What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.
The foolishness of the Democratic National Committee’s policy on debates was on display again last night, as three knowledgeable, articulate presidential candidates met in a televised debate bound to draw relatively few viewers because of its timing. I decided to try something different and watch this debate without taking notes or live-tweeting, to experience the event more like a normal person would (to the extent that a person who spends a Saturday night during the holiday season watching a presidential debate could be described as normal). My impressions are after the jump, along with good links on the data breach that allowed Bernie Sanders staffers to access proprietary information about Hillary Clinton’s campaign from the voter file.
Although it didn’t get the biggest play online or on television, the most important political news of the week was arguably Congress approving legislation to fund the federal government through next September. Bleeding Heartland covered the Iowa voting and reaction here. Reading Representative Steve King’s lament about House leaders not including his nine “defunding” amendments in the omnibus budget bill reminded me of one of my all-time favorite King press releases. After House conservatives failed to get language into Homeland Security legislation on defunding President Barack Obama’s immigration-related executive orders, King’s official statement featured an image of interlocking fishing nets to illustrate his analysis: “The fish trap that Republicans have been swimming further and further into finally trapped them today. The White House is having a fish fry.”
The New York Times had to publish major corrections to another blockbuster scoop this week. Matt Apuzzo and Michael Schmidt, the two main authors of the inaccurate story about a San Bernardino shooter, also wrote the almost completely wrong New York Times front-pager from July about Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. The Times’ public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote a strong column about the latest screw-up, a “failure of sufficient skepticism at every level of the reporting and editing process.” Absurdly, the newspaper’s editors tried to blame the unnamed government sources for not understanding social media. Journalists need to confirm key facts before publication, because their anonymous sources may be leading them astray, either accidentally or by design.
One of the best long reads I’ve seen lately was this harrowing piece by Ken Armstrong and T. Christian Miller for The Marshall Project about a serial rapist and one of his victims, whom police wrongly charged with filing a false rape report.
For about 36 hours, Saturday night’s Democratic debate seemed likely to be overshadowed by news that broke late on Thursday: the Democratic National Committee suspended Bernie Sanders’ campaign’s access to the voter file after learning that Sanders staffers had accessed information about Hillary Clinton’s field operation. Few people covering this story had any clue how the NGP-VAN database works. One exception is Pat Rynard, who has used the voter file extensively while working on several Democratic campaigns over the past decade. To understand what was really going on, read Rynard’s selected tweets here and his Friday and Saturday posts for Iowa Starting Line. California-based Democratic operative David Atkins wrote another must-read piece on this controversy for the Washington Monthly.
I’m glad the DNC restored Sanders’ access to the voter file Saturday morning. Immobilizing his entire campaign because of a few people’s unethical behavior would be unfair. But the Sanders campaign pushed some false narratives on Friday, including a fundraising e-mail that fueled conspiracy theories about the DNC and statements to the press that downplayed the extent of the data breach. Like Atkins, I suspect that the Sanders communications staff did not deliberately lie to the media–rather, they were “not being told the whole truth by the people on the data team who were still making up stories and excuses to cover their tracks.”
The Sanders campaign’s Iowa state director Robert Becker posted in a Reddit thread that while the campaign was shut off from the voter file,
Our organizers and volunteers adapted in numerous ways: We canvassed the Star Wars openings statewide, utilized previously saved lists, re-used past walk-sheets. Bottom-line: Iowans came through and rose to the occasion.
(hat tip to Iowa Starting Line)
Since I wasn’t taking notes, my impressions from Saturday night’s ABC debate in New Hampshire are less detailed than usual, but for what it’s worth:
Hillary Clinton crushed the competition. I felt it was her strongest performance so far–certainly better than last month’s debate in Des Moines, during which she had a very rocky stretch. She sounded confident and capable. She skewered the Republican field and what those candidates would do to this country. When Martin O’Malley referred to her worst moment of the previous debate (talking about 9/11 when challenged about being too close to Wall Street), she turned the tables by noting O’Malley had no trouble raising money from Wall Street when he led the Democratic Governors Association. She used humor effectively (joking that “everyone should” love her when asked a ridiculous question about her likability). She didn’t get thrown off after returning to the stage a little late following one commercial break. I’ve seen some commenters claim she lied about ISIS terrorists making videos of Donald Trump to use for recruiting. To my ear, she was asserting that videos of Trump’s bigoted comments make a great recruiting tool for extremists.
Of the three debates so far, I felt this was Bernie Sanders’ weakest. His speaking style has a sharp edge, which I appreciate, but last night he came across as more angry than usual, especially during the first hour. No doubt the events of the previous two days were stressful, but he needed to tone it down a little before coming on stage. Sanders’ biggest blunder was not apologizing to Clinton for the data breach while answering the first question about the scandal. He did so only after a panelist prompted him with a follow-up question. I agree with Sanders on most of the foreign policy questions, especially regarding the unintended consequences of regime change, but he seemed so irritable on camera. During the second hour, as the topics turned toward his comfort zone, Sanders seemed to relax, and his performance improved. The last half-hour or so, he was very solid. He handled the question about his wife as a first lady extremely well, adding a nice compliment to how Clinton changed that role. Mr. desmoinesdem commented that Sanders’ closing statement was stronger than any final comment he’d seen from the candidate at any other event this year.
Martin O’Malley seemed to be trying too hard. Talking over the moderator doesn’t look good, even if O’Malley got away with doing it. Although he has a strong record on most of the issues and made some compelling points, he didn’t resonate with me. I particularly disliked when he jumped in to offer “another generation’s perspective” on one question. Age does not dictate a person’s views on any issue. In case O’Malley hasn’t noticed, the much-older Sanders is destroying him among the youngest eligible voters. I have some theories on why that’s happening, which I am trying to flesh out for a post in progress. I would welcome feedback from Bleeding Heartland readers on the phenomenon. The strongest moment for O’Malley in my opinion was his answer to the first lady question: would his wife give up her district court judgeship to take on White House duties? He said Katie O’Malley would make that decision, as she has always done, rather than letting her husband’s political life dictate her career choices.