For months, critics and candidates have been publicly denouncing what they view as open favoritism of the Democratic National Committee (and particularly DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz) toward Hillary Clinton. Even DNC members have objected to the role of the DNC and the view that it is trying to guarantee that Clinton is the nominee. One of the most commonly cited (and commonly accepted) examples are the small number of debates scheduled by the DNC at hours that guarantee the least exposure for Clinton. That criticism is likely to become deafening this Sunday when the key debate before the Iowa caucus will be scheduled not only on a Sunday night but in direct conflict with the NFL playoffs and the new episode of Downton Abbey. Our house is a typical example of the obvious dilemma. My wife is a Downton Abbey fan and, as you know, I am a football fan. The result? The debate might as well have been held by the DNC on Mars. It is a schedule that only Max Bialystock could truly love. [Update: despite virtual universal derision over the scheduling of the debates, Wasserman Schultz went public today and claimed that the schedule was actually designed to “maximize” exposure. This type of statement only magnifies the view that party leaders and some politicians have such a low opinion of voters that it borders on open contempt. How would scheduling a debate on a Sunday night in conflict with two of the biggest television draws maximize viewership — putting aside the refusal to allow more debates as demanded by two of the three candidates and many voters? Indeed, if she was implausibly trying for the largest audience, she is grossly negligent as the low ratings have proven.]
Despite this bizarre and overt effort to minimize audiences, any effort to shield Clinton is failing if recent polls are an indicator. Clinton is falling in the polls much as she did in 2008 and the bias of the DNC is resonating with the base.
What is curious to me is that I thought Clinton was doing quite well in debates and recent interviews. The clumsiness that we saw earlier seems to have been largely removed. In other words, she really does not need the help from the DNC. Indeed, all of this weird minimalist scheduling is simply reaffirming the view of her critics that she is an establishment insider and that there is no real choice being allowed voters.
The scheduling on Sunday is also playing into GOP critics like Sen. Ted Cruz who observed that “They keep scheduling the Democratic debates at like 2 a.m. on Alaska PBS. It’s almost like they don’t want anybody to see their candidates for president.”
I find all of this fascinating to watch (or not watch in the case of the Democratic debates) because it seems so counterproductive and damaging to both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. The conventional wisdom has long been that parties want as many people to watch debates as possible. Conversely, this seems engineered to be a flop like the DNC version of “The Producers”
In the end, when the low ratings roll in, the DNC could always quote Downton Abbey with a sense of satisfaction: “We were a show that flopped”
Jim
Did you watch the debates. I did. The GOP debates were nothing more than a circus complete with a carnival barker sporting a mammoth comb over. Of course a trickle of sanity found its way into one of the rings but not all three.
Did you watch the debates. Idid. The Democrat debates focused on issues and then a little of the candidate. Of course there are skeletons in the closets and Hillary is no angel. However, she’s been there, done that, and is the best equipped of anyone to man the helm. You want your captain to be able to navigate through the sewer and to do that he or she has to be a little like a rat. Or you can have the guy that sees the light but lands on the rocks. As for the GOP options, there aren’t any.
Beldar of Remulak: Speaking of boots on the ground you really need to get up to speed on the REALITY of how war mongering BOTH parties are. How long have you been here?
Hildegard
Take the time to review statistics and facts covering the past sixty odd years. Reagan left America the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Bush eclipsed that by taking a surplus and then creating a recession that dwarfed Reagan’s.
It is socialism that has made this country great. The unions built the middle class. The government assisted in building the middle class. The middle class is the crucible of American prosperity. The middle class has been eroding continuously since Republican intervention in the evolution of American society over the past sixty years. The guy with the money and the idea is nothing without millions of workers. The millions of workers can always find another guy with the idea and money. This is a reality that seems to be missed by those delusional Americans who worship at the alters of the mega rich and manipulators. We don’t need them. They need us.
Issac writes, “The middle class is the crucible of American prosperity. The middle class has been eroding continuously since Republican intervention in the evolution of American society over the past sixty years. The guy with the money and the idea is nothing without millions of workers. The millions of workers can always find another guy with the idea and money. . . .”
It’ll be a shame when all the manufacturing that’s been outsourced to China to skirt labor and environmental laws here finds relatively few consumers in the US to buy these products as a result of the intentional gutting of the middle class. But Detroit’s desolation isn’t the end of it I’m afraid.
True patriots these maquiladora capitalists.
“It’ll be a shame when all the manufacturing that’s been outsourced to China to skirt labor and environmental laws here finds relatively few consumers in the US to buy these products as a result of the intentional gutting of the middle class.”
Should we send absentee ballots to China so those workers can express their appreciation for the party that has done so much to build their economic future?
Who would have thought – GOP, the workers party??? Workers of the world unite, and elect a republican???
stevegroen “I just wish she’d come out and tell us what Bill thinks on each issue. It’d be fun to watch her shape distort itself as we watched.”
You mean shape shift? LOL Isn’t that what politicians do best?
“America has consistently done better, both economically and socially under a Democratic President. Look at Reagan and Bush for the results of a future Republican President.”
As I try to control myself here, I implore you to watch this video. I spent literally years studying body language because I kept being betrayed by the same person over and over and over till I thought I would go mad.. What a revelation! The truth was staring me in the face from day one!
As a group, politicians lie incessantly which is why most people don’t vote. Many of them stay out of prison by becoming politicians You could probably say the same thing about lawyers. Don’t deny yourself, watch this video!!
Did anyone, if they read his posts, notice that when isaac writes about the Democrat debates every thing is rainbows and unicorns?
Did anyone, if they read his posts, notice that when isaac writes about the Republicans everything is bad and evil? That he states the same thing every time.
His selective memory always seems to forget how the dems didn’t work with Reagan and how the Community Organizer had everything when he first got into office and he lost it.
Did anyone, if they watched the debates last night, notice it was 95% focused on issues and solutions? The 5% focused on trash talking was an agreement not to trash talk.
Did anyone, if they watched any one of the Republican debates, notice that they were almost entirely focused on trash talking, against each other, then when that got boring onto Obama? The substance was composed of lies, exaggerations, and just plain stupidity.
Did anyone, if they read the papers, notice Trump’s string of thoughts on the Iran prisoner swap? First it should have been done three or four years ago, several years before there were any prisoners. Then Obama sold out; I suppose a one to one swap would have been a better accomplishment. Then when he took a breath and realized that the American public was kind of happy about it, the Donald tried to Trump Obama by attributing the success of the swap to himself and his bringing it up, for the past three, four, or five years.
It wouldn’t matter to that unfortunate segment of Americans what Obama accomplished, or what Clinton might be capable of doing, a smear is a smear, is a smear, is a smear. There are those that have nothing better to say than, ‘right now Hillary has a big target painted on her chest.’, or calling someone vapid because of one of their nationalities.
The sorry lot that will produce a Republican choice have a lot of supporters. That, is the spooky part. The sad part is that if Clinton gets elected we can look forward to another four and perhaps eight years of Republicans holding America hostage by opposing anything and everything a Democratic President might propose, regardless of whether it is beneficial for America or not. Or not, Clinton is the best bobber and weaver out there; she just might make a positive difference. Her continuity argument is more logical than Bernie’s ‘come the revolution’ one. I like Bernie but he is too old, too remote, and regardless of whether he is right or not, the changes have to come from within.
Americans made choices based on emotions triggered by a political tsunami of media driven lies and exaggerations when they voted in Republicans to the Senate and Congress. Those Republicans held America hostage for the sake of power and power only. America suffered. What’s the old saying about repeating a mistake, again, and again.
America has consistently done better, both economically and socially under a Democratic President. Look at Reagan and Bush for the results of a future Republican President.
tnash80hotmailcom – “They also tend to vote for pro choice candidates. In election after election, the Hispanic voting block has strongly tilted toward Democratic candidates.”
In other words. Breaking the law and the promise of free stuff trumps their religious beliefs.
I liked the comments by O’Malley on the phrase “boots on the ground”. When your neighbor, your nephew, your offspring gets killed in Afghanistan, he will likely be wearing boots and they will likely be laying sideways on the ground. When these Republicans say they want boots on the ground they fail to mention that the boots have humans in them which are in danger of being killed.
Judging by the comments it would seem that the debate was not watched by many of our bloggers and that they were on the NFL channel or part of the Downton Abbey ugly hat lovers.
jim, He’s Canadian. That explains much of the vapidity.
tnash80hotmailcom – You beat me to the punch on that post. Well written. Isaac argues as a 2 year old would with name calling and putting everyone into groups. I bet my dad could beat up his dad!
Isaac…..you should be a bit more careful about calling any group “disgusting rich and repetative”.
Coming from you, that is really ironic.
How about repeating your “the three stooges” bit again. No one could ever tire if that after the 100 plus or 1000 plus times you used that clever, clever phase.
Or that all future Democrats will FOREVER be saddled with all of the mistakes W., Reagan, Coolidge, Lincoln, etc.
I have pointed out to you before that at SOME POINT Obama took ownership of his administration.
Like The Arab Spring, “ending the war in Iraq”, the jv ISIS team, stacking on 5plus Trillion in debt, the Obamacare mess and blantant lies sold because of “the stupidy of the American voter, the treachery and srupidity involved in the Bergdahl swap _and the victory lap in the Rose Garden after that stupid “trade”, etc.
But we do understand, by your “disgusting rich and repetitive” claim, that he just couldn’t help in.
( the ol 3 stooges bit)…..very clever, never tiresome.
Paul C. Schulte…..Catholics in general are not likely to vote for pro life candidates.
Any more than Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry, Joe Biben, or numerous other Catholic politicians are likely to be prolife.
The official dogma of the Vatican means little or nothing to most American Catholics today.
By contrast, the pro choice voters ARE likely to to vote for pro choice candidates.
Tom – the opposite of pro-life is pro-death. When we look at the numbers, the Lationos are strongly pro-life and anti- pro-death. Catholic men are more likely to be pro-life than women. This is problem for Hillary if somebody works it.
Paul C. Schulte……Hispanics are likely to be Catholic and they are more likely to be pro life than non Hispanic Catholics.
They also tend to vote for pro choice candidates. In election after election, the Hispanic voting block has strongly tilted toward Democratic candidates.
When I first arrived to reside in San Diego in December 1986, and after having seen the daily human wave walking up the median strip of I-5 from the border, I became indelibly concerned with immigration. It wasn’t so much the illegality of it, or that Reagan just pardoned the trespass, because justice transcends borders. It was about the potential future voting pool shift. I remember telling a friend that I did not want a horde of conservative Catholics changing the political winds toward Torquemada.
This still is a concern, but I’ve noticed a huge number of Latinos are protestant and non-denominational, perhaps having given up on Catholicism for the mortal injustices they’ve had to endure below the border and now above it.
Here’s a partial confirmation:
http://www.iosde.org/3/post/2016/01/united-nations-declares-the-holy-see-legally-responsible-and-accountable-to-indigenous-peoples-for-effects-and-legacy-of-racist-colonial-papal-bulls-and-doctrines.html
I like Isaac’s analysis. I too fear inbreeding in America. As a dog and member of the pac we have to watch our rears.
The problem with Hillary is that she is part of the problem but an insider that might be able to tune the beast down. Her advantage is that she is an insider, well connected, very experienced in triumphs as well as failures, the latter being the most important, and she could go the distance, two terms.
Bernie is too extreme even though he is more on the money regarding ending the oligarchy of America. He might not be able to make it two terms with the type of warfare he is designing. Eight years ages a person at both ends more than in the middle.
O’Malley is better than any Republican option, but not close enough to get the nomination. If Hillary can dodge a few bullets and stay on the fine tuning to make stuff better program, she will win the nomination.
In the end it comes down to how disgustingly rich and repetitive the Republicans can be in bad mouthing absolutely everything and how many Americans will be effected. There is a lot of inbreeding in America, who knows?
issac – right now Hillary has a big target painted on her chest.
Issac writes, “The problem with Hillary is that she is part of the problem . . .”
I couldn’t agree with you more.
I just wish she’d come out and tell us what Bill thinks on each issue. It’d be fun to watch her shape distort itself as we watched.
So who won the NFL game? I flipped some channels and could not find it. Downton Abbey was on earlier and maybe the Downton fans missed out on the debate because of the importance of Britain.
I watched the entire debate. I was impressed. I like all three. I don’t think Bernie is too old. Nor Hillary. Nor is O’malley too young. I liked Bernie on some issues, O’Malley on some and Hillary on medical care. I watched all of the debates in both parties thus far. The RepubliCons are a bit wacko. O’Malley’s comments about “boots on the ground” was real good. They are humans walking in those boots and the RepubliCons want more wars and wars forever.
Watching the Democrat Debate and it is official. Republicans are stupid. Democrats are intelligent. The only other result of the Republican Debates is the Fish Moan. See above.
Three good candidates are on the stage and doing well. Three great candidates.