Here’s my advice for Martin O’Malley and, to a lesser extent, Bernie Sanders. If you’re talking about process, you’re losing. I don’t know how the presently planned debate schedule compares to prior years, but we don’t need 19 debates before New Hampshire. To be clearer, it makes sense to complain about process if you can thereby get the process changed in a way that favors you, but if you can’t change a thing then you just come off looking weak and ineffectual, and you lose an opportunity to say something that might distinguish yourself from Hillary Clinton.
Jim Webb did better than O’Malley in Minneapolis simply by not going. He went with his daughter to set her up in college rather than getting headlines about how “the debate schedule is rigged.” Lincoln Chafee understood what his job was and used his brief moment in the spotlight to point out that he isn’t mired in controversy or scandal. That’s a pretty incomplete platform for a run for the Democratic nomination, but it was a shot at the frontrunner that people actually care about. It was also risky since most Democrats aren’t pleased to see people pile on Hillary Clinton over what they consider to be overhyped concerns about her State Department email server. The reason it made sense for Chafee is that Democrats are nervous that Clinton will get torn apart over her reputation for concealment and dishonesty. It doesn’t have to be a deserved reputation to sink her chances in the general election, and it’s a risk that is worth mentioning.
Running to be a candidate with less drama attached is a starting point. Running to be the candidate who got shortchanged on the debate schedule by the DNC?
That’s just incompetent campaigning.
I’m not really thrilled with any of our choices in this election. Outside of their individual problems Clinton, Sanders, Chafee, and Biden are too old. I know it’s crappy to say and ageist but I think the times have passed them all by and we haven’t elected anyone as old as them for quite a while.
That leaves O’Malley who has his own issues. He seems to be saying the right things like all the others but his history in Baltimore is very disturbing.
I think Sanders said something positive about the debate schedule. As it is, the more the process looks fixed the more support he’ll get.
If either Sanders or O’Malley want a shot at the nomination they need to spend less time counting debates and more time counting delegates.
In general you are right.
In this instance I think you are wrong. The polling in Iowa and NH is pretty clear: people want a race.
Given the attention the Fox debate attracted, it is strange there isn’t a debate.
The last thing Hillary needs is the perception to grow that she is arrogant and trying to rig the process.
I should add that historically debates have had a huge effect on primaries. In 1984, for example, Hart was dead in the water in Iowa until a January debate in Des Moines.
Here is the problem for Clinton – the fewer the debates the more the focus – she is setting herself up for a failure that will be magnified.
Is that really a problem for her, though? That, or the perception of arrogance? There isn’t really an alternative. I mean, it’s like when my cable company pisses me off. Where else am I gonna go?
(I’ve got a Bernie sticker on my car, and I’ve sent his campaign money. But still.)
It’s SOP Clinton MO. Better to take the flak for something that appears unseemly than risk having whatever is being shielded, or potentially needs to be shielded, from being exposed.
Entitled.
I heard it in ’07 to describe her about the nomination. She felt entitled.
I think it absolutely hurt her. It will hurt her again this time.
I still think it is VERY hard to see anyone else winning (though the rumor mill claims the Des Moines Register Poll this weekend will have everyone talking).
But she seems intent on making maximizing the chance that she does figure out a way to lose.
Yes, that’s the perception of people outside the Clinton inner circle. However doubt that they ever see that themselves b/c the root of their actions are always based on calculations to win. So, my perception is that they are cunning and calculating. It not only doesn’t always work but also comes back and bites them in the butt.
The calculating to get a Clinton restoration go way back. The timetable modified by events and the actions of the two of them.
I don’t want a debate- i want a round table discussion. I want the candidates to talk together and lay out the various Dem perspectives on the issues.I want the public, esp. Dems, fired up about the issues and the possibilities moving forward. I want a united Dem platform that will confront the stupidity and wrong-headedness of the GOP. I want to hear each candidates take on those issues so I can make up my mind which person takes the issues the closest to what I want to see.
At this early stage, I don’t want podiums; I want the honesty of conversation between intelligent people.
“I don’t know how the presently planned debate schedule compares to prior years.”
That’s weird. You usually know that stuff–or at least take the time to look it up. I don’t know how the schedule compares, either. I presume it’s more-or-less the same. If it’s wildly different, however, then it’s a perfectly legitimate thing to discuss. Just like if Trump is being portrayed different from Clinton by the media …
Also, I didn’t know Webb was still running (for some reason, I thought he’d folded his tent already) but this complaint reminds me that O’Malley exists. That’s not a terrible thing, for a candidate.
For openers, he’s long been in the Clinton/DLC camp. Probably never expecting that by the time he ran for POTUS that a Clinton would still be running.
Baltimore Sun 2012:
Being handed that prime speaking slot on the national stage, he blew it.
2014 election: O’Malley’s hand picked Lt. Governor lost his gubernatorial race to a Republican that had never won a prior election.
2015 — Baltimore protests, a direct outcome of O’Malley’s “tough on crime” policing as Mayor of Baltimore.
The one thing a POTUS candidate scrapping the bottom of the barrel should never, ever do is whine about the party fixing the nominating process, even when it’s true which is most of the time. Always better to be a dignified loser and than a whiny loser. He’s now taken himself out of contention for VP (probably wasn’t on anyone’s short list anyway) and unlikely to be a viable POTUS candidate in the future.
I think the Baltimore riots pretty much shot any chance he had.
Baltimore Sun: State ethics board examining Martin O’Malley’s purchase of mansion furniture
How other than mattresses and some odd bits and bobs becomes junk in eight years needs some explaining.
Echoes of Clintons Return White House Furniture
It’s small stuff but demonstrates poor judgment that looks like sticky fingers. Not a quality the public should want in public officials.
Like cheating on your expense account. Easy to do, but if you get caught, that couple thousand can be serious.
Seems we are building our own progressive bullshit mountain. What Bernie said wasn’t that the Republicans won the elections that gave them the House and Senate plus way too many statehouses but that the Democrats had lost those elections. The single reason he cited: Low Democratic voter turnout. Why: A political process that generates no momentum or interest. This is indeed a very dangerous process created by our Democratic leadership that has handed Republicans win after win. The reason our Democratic leadership wants Hillary so bad is because if Bernie wins the nomination and gets elected, that same Democratic leadership is in trouble because the political revolution Bernie is talking about will end their long beltway careers. The last thing Hillary wants are debates in an issues oriented campaign because it will expose her for the Corporatist Democratic empty pants suit candidate that she is. Now we seem worried that this exposure will put the Donald in the White House, a real risk if she’s nominated. Dull on our side is why Republicans have gained so much power and why limiting Democratic debates is so dangerous even if they think they’re protecting Hillary’s inevitability. Bernie was calling for having debates with Republicans during the primaries but that was completely ignored by our Democratic establishment. We should worry.