberal/progressive bent who specializes in local news and politics.

Kamala Harris made me feel young again on Thursday, when she turned to Joe Biden during a Democratic presidential primary debate and attacked him for having been against busing in the 1970s as a remedy for segregated public schools.

“Do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America?" Harris asked. “Do you agree?”

(snip)

His reply should have been a simple “No.”

“Biden isn’t a historical or contemporary outlier on this subject,” said Northwestern University historian Brett Gadsden, whose 2013 book “Between North and South” focused on decades of desegregation efforts in Biden’s home state of Delaware. “Busing to achieve integration has always been unpopular.”

Dozens of public school districts around the country still use socioeconomic and demographic characteristics in voluntary efforts to desegregate. But, Gadsden said, “civil rights activists and educational reformers have shifted their focus toward recruiting teachers of color” to predominantly minority schools, “offering culturally relevant curriculum, correcting disciplinary disparities” and equalizing spending on black and white students.

(snip)

... as soon as Trump or his advisers realize what a powerful wedge issue this could be for him in next year’s general election, brace yourself for repeated and damaging blasts from the past.

Promoting busing to achieve integration didn’t end well for Democrats when I was a kid, and it won’t end well now.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/eric-zorn/ct-column-busing-kamala-harris-joe-biden-busing-integration-zorn-20190702-obnxkzbk35gnjekzildnobqvvu-obnxkzbk35gnjekzildnobqvvu-story.html

July 2, 2019

That busing question to Biden could come back to haunt Harris

from The Hill:

Hand it to the Democrats. They managed in last week’s presidential debate to put a racially explosive issue from long ago, one that had all but died away, back on the political agenda.

(snip)

A 1999 Gallup Poll, when the issue was still fresh, found that 82 percent of respondents agreed that “letting students go to their neighborhood schools would be better than achieving racial balance through busing.” Courts began to limit the use of busing and racial quotas to desegregate public school systems.

Sixty-five years after Brown v. Board of Education, as a recent study concluded, “intense levels of segregation [in public schools] — which had decreased markedly after 1954 for black students — are on the rise once again.” Some of the most segregated school districts are in large cities in 2020 swing states such as Detroit, Milwaukee and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina.

And that’s why Harris’s question could come back to hurt her and other Democrats. Republicans may try to brand Democrats as a party that wants to bus children out of their neighborhoods. Like Biden, Harris will be on the receiving end of tough busing questions like: “Senator, if you are elected president, will you take steps to desegregate those school districts through the busing of students?”

If she says "yes" she risks alienating voters in key states. If Harris says "no" she will look like she is running away from her record. . . . Harris may have opened a Pandora’s Box that won’t be so easy to close.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/451163-that-busing-question-to-biden-could-come-back-to-haunt-harris

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Yes, it might be a problem.