Thread by @BBuchman_CNS

Bernie Sanders opens the Dem debate tonight and at the top, attacks stop and frisk and argues Bloomberg isn't electable.
When Bloomberg takes the first Q, he says if Sanders is the candidate, "we'll have Trump for 4 years."

Warren goes in on Bloomberg, calls him an "arrogant billionaire" and "a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians."
Warren says we shouldn't trade one arrogant billionaire for another.

Klobuchar says she's been told many times to step aside and says she isn't going to do that, refering to Bloomberg memo.

Bloomberg says his record managing NYC was effective and argues it translates well into the presidency.
Biden says look at the polls, he can beat Trump.
Buttigieg swings at Sanders and Bloomberg saying if these are the options, they are too isolating to be viable.

Buttigieg claims Sanders wants to "burn the party down" - go back and check the rally tapes, honestly. Sanders has been calling for unification behind whoever the Dem nominee is at each of his rallies, fwiw.

Sanders swings at Buttigieg. If its polarizing to care about the working class, if its polarizing to care about small donors funding campaigns instead of billionaires like those who donate to Buttigieg campaigns...then yeah, that's "polarizing"

Q on Sanders supporters to Warren: Warren says candidates must do more to take responsibility for actions of supporters of their campaigns.

Sanders says there are millions of followers on Twitter who are "loving people" who are not interested in vicious attacks and are interested in progressing the movement underpinning his campaign. He then says unequivocally he disowns those supporters who launch these ugly attacks

Buttigieg says "leadership is what you draw out of people" and is making the argument that the Sanders campaign motivates people to behave poorly.
Klobuchar says you end "sexism on the internet" by electing a female president.

Sanders responds to assertions by Klobuchar and Buttigieg that Medicare for All is a pipedream: Let me be clear to Culinary Workers Union: I will never sign a bill that will reduce the healthcare benefits they have, we will only expand it for them & for the working class

Warren is apparently feeling the pressure of lagging in the polls.
She singles out each candidate, calls Klobuchar approach to healthcare a "post it note;" calls Buttigieg plan akin to a "power point"

Klobuchar quips, "I take personal offense since post it notes were invented in my state."

Klobuchar says voters take offense at blowing up ACA, it needs to be improved as-is
Sanders, after crosstalk, says somehow, Canada, all of Europe can do it, but "Gee whiz, somehow or another, we're the only country on earth who can't do it. Why is that?"

Sanders cites the outsize $100B in healthcare industry profits, RX drug industry, then he dings Buttigieg saying industry CEOs contribute to Pete's campaign "and others up here"

Sanders: "Maybe it is finally time we said as a nation, enough is enough, the function of a rational healthcare system is not to make the pharmaceutical industry rich, it is to provide healthcare to all people as a human right. No premiums, no copays no deductibles."

Biden says he was the one who came up with ACA, who led the charge with Obama on it.
Warren again zings Klobuchar for her healthcare plan, saying its just two paragraphs.
Klobuchar, says 'OK, That's it" but she is not called on to speak

Short break for me folks. Back soon.

Holt asks Bloomberg to address history of stop&frisk: Bloomberg says he's "embarrassed" then says he felt it got out of control. When he discovered there were "too many" incidents, he cut it out.
A court ordered him to stop it. He fought against it.

Fact check on Bloomberg: cnn.com/2020/02/15/pol…

I had to write a story! What did I miss?!

Oh I see all the gloves are on the floor.

Fairly certain I heard answers correctly - during a debate for the Democratic nomination.

On the last question of how that nominee should be chosen: of all candidates, only Sanders said he believes that the person with the most delegates should win the nom.

K.

This convention is going to be, what I would describe academically, as bonkers.

Warren says she's been a politician the shortest time of all on stage but the one out fighting for families the longest time.

Biden gave his closing remarks and was interrupted by what sounded like protestors.

I was tweeting in an unofficial capacity tonight, but a colleague at @CourthouseNews will have the full story to look out for in case you missed tonight's #DemocraticDebate.

@CourthouseNews My unsolicited and perhaps most obvious assessment of that debate: very strong night for Elizabeth Warren and after lagging in polls, her campaign needed it.

@CourthouseNews Bloomberg on the other hand... That........ was tough.

I don't think you want people hissing and booing at you during your first debate appearance.

@CourthouseNews Buttigieg scrappy. I think his chief success, as a press person looking at this - he managed to eke out, at the least, a few sound bites against the pack leader that his campaign can use ad nauseum

@CourthouseNews Sanders hit the usual suspects of his platform, disowned the negative rhetoric/violence from his so-called supporters and got a few zingers off while sometimes being bogged down in the back and forth scrapping w/Buttigieg. Whether it hurts him with voters in NV or SC, we'll see.

@CourthouseNews Klobuchar, a woman I have watched for some time as I've covered her in committee hearings, expressed more midwest rage than I thought was possible.

@CourthouseNews And I say that because though her performance tonight had a lot of ups and downs - she worked overtime to affix Mayor Pete to a wall whenever she could. She had no patience. "Are you calling me stupid?" "Not everyone can be as perfect as you Pete"

@CourthouseNews Biden struggled tonight. That was ugly. The onus is on his campaign to convince people that depsite his abominable poll numbers, he is electable. Perhaps people felt he accomplished that in this debate. I did not see it.

I appreciate those folks engaging and giving their thoughts about tonight even if we appear to disagree. That's democratic!

What happens next, time will tell.

But I will say this - Bloomberg's campaign aides have their work utterly cut out for them.

All fun aside, I am a big proponent of lifting up your preferred candidate by extolling their merits, not tearing down another candidate. Selling people this way, I humbly argue, is the more effective maneuver in the long term and foments a more productive political discourse.🤷‍♀️

To clarify - politicans are going to politician. I prefer to see them engage in civil discourse and fierce debate but they must swing at each other and expose weakness to win. The voters though, that's where I want to see higher minds, ideals and attitudes prevail!