RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/07/01/for-2020-democrats-its-ignore-the-economy-stupid/

How do Democrats sell their policies when the economy is doing well and unemployment at 50-year lows? By avoiding the subject. At least, that’s what Democrats did during the two nights of debating.

The very first question asked in the first debate, by Savannah Guthrie, was about whether the Democrats’ far-left agenda would risk the economic growth we’ve been enjoying.

“Seventy-one percent of Americans say the economy is doing well, including 60% of Democrats,” she said. “What do you say to those who worry this kind of significant change could be risky to the economy?”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the first to answer, pretended not hear the question. Instead, she went on a rant about how the economy is “doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top.”  But if that were true, why are six in ten of her fellow Democrats are happy with the way things are going? No one bothered to ask her that.

A word cloud of the debates shows that “economy” barely got mentioned over the two nights. Democrats talked almost as much about guns and they did jobs.

And when Democrats did talk about the economy, it was in grim, Dickensian terms.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/cal-thomas-questions-i-would-have-asked-the-democrats

The likelihood I would ever be invited to serve on a network panel questioning the Democratic presidential candidates is equivalent to an invitation to take the next trip to the moon.

Still, as I tortured myself watching the two “debates,” which were not really debates, but mostly a show of memorized sound bites, I thought of unasked questions that ought to have been put to them all.

Question 1: Some of you have, or had, the power to change many of the things you now say are wrong with America. Why didn’t you?

Question 2 (for Joe Biden): You and President Obama, for a time, had a Democratic majority in Congress. Why didn’t you reform immigration laws and address homelessness? Your administration deported a lot of people who were in the country illegally, so why criticize President Trump for wanting to follow your example? Do our laws mean nothing?

Question 3: During the second debate, all of you raised your hands when asked if you would provide free health care to immigrants who are here illegally. Aren’t you inviting even more to come to America with such a policy, and wouldn’t that add to our already staggering debt? Follow-up: Trump said we should take care of Americans first. Why would you use American tax dollars to pay for people who break our laws?

Question 4: Is there anything Trump has done that you could praise? Many of you talk as if unemployment hasn’t declined — especially for minorities — and wages haven’t risen. Unemployment is at, or near, record lows and wages are up.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/democratic-party-radicalism-illegal-immigration-open-borders/

There didn’t seem much room for Democrats to move left on immigration, but they’ve found it.

On the first night of the Democratic debates, Julian Castro made a big issue of his call to repeal Section 1325 of Title 8 of the United States Code, which says it’s a federal crime to enter the country without authorization. This felt like a ploy for attention from the periphery of the second-tier debate stage, yet last night seven out of the ten candidates raised their hands for the idea, including top contenders Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg.

The collective posture of the party is getting closer and closer to open borders, only without embracing the label.

Illegal immigrants aren’t typically prosecuted under Section 1325, although the Bush administration started a program called “Operation Streamline” to increase prosecutions, hoping to discourage would-be crossers and especially to create a deterrent against illegal reentry (illegal entry is a misdemeanor often punished by time served, whereas illegal reentry is a felony). Such prosecutions were a key element of Trump’s family-separation policy that had to be quickly abandoned.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/pete-buttigieg-campaign-south-bend-indiana-politics/

Buttigieg would seem perfect on paper to reach out beyond the woke white element of the party. This isn’t how he’s running, though.

It would tax even the prodigious powers of the late novelist Tom Wolfe to create a more poignant political scene than a bright, young, white mayor of a small city, who is an upstart presidential candidate and progressive darling, getting yelled at by black residents during a town hall.

The mayor, of course, is Pete Buttigieg. A controversial shooting of a black resident by a white police officer in his city of South Bend, Ind., occasioned the emotional meeting. Mayor Pete handled himself ably enough, yet the episode still highlights the manifest shortcomings of his candidacy.

The elite media fell in love with Buttigieg, not just because he’s genuinely talented, but because he’s the type of candidate — young, earnest, credentialed, progressive but with a self-image as an ideologically moderate pragmatist — it always falls in love with.

It is attracted to the idea of an intellectual candidate. This doesn’t literally mean someone with deep intellectual interests or genuine accomplishments — think the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan — but an impressive academic resume, a copy of the New Yorker on the nightstand and marked verbal acuity.

In this sense, Pete Buttigieg is the new Barack Obama, except with limits that will likely keep him from reaching the next level.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/democrat-debates-no-more-chaste-democrats/

Freak flags flew for two nights in a row.

Chastened Democrats win elections. In 2006, 2008, and 2018, Democrats humbled themselves before moderate and even conservative voters and triumphed. Arrogant Democrats lose these voters. Nancy Pelosi must have been watching the past two nights of Democratic primary debates in horror.

In the 2018 midterm elections, Pelosi’s Democrats far outdid Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance. Pelosi’s Democrats won the popular vote over Republicans by 6.7 points nationwide. How? By relentlessly talking about pocketbook issues, particularly the Democrats’ commitment to protecting voters’ existing health-insurance arrangements. Attack ads against Republicans in 2018 focused on the provision of a bill that would have weakened protections for those with preexisting conditions. Pelosi’s Democrats said Republicans would “raise your premiums” and “kick you off your health-care plan.” For good measure they accused Republicans of “doubling the debt.” Pelosi and Chuck Schumer tried to tamp down the story of the migrant caravan then traveling through Mexico, calling President Trump’s focus on it a distraction from health care. Pelosi’s Democrats retook the Rust Belt districts that Donald Trump had won in 2016.

Her operation reminded me of the last time Democrats had been humbled: after the 2004 elections. In the following midterms in 2006 and the election of 2008, Democrats ran against Republican radicalism. Just twelve years ago, Democratic candidates for president competed with each other on how tough and realistic they could be on illegal immigration. The leading candidates for president advertised not just their opposition to same-sex marriage but also their opposition to drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants. Dennis Kucinich quoted from the Bible.

Over the last two nights, we saw a completely different Democratic party. Several leading candidates, including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris, vowed to kick 100 million Americans off their private insurance plans in favor of Medicare for All. This is a position supported by less than 15 percent of Americans. Just a tiny fraction of that number of cancellations in the wake of Obamacare caused an electoral earthquake for Democrats in 2010.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/28/the_debates_winners_and_losers_140672.html

MIAMI — Ten candidates shared the stage on the second night of the first debate of the Democratic primary. After two hours of questions and cross talk, of impromptu barbs and prepared talking points, a tentative picture has emerged of the initial winners and losers.

Winner: Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris has arrived.

Pollsters and pundits had wondered whether the freshman senator from California could start to deliver on her well-received campaign rollout. She answered Thursday night by pummeling the front-runner in prime time, questioning former Vice President Joe Biden about civil rights.

Harris pushed the 76-year-old Biden to explain his record on federal busing, which he opposed while a young senator from Delaware, and his association with segregationists, which he has defended as necessary for compromise.

“I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” Harris told Biden.

“But I also believe,” she continued, “it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.”

Although that decades-old legislative record is hardly new, Harris made it personal.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” Harris said. “That little girl was me.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/all-ten-dems-at-the-second-debate-would-provide-health-insurance-for-illegal-immigrants/

In the second round of the first 2020 Democratic presidential debate on Thursday, all ten of the candidates onstage said their government health care plans would provide coverage for illegal immigrants.

NBC News co-anchor Savannah Guthrie asked the candidates — including frontrunners former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg — if they would cover illegal immigrants.

“Raise your hand if your government healthcare plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants,” she said.

Every single candidate raised his or her hand.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274160/second-debate-night-circus-joseph-klein

Two white male septuagenarians were the headliners of the second Democrat primary debate held in Miami on Thursday night. Barack Obama’s vice president Joe Biden and Socialist-Democrat Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, leaders of the pack so far in early polling, had the opportunity to go head-to-head, without the distraction of “rising star” Senator Elizabeth Warren on the same stage. She had her place in the spotlight on what turned out to be Wednesday night’s undercard. But the expected jousting never took place. Sanders and Biden largely ignored each other and tried to stick to their respective talking points. Sanders was the revolutionary demanding major transformational change. Biden was the experienced public servant who knew how to get things done. The only issue that they directly sparred on directly with each other was the war in Iraq, which Biden voted for as senator and Sanders opposed.

After the two main contenders, the middle of the pack at Thursday’s debate was represented by California Senator Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. The also-rans included John Hickenlooper, Colorado’s former governor; Colorado Senator Michael Bennet; New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand; California Representative Eric Swalwell; writer and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson; and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

There is hardly any difference in terms of the leftward-leaning direction the candidates want to take the country. The differences among the candidates lie in their styles of delivery and the speed of transformative change they want to bring about.

The candidates were totally aligned with each other in making President Trump their punching bag. There were 52 mentions of Trump during this second debate, 17 more than on the first night.

Sanders spewed the most pejoratives, calling President Trump a racist, a pathological liar and a phony in one breath. He said that he would expose President Trump as “the fraud that he is.” Biden said that President Trump has ripped the soul out of America and destroyed alliances. Harris called the president America’s leading national security threat. Hickenhooper called him “the worst president in history.” Williamson accused the president of “harnessing fear for political purposes,” which she said she would counter with “love.” And so on.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/democratic-debate-kamala-harris-criticizes-joe-biden-busing/

The headline out of tonight’s debate is going to be Kamala Harris starting off the second hour by turning to Joe Biden and just kicking the snot out of him on the previously long-forgotten issue of forced busing in Delaware. No older white male wants to get into a fight about racism with a younger African-American woman in a Democratic presidential primary. Biden tried to defend himself by first contrasting his work as a defense attorney with Harris’ record as a prosecutor, then moved on to a not terribly convincing, “I did not oppose busing in America; I opposed busing ordered by the Department of Education,” and then he cut himself off. Septuagenarians who have been in the Senate longer than I’ve been alive should probably avoid the term, “my time is up.” Biden would have been better off defending his stance on the merits, declaring that busing kids across town to new schools away from their homes was angering parents and exacerbating racial tensions instead of healing them.

One night won’t sink the Joe Biden campaign, but boy, did he look like he had a glass jaw, and he also seems to have aged a decade since he left the vice presidency. When asked what his first priority as president would be, Biden answered that it would be defeating Donald Trump.

This night shouldn’t have gone this badly for him. “Build upon what we’ve done” is probably a more reassuring and appealing message than completely scrapping the entire existing system of private health insurance.

Separately, Michael Bennet went after Biden on making a deal with Mitch McConnell extending the Bush tax.  This is a really interesting contrast to Wednesday night, when no other Democrat bothered to go after Elizabeth Warren, the highest polling candidate on stage.

Beyond that exchange, Kamala Harris came prepared. During one particularly irritating moment of shouting and crosstalk, she silenced the cacophony and declared the audience “doesn’t want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we’re gonna put food on the table.” (Is it the job of the president to put food on your table?) She seemed to be wanting to replay the Obama style – simultaneously casual, personal, and inspiring. The also-rans might want to start diverting some of their fire to Harris, because otherwise, she will just demolish every candidate ahead of her.

Bernie Sanders shouted almost every answer, and seemed even more cantankerous than usual, insisting that a quote he gave to a Vermont newspaper was “mischaracterization of my view.” When Swalwell went back to the “past the torch” line, Biden just smiled a “get a load of this guy” grin while Sanders’s eyes bulged and he seemed to fume. Sanders stood out when standing next to the likes of Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb. This is much tougher competition, and he’s having a tougher time.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/democrats-lurch-left-on-abortion-immigration-and-health-care-in-first-debate/

Miami — It was supposed to be Elizabeth Warren’s night to shine, but it didn’t quite work out that way. Now in third place behind Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in the national polls, Warren was the only candidate on stage Wednesday night polling in the double digits (with her Democratic rivals registering somewhere between 0.4 percent and 3.3 percent). Nevertheless, both Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke persisted in speaking more than Warren during the debate. Many more viewers were googling Booker’s name than Warren’s.

That’s not to say that Warren had a bad night. She was poised and got in her populist progressive lines about the need for “structural change” to fix the “corruption pure and simple” that plagues our country and the economy. She went after Big Tech and gave a forthright defense of abolishing private insurance and replacing it with a government plan. “Yes, I’m with Bernie on Medicare for All,” she said. Her defense of abolishing private insurance gave heartburn to some liberals worried about how it will play in a general election. “I am just simply concerned about kicking half of America off of their health insurance in four years,” Amy Klobuchar said at the debate. But Warren’s stance will probably help her continue eat into Bernie Sanders’s base in the primary.

Yet at other times Warren didn’t seem like quite so bold of a progressive. She dodged a question from moderator Chuck Todd about whether the federal government should do anything more than pass an assault-weapons ban to confiscate guns. “Treat it like a serious research problem,” Warren said after Todd pointed out she didn’t answer the question.