Thread by @daveweigel

Another day, another Dem cattle call. Speaking to @NABTU this morning: Hickenlooper, Warren, Harris, Ryan, McAuliffe, Swalwell, Booker, Bennet, Klobuchar.

No Sanders on sked; he's on the other side of town rolling out the new version of Medicare for All during this session.

Hickenlooper setting the tone by laying out how Trump has sided w the right on labor issues: "It’s time we had a president who is proud to stand up for collective bargaining."

Most politically resonant part of Hickenlooper's bio is the period when he was laid off as a geologist. "You begin to see a different person in the mirror." Recalls how the government did "worse than nothing" by sending him to job training for a dead economic sector.

Hickenlooper on the "reform capitalism" train: "Other candidates may want to attack the private sector, but the private sector drives growth."

Hickenlooper tied everything back to his experience in business ("I said 'you're hired' more than 1000 times") while Warren is talking about working with labor to pass laws; early meeting on getting CFPB created, she notes, was at NABTU office.

First big applause for Warren comes after she tears into Trump over Janus decision. "I’ve got news for all the politicians and the corporate executives who think they’ve got unions on the run: Unions are not going away."

Warren also getting applause for her wealth tax, which, remember, polls very very well. "That's $2 trillion we could use to build a real 21st century infrastructure."

Another ovation for Warren: "It is time to put a stop to the so-called right-to-work laws that destroy unions. I've already introduced legislation banning states from passing those laws."

Warren emphasizing that the opioid crisis "hits construction workers extra hard," due to workplace injuries.

Warren making fun of the "advice" she gets: "I should back up. I should nibble around the edges of the problem. I should smile more."

Kamala Harris's rhetorical style is to say she's about to "speak truth," then say things that Democrats agree with. Here among the truths are that America needs more infrastructure spending and that "the economy is not working for working people."

Harris going point by point on what infrastructure is needed, though unlike Warren she isn't talking much about how to pay. "One million pipes are over 100 years old. You think those eroded pipes don't have something to do with the health of those communities?"

Harris: "We need to appoint a Secretary of Labor who actually cares about the dignity of labor."

Sec. Acosta was here yesterday... Trump, who seems to have dropped the idea of a big infrastructure bill, was not invited.

This NABTU crowd is unlike many that Dems have spoken at in DC recently -- overwhelmingly white and male. I've seen a couple KH lines that killed in South Carolina get a polite murmur here.

KH has a big inspirational style that didn't contrast well with Warren's rat-a-tat of specifics. "Let's reject what some are trying to sell us, that it's us against them."

Tim Ryan onstage: "The national emergency in the United States today is that the American dream, for millions of Americans, is on life support." Within 2 minutes, he is talking about the 1977 closure of Campbell Works in Youngstown.

Ryan: "I don't want to get into a big Russia thing, but Russia has tens of thousands of people who work in the Russian military, and they go online, and they find some big cultural rift, and they throw gas on these issues to divide us."

Ryan is bar none the shoutiest speaker of the day, describing existential threats to employment then making fun of Trump for being distracted. "Put the phone down! Let's get to work!"

Ryan is laying on the blue collar lines: "We need a real agenda that helps the people who take a shower after work, not just the one before work."

Between the lines I'm seeing a theory that Biden, who is *seen* as the blue collar candidate, can't hit these marks anymore.

Ryan even ends with a Biden-esque "when we're knocked down, we get up" ovation starter kit.

Terry McAuliffe up now, walking the crowd through the labor battles he won in Virginia, including how he went to Australia to lobby for VA jobs. "There is one elected official in Virginia who got on a plane and flew 10,000 miles to persuade them."

McAuliffe hitting Trump on a vulnerability that few speakers have hit today: Trump's vanished infrastructure plan. "You were gonna get YUGE infrastructure. It was gonna be 26 times the size of Hillary's! He hasn't even gotten off the couch."

McAuliffe, who has not declared anything yet, is repeatedly saying what he would do "as president."

Folks...

McAuliffe: "I have not made my decision yet. I am very close. But I'm serious... of all the candidates running, how many have wrestled a 280 pound alligator for a political contribution. If I can wrestle an alligator I can certainly wrestle Donald Trump!"

Michael Bennet, speaking to a slowly emptying room: "There's so many people in the Senate running for president that we should have car-pooled here."

Bennet has opened the speech by warning of the threat of China. Worth noting: In 2016, he was for TPP, then rebuked by unions, then went from undecided to against it. denverpost.com/2016/05/23/afl…

Bennet addresses the people (inc any in the room) who voted for Trump to blow up the system. "Congratulations, you achieved your objective. But now what are we going to do?"

Theater critic note: Bennet's baritone and occasional word-slurring reminds me of an interview with Eugene Landy-era Brian Wilson.

10 minutes in, Bennet is doing about as well in this room as Lenny Bruce used to at shows when he read the transcripts of his trial.

Some applause for Bennet after a drought: "You deserve a president who knows how hard you fought for the right to collectively bargain for your health care plans."

Bennet's close: "The stuff we need to do is hard, not easy. But it'll be a lot easier if we do it together."

It's a subject of some amusement that both Bennet and Hickenlooper are running; Hickenlooper blew him off the stage today.

*okay Bennet is not running yet but says he will if he beats prostate cancer

Now Cory Booker is onstage, and rolling: "Frederick Douglass was a union organizer!"

Booker talking about rail, a favorite subject: "While China was building 18,000 miles of high speed rail, our northeast rail line moves slower than it did in the 1960s. It's like we took the best house on the block and we trashed it."

Booker riffing on the construction projects he watched go up in New Jersey, "built the right way, with union labor."

"Don't tell me what can't be done! If we can turn around Newark, NJ, we can turn around America!"

Booker, remarkably, is the first of nine Dem 2020 candidates here to talk specifically about organizing new workers. "We've got to organize areas that weren't organized before, like home health workers, like the digital economy."

Booker gets one of the day's few organic laughs: "We talk building about a 'nation of tolerance,' as if that's an aspiration. Go home and tell the person you live with that you tolerate them."

Klobuchar's up, closing the morning speeches. "There's no such thing as a Republican bridge or a Democratic bridge. There's only sturdy bridges."

Klobuchar sharing a joke from her father about how he's battled alcoholism: "There's not a lot of ways to get drinks in assisted living."

Klobuchar: “We need a smart trade policy, not trade policy by tweet.” There is a small amount of laughter. “Thank you to that one person.”

Next up, our final speaker: Eric Swalwell. His intro music: The theme to "Beverly Hills 90210"

Swalwell, arguably the least known 2020 candidate, taking some time on bio: “My dad was a cop. My mom made doll houses in our garage, and had a large, probably unlicensed, day care facility in our living room."

Swalwell tells audience that his campaign staff has unionized: "We are recognizing them as members of the Teamsters local 238." Second campaign to do after Sanders.

Swalwell pitching public option (not Medicare for All) in part bc if protects what labor has: "If you like your union plan, keep your union plan. We must, for once and for all, repeal the cadillac tax."

Swalwell's campaign motto has gotten mocked on Twitter (what doesn't?) but he is repeating it again and again here: "Go big. Be bold. Do good."

Swalwell says that he'd hire a "blended" cabinet as president including "Republicans, plural." "I go on Fox News mainly so that my parents and relatives can see me on TV."