No, Debbie, Here's Who We Need To Watch *(UPDATED X 2!!!)

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Wednesday August 05, 2015 · 6:47 AM PDT

2015/08/05 · 06:47

I got an email yesterday from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the DNC, titled "Here's who we need to watch." It was an email that was actually advertising the GOP Primary Debate tomorrow night! Here's the whole thing:

Bruce --
Donald Trump. Jeb Bush. Scott Walker. Mike Huckabee. Ben Carson. Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio. Rand Paul. Chris Christie. John Kasich.

It's official: This is the GOP's A-team -- the 10 candidates who get to be on stage in the primetime slot on Thursday.

We already know that any one of these top Republican contenders would be a disastrous choice for president. That's why I'm going to be on the ground in Cleveland, watching closely so we're ready to fight back early and often.

RSVP here if you're planning on watching, too.

Here's what we know we can expect: Mudslinging at each other and promises to undo all the progress President Obama and Democrats have made over the last seven years. That's why we need our most committed supporters to be on the lookout with us and help push back. And that's exactly where you come in, Bruce.

Can we count on you to tune in on Thursday? Just click here and we'll send you a reminder (and you'll get access to play our online GOP Bingo game!):

http://my.democrats.org/...

We couldn't do this without you, Bruce.

Debbie

Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Chair
Democratic National Committee

Jesus. What a joke. Except it's not a joke.

Can we count on you to tune in on Thursday? Just click here and we'll send you a reminder (and you'll get access to play our online GOP Bingo game!)

So the Chair of the DNC, in a brilliant strategic move, is encouraging Democrats to inflate the ratings of the FOX News network as they go about the business of promoting the personalities and policies of the GOP Presidential field??? And she's hoping we'll use the DNC's Bingo game to make a fun night out of it???

This is not a game, Debbie, it's the most critical political juncture in the history of the world (and that's not even close to hyperbole) and your plan is for us to sit down with popcorn and Bingo cards and have some fun! Meanwhile, the whole country (and the world) is going to be subjected, without a countervailing event from the Democrats, to the distortions of the John Birch Society that has rebranded itself as the Modern GOP.

That's why I'm going to be on the ground in Cleveland, watching closely so we're ready to fight back early and often.

Notes to Debbie:

1) "Early" is passing us by. As of this date in 2007, the Dems had already had 6 POTUS candidate debates, with 3 more upcoming in just the next two weeks of that cycle. So much for "early."

2) "Often"??? How often? You've "scheduled" only 6 DNC Primary debates in total for the whole Primary season! In 2008, with Howard Dean chairing the DNC, there were 26 Dem primary debates, 20 more than you're seeing fit to hold. So much for "often."

3) "So we're ready to fight back?" What? We're not ready yet and we have to subject ourselves to what you correctly point out will be a tired rehash of the failed policies and character assassinations we've endured for decades? If we're not already "ready," we're in very deep shit, Debbie.

It's been 3 full months since you "scheduled" the DNC Primary debates, Debbie, and I'm putting quotes around "scheduled" because you haven't scheduled even one of them so far, only made vague promises that the first one will be this Fall. Fall officially ends on December 21, so if you keep slow-walking this, we might not see a Dem debate till just before Christmas.

Over the fold, I will get to the underlying problem.

Who we need to watch, Debbie, are the Dem Candidates juxtaposed to the GOP wrecking crew, in a debate setting where the country and the world can actually observe the difference between the two sets of candidates, one set proposing policies and ideas that will benefit the entire country and our environment, and the other intent on driving us off the multiple cliffs we're headed toward right now.

And no, it won't be enough for just you to stand in front of a FOX microphone after the debate tomorrow and present the Dem perspective as if you're representing all the Dem candidates. You are not neutral with respect to the Democratic field; we know that your loyalties lie with just one of them because you were her campaign co-chair in '08 and the main reason you're still chairing the DNC after the historic debacle of the 2014 midterms is because Hillary can count on you to run interference for her. That's exactly why we don't have DNC debates scheduled yet, because they're perceived as a liability for Hillary.

How do I know this? because Hillary began to lose her lead to Obama in an '07 debate and never got her momentum back. On October 7, CNN published a poll that showed Hillary 30 points ahead of Obama (a similar spread to yesterday's WSJ/NBC poll that has Hillary and Bernie 35 points apart). Then, two weeks later on October 30, there was a Dem primary debate in Philadelphia where Hillary stumbled badly on two items: immigration (she tried to straddle the issue of whether illegal aliens should be give drivers licenses) and secrecy (around the issue of Bill telling the National Archives not to release any communications between the two of them till 2012, which she tried to palm off on "the process").

Following that debate, in which Hillary was considered the loser, polling began to dramatically shift in Obama's direction. On January 5, just before the NH primary and on the heels of Obama's IA win, there was the Nashua NH "change" and "likeability" debate, following which polling showed Clinton and Obama tied.

Now there was obviously a lot more going on in the contest than just the debates, but it's incontrovertible that Obama's eventual Primary victory was aided in large part by the debate process. This is why we now have the slow-walking of the 2016 Dem debates. The longer they wait the greater the chance that Bernie will stumble and become irrelevant. He's already stumbled a few times and recovered, but a debate is a situation where Hillary can stumble, as she's shown she can do in the past, and that's a chance the DNC is trying to avoid till the very last minute.

It's time to give us a real contest, Debbie. It's time to stop favoring you favored candidate. It's time for the Dems to debate each other so that the country can compare us to the GOP, and time to stop letting them have the nationally televised stage all to themselves.

UPDATE: I just caught a news item from the Daily Beast that indicates the DNC will be announcing the debate schedule in a week or so. We'll see what happens. Not counting chickens just yet.

2:04 PM PT: IMPORTANT UPDATE!! voteforbernie.org is sponsoring a #WeWantDebate social media effort now. Go to their site and do your thing! http://voteforbernie.org/...

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No, Debbie, *Here's* Who We Need To Watch *(UPDATED X 2!!!)

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No, Debbie, Here's Who We Need To Watch *(UPDATED X 2!!!)