democratic presidential debate

Having Twelve Candidates on the Same Stage is Ludicrous.

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Do you want to hear in-depth policy discussions among the leading Democratic Presidential Candidates when they meet again in Columbus, Ohio on October 15? Of course, you do? Are you going to get it? No, because the Democratic National Committee, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that 12 candidates (with Tulsi Gabbard and Tom Steyer … Read more

Former AZ GOP Chair wants to disarm African-Americans. Guess who else supposedly did?

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

pullen gun tweet

If there were any lingering doubt that all the posturing about the Second Amendment and “liberty” that right wingers do is mainly about white people having unfettered access to guns so as to menace everyone else, let this tweet by “CEO, http://WageWatch.com ; Goettl Good Guys Board; Treasurer, AZHFA; Former Treasurer, RNC; Former Chair, AZGOP; CPA; Former Partner, Deloitte & Touche” Randy Pullen remove all doubt.

But this is still a startling admission since I’ve been reading for years from gun nuts how any gun safety laws whatsoever are a slippery slope to the kind of tyranny and terror perpetuated by these likes:

After the Civil War, the defeated Southern states aimed to preserve slavery in fact if not in law. The states enacted Black Codes which barred the black freedmen from exercising basic civil rights, including the right to bear arms. Mississippi’s provision was typical: No freedman “shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition.”

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Will the first Democratic debate be boring? No.

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Tonight’s Democratic debate, held at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, has been pronounced in advance to be a snoozefest, as it will likely be heavy on policy and light (to nonexistent) on the exciting personal attacks and stupefyingly dumb and/or dishonest statements we’ve grown to expect from the GOP debates. And though Hillary Clinton is said to be going in with “high expectations” (heard that phrase a lot from the cable pundits this morning), they have already declared her the loser. She will perhaps commit a terrible, campaign-derailing gaffe or she will be flawless but boring by talking about policy too much. Or she’ll try to connect with the audience emotionally and that will be characterized as insincere. Or whatever. It’s been decided amongst the pundit class that Hillary Clinton cannot win.

It’s often jarring how policy-averse some of the most prominent people covering Presidential campaigns can be. I first really noticed it in 2000, when the MSM had grand, giggly lark focusing on Al Gore’s “stiffness” and supposed exaggerations, while contrasting that with George W. Bush’s alleged affability and ease around people (especially reporters). Policy discussions were treated as an annoying obstacle to the theater and costume criticism, as we can see in Evgenia Peretz’s 2007 Vanity Fair recollection of how Al and Tipper Gore were savaged by the media in the 2000 campaign.

Perhaps reporting in this vein was just too gratifying to the press for it to stop. As Time magazine’s Margaret Carlson admitted to Don Imus at the time, “You can actually disprove some of what Bush is saying if you really get into the weeds and get out your calculator, or look at his record in Texas. But it’s really easy, and it’s fun to disprove Al Gore. As sport, and as our enterprise, Gore coming up with another whopper is greatly entertaining to us.”

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