Posts by Delaware Dem

My personal opinion: I felt that Hillary was the clear winner of last night's debate. She was strong, quick on her feet, humorous. I feel her performance ended Joe Biden's presidential aspirations outright, unless something shocking and unknown happens at the Partisan Get Hillary Committee hearing next week. Biden is back to being an emergency Plan B candidate. The viscous cycle of bad press and thus bad poll numbers and thus bad press and thus bad poll numbers is ended by the debate. Reports were that Hillary's campaign team were ecstatic after the debate, and as well they should be. Bernie Sanders had some good moments, and two or three awful ones. His gun control position, and his unprepared, unsure and halting response to the criticism, were horrible. He had to have known he would be attacked for that, and that was the answer he came up with. And his Syria answers were not ready for primetime. But the best moment of the night, the moment that probably will stand out to most people and the media, was his very charming and very New York exclamation: "enough about her damn emails!" I grew to openly despise Jim Webb over the course of the evening. First, stop complaining about your time. No one likes whiners. Second, is he sure he is on the right stage? Seems more suited to the Republican party. Lincoln Chafee should drop out. Now. This very second. And Martin O'Malley had one really good and emotional answer, and his overall performance was probably good enough to be regarded officially as "the third candidate."

Daniel Drezner on why Joe Biden isn't running: “The only political reason for a Biden candidacy was an imploding Hillary Clinton, and she’s not imploding." Tonight is DEBATE NIGHT! Finally, after enduring two evil and lengthy GOP debates where we discovered that how exactly the Republicans intend to wreak their terrible will on the nation, we get the adults. The reasonable and rational party. The party committed to social progress, equality, opportunity and the Constitution. The party that solves conflicts with diplomacy rather than immature saber rattling. The party that actually paid attention during science and social studies class. The party that believes that climate change is a problem created by man and can be alleviated by man. The party that is not racist, or sexist, or bigoted. The party that stands for the 99%. The Democratic Party. Meanwhile, Pew Research says Democrats have become more liberal: “The share of Democrats who describe their political views as liberal has increased over the past 15 years. In surveys conducted this year, 41% of Democrats describe themselves as liberal, 35% say they are moderates and 21% say they’re conservative. In 2000, 43% were moderate, 27% liberal and 24% conservative.” You know who gets credit for all this? Progressives and the Netroots. People like Markos Moulitsas and Jason Scott in the Howard Dean days who said "Damn straight I am a liberal."

First Read says time is running out for Joe Biden:

“More than 10 weeks have passed since that Maureen Dowd column floated the possibility of a Biden run, but he continues to run — or stand — in place. Now, it’s very likely this was decision weekend for Biden, and either we’ll hear a firm ‘no’ from him in the next 48 to 72 hours, or we’ll see the building blocks of an active campaign (website, staff hires). But what is unsustainable is continued inaction, because it won’t be helping his party (if the Democratic nominee needs to raise $1 billion to compete in the general election in this Super PAC Era, Biden still hasn’t raised a cent); it won’t be helping Hillary Clinton (see the latest CBS poll, which shows her leading Bernie Sanders by 24 points without Biden, but by a smaller amount — 19 points — with him included in the contest); and despite experiencing his highest poll numbers during this limbo period, it won’t be helping Biden himself, either (if you want to compete in the early states, build an organization to win, and simply meet the upcoming filing deadlines, you’ve got to jump in ASAP).” “The 2016 train took off months ago. If Biden wants to catch up to his fellow Democrats, he’s got to hop on Air Force Two now. And if he’s not ready to make that move, he owes it to his party and its presidential frontrunner to end the limbo.”

Jonathan Chait says Republicans need Paul Ryan as their next speaker:

What actually separates the insurgents from the Establishment is not ideology but tactics. The insurgents refuse to accept the constitutional limits of their power, and believe that more frenzied assertions of their core beliefs, combined with a periodic willingness to shut down the government and threaten a currency default, can prevail over President Obama through force of will. The insurgents mistakenly interpret disagreements over means as disagreements over ends; when Republican leaders express reluctance to shut down the government over Obamacare or Planned Parenthood, the insurgents take this as actual support for those programs. What makes Ryan so perfectly suited to bridge this divide is that he perfectly combines ideological extremism with methodological pragmatism.

So Ryan's ideological bona fides are so strong that he and only he can convince restive and angry conservatives to delay ideological gratification until that 2017 when Republicans control the federal government and can descend America into the horror that comes from Republican policies. But Ryan still says no. LOL.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) raised $12.2 million in the third quarter, Reuters reports. In contrast, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) “took in just $6 million for his presidential campaign from July to the end of September, a major drop to his fund-raising pace over a summer in which two Republican rivals dropped out because they lacked enough money to continue,” the New York Times reports. Ted Cruz will be your Republican nominee. And that's all I got today, because I have a funeral to attend. Perhaps my colleagues can add something about the GOP in total disarray and chaos. The parties have switched places. It used to be that the Democrats were like herding cats and undisciplined, in a permanent state of total chaos and revolution; while the GOP had military precision, and their next in line always won the presidential nomination or leadership contest.

Media vehicles are arriving outside VP Biden's house in Greenville as we speak.