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I'll try to post here when I see announcements of lower-tier candidates dropping out of the race. Here's the first one I've seen: Eric Swalwell is dropping out of the Presidential race to run for re-election to the House. I hope to see more of these lesser candidates drop out in the coming months. 20 people on stage is too many.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpos ... story.html

I became a fan of Tulsi Gabbard after I saw the first debate. She was totally slandered the next day by people claiming she was being propped up by Russians. I haven’t really heard a peep about her since until I read she was suing Google. I got this from her site.

https://www.tulsi2020.com/tulsi-vs-goog ... 25_bigtech
On June 28th, 2019 in the immediate hours following the first Democratic Presidential debate, millions of Americans were searching online for information about Tulsi Gabbard. In fact, according to multiple news reports, Tulsi was the most searched candidate on Google. Then, without any explanation, Google suspended Tulsi’s Google Ads account.

For hours, Tulsi’s campaign advertising account remained offline while Americans everywhere were searching for information about her. During this time, Google obfuscated and dissembled with a series of inconsistent and incoherent reasons for its actions. In the end, Google never explained to us why Tulsi’s account was suspended.

Google controls 88 percent of all internet search in the United States – essentially giving it control over our access to information. That’s one reason why Tulsi has been a vocal proponent of breaking up the tech monopolies. And no matter what the motivation was for doing so, Google’s arbitrary and capricious decision to suspend Tulsi’s Google Ads account during a critical moment in our campaign should be of concern to all political candidates and in fact all Americans. Because if Google can do this to Tulsi, a combat veteran and four term Congresswoman who is running for the nation’s highest office, Google can do this to any candidate, from any party, running for any office in the United States.

Did Google really turn off the Gabbard switch on the internet right after the debate? Was it because she spoke of wanting to break up the tech companies? There sure does seem to be a lot of people trying real hard to make sure she doesn’t gain any traction.

Marty [Mori Chu] wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 08, 2019 2:13 pm

I'll try to post here when I see announcements of lower-tier candidates dropping out of the race. Here's the first one I've seen: Eric Swalwell is dropping out of the Presidential race to run for re-election to the House. I hope to see more of these lesser candidates drop out in the coming months. 20 people on stage is too many.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpos ... story.html

I kind of liked Swalwell from the little I saw of him before the debate. He made a calculated decision to attack Bidens age and it backfired on him. I didn’t like the Swalwell I saw at the debates.

It sounds like the real debate hurdle to clear will be the third one. To qualify for that, they need something like 130,000 donors and 2% in four different polls. I heard that only 6 candidates have qualified for that so far: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, Buttigieg, and O'Rourke. That feels like the "real" field to me. Let's get it down to 6. (Others close to qualifying who may make it: Booker, Klobuchar, Castro.)

I hope the moderators don’t pick favorites. I hope the moderators clamp down on butting in by the candidates. I hope they don‘t make this about attacking Biden and each other. I hope they give more specifics about what they want to accomplish as president.

I'll be watching Warren most closely. Will she be more assertive in the second debate? Will she have a stand-out moment? I think Biden will launch a counterattack at Harris, probably criticizing her about her record as a prosecutor and DA, where she came down pretty hard on some criminal justice issues that might upset black voters in 2020.

I have seen the Warren, Biden, Sanders show. They aren’t going to tell me anything they haven’t told me 100 times. None of the candidates tell me how they are going to accomplish all these promises. I want to hear from the newer people. Maybe they won’t be the nominee but, this is where they make themselves known.

Warren - 3 Americans own half the wealth in the US and big corporations run the country. We need to do something about this.

Biden - I was Obama’s VP and everyone liked Obama.

Sanders - Big corporations run the country and we need Medicare for all. We need to do something about this.

Some of the candidates have started to drop out:

Hickenlooper
Swalwell
Inslee
Moulton

Who's likely to drop out next?

Kirsten Gillibrand drops out. I think she may have had the most disappointing run of any candidate in the field. She was projected by many folks to be among the top 5 or 6 candidates and have an outside shot at the nomination. Instead, her poll numbers were catastrophic, often at or below 1%. This despite being one of the highest payers for online and traditional advertising during the course of her campaign. What a fail.

I agree with this article about various candidates' campaigns coming to an end. Don't blame the rules, which were fair and generous. Their campaigns just didn't take off.

https://arcdigital.media/stop-whining-a ... 1d2d4f5138

I do think the media is responsible for promoting certain candidates over others. They're going to promote the ones that get reactions and ratings/clicks/advertisers. Why would CNN have Beto on its graphic here and not Yang?

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... g-in-polls

ShelC wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 30, 2019 6:28 am

I do think the media is responsible for promoting certain candidates over others. They're going to promote the ones that get reactions and ratings/clicks/advertisers. Why would CNN have Beto on its graphic here and not Yang?

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... g-in-polls

I do agree that the media shapes the reactions to the candidates. But I don't find that graphic objectionable. The six candidates listed have always been the top 6 in the polls, with Cory Booker next in line. Andrew Yang was much lower most in poll averages until recently. I don't think it is worth getting too upset over which "under 5%" candidate gets slightly more coverage than another. The Dem nominee is almost certain to be one of:

Joe Biden
Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren

Kamala Harris has an outside shot, too, but that's about it. Frankly giving much of any focus to any other candidates is polite but unhelpful since they have no chance at the nomination. I get that the fringe candidates can raise focus or awareness of individual issues such as UBI (Yang) or climate change (Inslee). But we don't need a Presidential campaign to do that. Let them do the pundit circuit and put their message out on the news channels and national papers.

I think these second tier candidates know the aren’t going to win. It’s about getting their name out there. I seem to recall this unknown guy Obama giving a big speech at the DNC in 2004 elevating his stature overnight. I remember saying “who is this guy?” People like me have noticed a few people like Tusi who weren’t even on my radar a few months ago.

Here's an Atlantic article about the struggling campaign of Cory Booker. Why hasn't his campaign done better? Policy-wise he's close to what many Democrats want.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ff/602248/

I'm part of the YangGang because he talks shit about the Knicks on Twitter. That's the only policy I care about.

The man has his priorities.

Kamala Harris dropped out of the Democratic Presidential primary race today.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/0 ... ace-074902

Pretty interesting. Her campaign was struggling, but there are still several candidates in the race who are arguably doing worse than she is (Steyer, Bloomberg, Booker, etc.).

I think Booker is going to drop out soon, too. He hasn't got the funds or poll numbers he needs to keep going. It's too bad; I liked both Harris and Booker more than several candidates who are remaining.

In Harris's case, she seemed inauthentic to me, waffling around and being vague on major policy issues. She also had trouble shaking the "cop" vibe that upset a lot of black voters who might otherwise have supported her.

And I soured on Tusli. Pete is my frontrunner now. I know some Republicans that are voting Pete.

At this rate, the only people in the next debate will be white people.

There can only be one. Obama was my all time favorite President. Sometimes white people are qualified though.