In a field this large, I think direct attacks are going to be difficult.

It really took the first real one to see the potential consequences.

If any of our contenders unleash a real attack they will be met with the release of oppo research within the following days. The most difficult part, without a major error one will have no idea where the retaliation came from. It might even come from multiple places.

Lets take the Biden Harris dust up. So it wasn't that big of a deal but it was an opportunity for her competitors. In the following days the Intercept and AP came out with negative stories on her. They were then picked up by other outlets. We have now seen additional negative stories come out. Who benefits from Harris being attacked? Considering the original attack being against Biden I would say Warren and Sanders are the biggest beneficiaries. Interesting that the Intercept was one of the first out with the attacks on Harris.

In a field this large our people need to understand that direct attacks will be met with the release of oppo research in short order and we most likely won't have an idea of where the research was leaked from.

Party on. Fight the good fight. If you are going to throw poo please understand it is going to hit the fan and splat back all over you.

Elizabeth Warren's Policy Ideas Dominated the First Democratic Debate

Massachusetts senator and 2020 presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren began the month of June polling around 7 percent, placing her in-a-respectable-but-certainly-second tier of candidates along with California senator Kamala Harris and South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg. But over the past several weeks, she earned a blizzard of media coverage and made inroads with primary voters thanks to her steady rollout of detailed policies, from wiping out student debt and taxing the uber-rich back to funding universal childcare and abolishing the Electoral College. Warren entered Wednesday's inaugural Democratic debate at 12.8 percent in RealClearPolitics's polling average, good for third overall; New Jersey senator Cory Booker and former Texas representative Beto O'Rourke, at 3.3 and 2.3 percent, respectively, were the only other participants on stage who managed to exceed one percent.

Of the candidates hoping to use the debate to boost their polling numbers, former Department of Housing and Urban Development secretary Julián Castro was probably the most successful. His invocation of the black and Hispanic victims of police violence—a talking point he uses to promote his police reform platform—drew enthusiastic applause from the crowd. The former San Antonio mayor also drew a sharp distinction between his desire to repeal Section 1325 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which makes it a crime to illegally cross the border, and his fellow Texan O'Rourke's reluctance to vote to do so while in Congress. "I think that you should do your homework on this issue," Castro said, asserting that a separate federal law addresses O'Rourke's purported concerns about the implications of repeal for human trafficking. "If you did your homework on this issue, you would know that we should repeal this section."

For the most part, however, the stage belonged to Warren. She didn't monopolize the conversation in the traditional sense; according to FiveThirtyEight, the 1,637 words she spoke put her well behind the more loquacious Booker and O'Rourke, and on par with Castro (1,588 words), Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar (1,614 words), and NBC's Chuck Todd (1,633 words.) But her presence drove the debate at several critical junctures, as her policy positions forced competitors to measure their platforms directly against hers. In an early question to Booker, Savannah Guthrie asked why he criticized Warren's choice to call out by name companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook when she announced her plan to break up tech giants back in March. "I don't think I disagree," Booker replied, seemingly contradicting his earlier-expressed disagreement with Warren's approach. Eventually, he conceded: "I will single out companies like Halliburton or Amazon that pay nothing in taxes, and our need to change that."

Elizabeth Warren pledges not to give ambassadorships to wealthy donors if elected

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday pledged not to give ambassador posts to donors if she becomes president and said she would fill certain senior-most positions at the State Department with career ambassadors.

The promises were part of the new plan the Democratic presidential candidate unveiled aimed at the State Department. The Massachusetts Democrat wrote in Medium Post that President Donald Trump has "declared war" on the department and that it will take "a whole lot of work" to get enough qualified diplomats back into the government. She also slammed Trump for "selling swanky diplomatic posts to rich buffoons," although Trump is not the first president to appoint financial backers of his campaign to ambassador posts.

The Latest: FBI: White Supremacist James Fields sentenced to life in prison

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The Latest on the sentencing of a man who deliberately drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally.

An avowed white supremacist who drove his car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters during a white nationalist rally in Virginia has been sentenced to life in prison on hate crime charges.

James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio, was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty in March to federal hate crime charges in an attack that killed one person and injured more than two dozen others.

I didn't think Sanders releasing his tax returns was going to hurt him...

As long as they didn't show anything really shady. I now see quite a few dismissals of him because of his millions. I see even more people using his fortune and saying he is just a career politician selling out at the end like so many do.

I think we need one of our contenders to stand up for him. Maybe even Hillary Clinton on Twitter.

"Enough about his damn millions!!!"

Because we all know how sincere he was. I think that really stuck with a lot of people. How it was spun really stuck with a lot of people.

The next, and first, First Gentleman of the United States: Bruce Mann

You're ready. You've got this. I love you.

First round of debates are in the books. Who stands as your current top three?

And is there a change in your top three since before the debates?

1) Warren
2) Biden
3) Castro

Castro is a major change for me. I think over the last month he has shown me he has the depth and qualities it takes. It's really hard for me to pick a #3. I like a number of them. I'm big on Klobuchar, Buttigieg(the guy is ready), Booker, Inslee, Gillibrand and Harris(no particular order).

In my life I have never watched a primary that had so many people I thought could do the job. I think this is the best field I have ever seen in a Presidential Primary.

*In my thread title, should I have used "is" instead of "are?" I'm a grammatical train-wreck. Thanks.

Where Is Bernie Sanders' Climate Plan?

When the Sunrise Movement held the last stop on its Green New Deal tour in Washington, DC in May, Bernie Sanders was the understated star act. A crowd of 1,500 people at Howard University gave the 2020 candidate a standing ovation even before he began his stump speech about the climate crisis. The Vermont Senator’s speech to a younger generation of activists echoed his typical 2016 and 2020 platform points, calling for the elimination of trillions in oil and gas industry tax breaks and creating worker protections under a Green New Deal.

Following Sanders’ act was the newest star in the progressive movement, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who obliquely criticized a campaign advisor for former Vice President Joe Biden, who told Reuters that Biden would look for a “middle ground” solution to climate change. “I will be damned if the same politicians who refused to act then are going to try to come back today and say we need to find a middle-of-the-road approach to save our lives,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

Only two weeks later, Biden released a climate change plan that bumped up his position on the environmental group Greenpeace’s scorecard, from near-failing to a “B”, mostly on the strength of the plan’s commitment to clean energy investments, path to net-zero emissions, and international leadership. He joined six other candidates who have now released a detailed platform explaining their vision for climate change, including Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, John Delaney, Michael Bennett, John Hickenlooper, and Jay Inslee, who’s centered his campaign around the issue.

The notable exception in this group? Bernie Sanders, one of the frontrunners who still hasn’t released his own plan. This fact hasn’t gone unnoticed by Greenpeace or other climate activists agitating for a robust policy discussion, especially with climate ranking as a leading concern among Democratic primary voters.

I've got a plan to ensure that a sitting president can be held accountable for committing a crime.