The horse race analysts got plenty to talk about from the first Democratic presidential debate and they will be spinning it in all directions for the next few of days. For now, take a step back for a moment and try to think about how the more attentive swing voters perceived the Democratic debate in comparison to the Republicans versions.
What was missing last night was any trace of the bullying, name-calling, internecine acrimony, snarling ridicule, bigotry, misogyny, rudeness and general chaos, which characterized the GOP presidential campaign. What alert viewers saw last night was a debate which was remarkable for its civility, sobriety and even cordiality.
Sure the candidates cast a few zingers toward their opponents during the evening, but all of it was in the ballpark of grown-ups respectfully airing their differences, while affirming their common ground. The false equivalency journalists will have a tough time of trying to link the Democratic and Republican debates as similar.
And all of that is just the tone part.
In terms of substance, credit the Democrats with the mettle to address critical issues all but ignored by the Republicans in their debates. In their Huffpo article “9 Issues Democrats Just Debated That Have Been Almost Completely Ignored By Republicans,” Nick Wing and Ruby Mellen note that Democrats discussed in significant detail racial injustice, campaign finance reform, domestic surveillance, Wall St. reform, income inequality, college affordability and diplomacy. Try to find a salient quote about any of those topics from a Republican presidential candidate in their two debates. Tammy Luhby reports at CNN Money that “Democrats said ‘middle class’ 11 times; the Republicans just three.” Luhby adds, “the Democrats mentioned “income inequality” six times, while the Republicans never uttered it.”
As for the “who won” discussion, so far NYT and WaPo pundits give the nod to Clinton for her polished presentation and well-crafted answers. But Sanders held his own and projected an image of a candidate with genuine principles and real concern for struggling Americans. Gov. O’Malley’s closing statement was startlingly good — where has this guy been hiding?
As of this writing, it’s unclear whether Vice President Biden will join the fray. The strong performances of Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley don’t leave a lot of daylight for Biden to squeeze in, although he also would bring debating skills and gravitas to the Democratic campaign, which the current stable of Republican candidates lack.
There can’t be much doubt, however, that the Democratic Party had a very good night and will buzz well at water coolers across the nation today. What swing voters who watched the Democratic debate last night saw was a party with three strong, credible and exceptionally well-informed leaders, any two of whom would provide an impressive presidential ticket — especially compared to the “leaders” of today’s GOP.

The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner has an insightful take on “What to Watch for in Tuesday’s Debate” in terms of Clinton’s strategy:

Clinton needs to get out of a self-infecting cycle of bad publicity, in which everything she does is dismissed as calculating and contrived, even when it represents creative movement on issues. Sanders merely needs to take care to come across as fighting for the forgotten American on the issues, as he nearly always does, but not too radical in his personal style.
In the past few weeks, Clinton has made several dramatic moves in Sanders’s direction. She has broken with the administration on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, on the Keystone Pipeline, and on the so-called Cadillac Tax on high quality health plans (she is for repeal; the White House is not). She is out-flanking Sanders to the left on gun control, and she is at least as comfortable talking about race.
…In the inside game, Clinton needs to persuade the activists associated with the Democratic Party, especially the labor movement, that she can be as much their champion as Sanders can. She needs to reassure her own core supporters (who might be tempted to defect to Biden) that her candidacy is not fatally damaged by recent missteps.
..Clinton, in short, is necessarily playing a much more complex game than Sanders. Much of her posture is directed at a potential candidate who will not be on stage–Joe Biden. A great deal of her positioning is aimed not just at Sanders, but at dissuading Biden from getting into the race.

Clinton will have to provide clear answers — and good soundbites — in response to the badgering she will receive about her emails, discrediting the accusations as baseless, politicized complaints, without seeming arrogantly dismissive. A challenge for her, and for all of the candidates, is not to bristle when under attack.
As for Sanders, Joan Walsh notes at The Nation:

…Sanders has improved his rhetoric and his outreach since those early clashes. He hired Symone Sanders, a young African-American activist on issues of mass incarceration and racial justice, away from Public Citizen to be his communications director. And where he once sounded as though he believed the achievement of genuine economic justice would lead automatically to racial justice, he now routinely talks about dismantling the incarceration state and other measures specifically designed to reverse black disadvantage.
On guns, Sanders has riled activists with a handful of votes against gun regulation. He voted against the 1993 Brady Bill, to allow weapons in national parks and checked baggage on Amtrak, and to offer gun manufacturers immunity against suits by gun victims. In condolence remarks after the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina last summer, Sanders didn’t mention the issue of guns.
But Sanders has improved his rhetoric and his outreach since those early clashes. He hired Symone Sanders, a young African-American activist on issues of mass incarceration and racial justice, away from Public Citizen to be his communications director. And where he once sounded as though he believed the achievement of genuine economic justice would lead automatically to racial justice, he now routinely talks about dismantling the incarceration state and other measures specifically designed to reverse black disadvantage.
…The big question for Sanders is whether he can put together an electoral coalition to get the nomination, and win next November. On that score, the debate can’t help but help him. Sanders still polls dismally among African-Americans; in a recent YouGov poll he got 8 percent of their votes; in a South Carolina poll released Monday (that’s the first primary state in which the black vote will be significant), he was at 4 percent. But a lot of that has to do with his being much less known to black voters than Clinton or Vice President Joe Biden. The first debate gives him a chance to bring his appeal to a mass audience.

Many political observers have expressed skepticism about Biden’s chances, should he eventually decide to run. A new Reuters poll indicates, however, that a Biden candidacy would have substantial support, even though he won’t be in the first Democratic debate:

Biden will not be there, but 48 percent of Democrats surveyed in the Reuters poll wish he were a candidate, compared with 30 percent who said he should stay out. Independents were split on the question, with 36 percent saying Biden should stay in and an equal share believing otherwise.
But support for Biden’s entry into the race does not translate into equal passion for his candidacy. Just 17 percent of those surveyed said Biden would be their first choice, while 46 percent would back Clinton. Biden would also run behind Sanders, who remains the favorite of one fourth of Democrats surveyed.

Lawrence Lessig, the crowd-funded academic who is focused on one issue — campaign finance reform, also will not be at the debate, since he has been polling below one percent.
Regarding the longer-shot candidates, who will all be looking for a possible “Fiorini moment,” Catherine Lucey and Ken Thomas of the AP quote former MD Governor Martin O’Malley on the challenge he faces tonight:

“This will really be the first time that nationally voters see that there’s more than one alternative to this year’s inevitable front-runner, Secretary Clinton,” O’Malley said.
“It’s a very, very important opportunity for me to not only present my vision for where the country should head, but also 15 years of executive experience, actually accomplishing the progressive things some of the other candidates can only talk about,” he said.

Ed Kilgore adds at The Washington Monthly, “If there’s any justice, though, Martin O’Malley probably deserves a post-debate bump. The guy did things the way you’re supposed to, spending many obscure days and weeks in Iowa before anyone was even thinking about the presidential race.”
Rachel Weiner writes at the Washington Post that “If there’s a chance for a wild card on the stage at Tuesday’s lead-off Democratic debate, the smart money’s on former senator Jim Webb of Virginia.” Weiner quotes Webb campaign spokesman , who provides a clue as to the persona Webb will try to project: “We have the best candidate to deliver economic fairness, social justice and common sense foreign policy, unbought and unbossed by anyone.”
With respect to Lincoln Chafee, Lucey and Thomas write, “Expect Chafee, the former senator and governor from Rhode Island, to go after Clinton for her 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq. Chafee, at the time a Republican, opposed the invasion and he’s said Clinton’s support for the war, which she has more recently called a “mistake,” is at the center of his decision to run.”
Much to the relief of many Democrats, regardless of their candidate preferences, there will certainly be a vigorous debate, instead of a ‘coronation,’ which would surely be frowned upon by swing voters. The hope is that tonight’s forum will generate light, as well as heat — a big distinction from what has been going on in the GOP debates.

“It’s time to call out the recent flurry of new state law restrictions for what they are: an all-out campaign by Republicans to take away the right to vote from poor and black and Latino American citizens who probably won’t vote for them. The push to restrict voting is nothing more than a naked grab to win elections that they can’t win if every citizen votes…Now it is time for Republicans to step up to support a restoration of the Voting Rights Act–or to stand before the American people and explain why they have abandoned America’s most cherished liberty, the right to vote.” — from Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s recent speech to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute.

Will the Democratic presidential nominee have coattails in 2016? Alex Roarty probes the possibilities at the National Journal, and notes “The link between Sen­ate cam­paigns and the pres­id­en­tial race will be es­pe­cially strong in 2016, when many of the mar­quee Sen­ate con­tests–Flor­ida, Pennsylvania, Wis­con­sin, New Hamp­shire, and Ohio–double as pres­id­en­tial battle­grounds.”

At The Upshot Brendan Nyhan cautions Democrats not to get overly optimistic about the effects of Republican disarray in the House of Reps.

Crystal Ball’s Kyle Kondik also remains skeptical about Democratic chances to take back a House of Reps majority in 2016, but he nonetheless sketches out three ways it could happen — none of which seem all that implausible. Same for some combination of all three paths to GOP defeat.

According to the New York Times editorial board: “With the 2016 presidential election just a year away, the vast majority of states are still getting by with old machines that are increasingly likely to fail, crash or produce unreliable results. The software in them, mostly from the 1990s, doesn’t have the capabilities or security measures available today…A study released last month by the Brennan Center for Justice found that nearly every state uses some machines that are no longer manufactured. And 43 states are using machines that will be at least 10 years old next year, close to the end of their useful lives. A member of the federal Election Assistance Commission told the report’s authors, “We’re getting by with Band-Aids.”
On the eve of the first Democratic presidential debate, WaPo’s Rachel Weiner discusses Jim Webb’s opportunity and strategy.

Some interesting stats on the growing influence of the Asian American vote in CA and the U.S. from Stephen Magagnini’s report at the Sacramento Bee: “Despite making up 14 percent of California’s population, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans comprise about 8 percent of legislators, or nine members…Only 37 percent of eligible Asian American voters turned out in November 2014, which may have contributed to the low representation…Asian American numbers are predicted to surpass Latinos’ in the U.S. by 2055, according to the Pew Research Center…”

For the definitive, all-encompassing mother of all round-ups featuring what everyone thinks about Gallup ditching horse-race polling, all you have to do is click here.
Might make a good bumper sticker: “Chaos — the GOP’s New Normal.”

Re all of the yada-yada about “authenticity” of political candidates, Michael Tomasky calls it out: “I hate authenticity. Authenticity sucks. It’s a substitute for critical thought and actual argument, and the political media harp far too much on it…I can’t tell you the number of straight-news reporters who’ve said to me over the years something like: Yes, okay, Ted Cruz or Lindsey Graham or whoever may be a little out there, but you know what? At least he really means it. What you see with him is what you get. To which I would rejoin, well, that’s fine, but so what; all that means to me is that when he starts World War III or resegregates our school system via his court appointments or gives the 1 percent another whopping-big tax cut, he’ll be doing so sincerely…I’d much rather have a president who inauthentically raises the minimum wage and passes paid family leave than one who authentically eliminates the federal minimum wage and does what the Chamber of Commerce tells him to do on all such matters.”

From “We All Get ‘Free Stuff’ From the Government,” a NYT op-ed by Bryce Covert: “In a 2008 poll, 57 percent of people said they had never availed themselves of a government program, yet 94 percent of those same people had in fact benefited from at least one — mostly through what the Cornell professor Suzanne Mettler has called the “submerged state,” or the huge but often invisible network of money spent through the tax code…Jeb Bush, however, is almost certainly aware of the freebies available through taxes. (According to one analysis of his federal income tax returns, he himself has saved at least $241,000 since 1981 through the mortgage interest deduction.) Just days before he vowed not to promise voters more free stuff, he put out a tax plan that would give out a whole lot more of it.”

Three recent polls show a stat tie in NC Governor’s race, despite low name recognition for Democratic challenger, state Attorney General Roy Cooper.

Michelle Everhart of the Columbus Dispatch reports that a new Quinnipiac poll pegs Ohio voters support for medical marijuana at 90 percent and for recreational use at 53 percent. “What’s unclear is whether those people will vote for Issue 3, ResponsibleOhio’s plan to legalize both types of marijuana use. The issue is on the ballot statewide.”

At JSpace News, Erica Terry’s “Godwin’s Law Has Brought Us Ben Carson’s Hitler Gun Control Theory,” explains “Nevermind that Germany’s strict gun laws date to 1919, were the result of the Treaty of Versailles, predated the rise of Hitler, and were actually loosened under Hitler’s reign,” writes Terry. “Nevermind that the largest known example of Nazi resistance, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, saw armed Jews try and ultimately fail to defend themselves and their families due to the unmatched numbers of the SS. Nevermind that Israel, the globe’s largest single population of Holocaust survivors, is a place where it is incredibly difficult to purchase a gun. Nevermind that the fate of European Jewry in the 1930s was arguably decided not by bullets, but by a largely silent civilian public.”

If you’ve been wondering about what’s going on with the Webb presidential campaign, try Max J. Rosenthal’s Mother Jones post, “Is Jim Webb Really Running for President? An Investigation. He’s maintaining a suprisingly low profile.”

At The New York Times Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer Marin Cogan reports that, in the wake of the Kevin McCarthy debacle, “Republicans Are Calling Their Party a ‘Banana Republic.’ It’s More Like a Failed State.”

Also at The Daily Intelligencer Jonah Shep addresses the mess in his round-up “How the Right Is Reacting to the House Leadership Crisis.” The most chuckle-worthy nugget comes from Ed Rogers, who tries to smear a little lipstick on the pig, calling it “an opportunity to have a good debate and a good contest for this vital leadership position within the Republican Party.”

Ed Kilgore notes at the Washington Monthly that the Speaker of the House doesn’t have to be a member, flags some humorous and frightening possibilities and invites his readers to offer suggestions in a similar spirit. They come up with the Kims – Davis and Kardashian, “Heckuva Job Brownie,” and a Reagan hologram, among other outsiders.

Perhaps it was overshadowed by the growing chaos in the House Republican Conference, but this has been a week also marred by back-and-forth media wars between journalists claiming inside knowledge that Vice President Joe Biden did or didn’t personally promote the “story” that his late son made a deathbed request that he run for president. This caps months of mostly unsourced media speculation on the subject, much of it expanded on by Republicans and conservative media always happy to push a “Democrats-in-disarray” narrative.
I finally made an exasperated plea at the Washington Monthly:

[I]t’s time for the vice president to publicly say “Yes,” “No” or “Maybe” to a presidential run instead of letting this bizarre speculation continue perpetually. “Maybe’s” fine with me; I’d personally be fine with him admitting he’s offering himself as a fallback option if something terrible happens to the field. But sorta kinda running for president via media hints that are turned into attacks on Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and the Democratic Party itself should no longer be an option. I have no direct evidence on the question of whether or not Biden is personally fanning the speculation, but have no doubt he’s the one person who can resolve it.

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post echoed this sentiment today:

It was right and good that Democrats gave Biden plenty of space to make his decision. But at this point, every additional day that goes by makes his own viability that much less realistic. He’d have to ramp up a campaign organization and raise a huge amount of money in a ridiculously short amount of time. At what point do we get to say that a Biden candidacy is no longer plausible?
If Biden wants to tell us that he’s prepared to enter the race down the line, but only if it really looks like Sanders is going to win the nomination, that’s fine — at that point, all bets would be off anyway. We just need him to say something more concrete.

Gallup has had it’s share of critics among Democratic Party supporters in recent years, including contributors to TDS, who felt that bias was built into its methodology. For better or worse, however, Gallup, likely enjoys the highest name recognition among all pollsters. No doubt, then, that many will interpret Gallup’s abandonment of horse race polling during the primary season as indicative of a decline in public regard for polling in general.
You won’t have much trouble finding well-stated criticism of Gallup’s horse race polls lately, especially since they have had a couple bad years (2010 and 2012). At FiveThirtyEight.com, however, Harry Enten explains “Why we’re worse off without Gallup“:

Gallup uses rigorous polling methodologies. It employs live interviewers; it calls a lot of cell phones; it calls back people who are harder to reach. More than that, it took the criticism it received after the 2012 election seriously, even bringing in outside help to figure out what went wrong. Gallup rates as solidly average in FiveThirtyEight’s pollster ratings in large part because of those techniques. It’s had two bad elections recently, but it’s never a good idea to judge a pollster on just a couple of election cycles; Gallup has also had good years.
Polling consumers are far better off in a world of Gallup’s than in a world of Zogby Internet polls and fly-by-night surveys from pollsters we’ve never heard of. There is plenty of shadiness in the polling community, and Gallup seemed to be opening its doors.
Gallup says it will still conduct issue polling, but here’s the problem: Elections are one of the few ways to judge a pollster’s accuracy. And that accuracy is important: We use polls for all kinds of things beyond elections. How do Americans feel about the economy? Do elected leaders have the trust of the public? Is there support for striking a deal with Iran? By forgoing horse-race polls, Gallup has taken away a tool to judge its results publicly.

Enten acknowledges that there will still be plenty of pollsters doing horse race surveys. As Steven Shepard notes at Politico, Editor-in-chief Frank Newport’s Gallup announcement did have a smidgeon of wiggle room in it:

Asked whether Gallup plans to skip horse-race polling for the entire 2016 primary process, Newport said, “That’s certainly what we’ve decided to date.”…And Newport also wouldn’t commit to horse-race surveys for the general election…”We have not made final decisions on what we are going to do in 2016 yet,” Newport said.

Think of Gallup’s retreat from the horse race circus as an experiment. They can always reverse their decision if it begins to look unprofitable to them. For now, I give Gallup’s big quit a thumbs up. More emphasis on thoughtful issue polling is certainly needed, and the value of early horse race polls in the primary season can be fairly described as dubious. Moreover, if Gallup can purge bias from their methods going forward, they could have a more positive impact on data analysis of U.S. elections.