welcome to week ten. this week sees a lot of smaller candidates making news and getting their own little sections and pieces. the opinion section is once again short, and [LONGFORM] gains some representation for the second week in a row.

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 1 • Week 2 • Week 3 • Week 4 • Week 5 • Week 6 • Week 7 • Week 8 • Week 9

News

General Stuff

• from NPR: Biden, Sanders Highlight Familiar Split In Democratic Party. we begin with the two frontrunners, biden and sanders, and the broader issues surrounding them. most of these are familiar refrains: they're both white men in a field that is very much not exclusively white and male; but also, they're two very divergent candidates. sanders is seeking transformation of the US, biden is seeking more of a status quo ante. there are also outstanding questions about whether or not the party is eventually going to come together in spite of all of this.

• from Buzzfeed News: Democrats Running For President Say Social Media Companies Have A White Nationalist Problem. Some Think Regulation Should Be The Answer. regulation of the internet and the big corporations is already an issue, so buzzfeed asked around with respect to hate, and in summary:

• Biden, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Michael Bennet, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Rep. Tim Ryan, Gov. Steve Bullock, and Mayor Wayne Messam: did not comment
• Sanders: supports regulation of platforms
• Harris: would hold social media companies accountable for the “hate” spreading across their platforms; believes companies have a “responsibility to help lead the fight” against the “threat to our democracy.”
• Buttigieg: in favor of applying the same strategies used to combat “foreign radicalism” to address domestic white nationalism
• Booker: "part of the problem with dealing with these issues is getting the social media platforms to even acknowledge that they have a problem on their hands"; however, did not clarify if he’d specifically support regulating social media companies to curb white nationalism
• Williamson: “The companies should shut down hate speech that incites violence. I support regulation of the platforms so they are not used to perpetrate violence on blacks, Jews, the media, or others”
• Moulton: “Social media companies must take the lead in developing the rules and processes necessary to combat white nationalism online”
• Inslee: “I applaud Facebook for its recent decision to ban praise and support for white nationalist ideals, but this is a beginning to a solution and not an end.”
• Castro: “[Banning white nationalist content] is a start, but they're playing catchup and need to do better at extinguishing hate speech quickly.”
• Yang: appreciates Facebook’s move after the Christchurch shooting but that the social platforms are not in the best position to figure out what changes are needed to curb white nationalist violence.

• from Buzzfeed News: Almost All The 2020 Presidential Candidates Say They Want To Make Roe V. Wade Law. it may seem unsurprising, but pretty much every democrat--even the 1% randos like wayne messiam, marianne williamson, andrew yang, seth moulton, eric swalwell, and others--supports roe v wade explicitly, according to buzzfeed. the two people who did not respond to their requests for comment are bill de blasio and tulsi gabbard.

Joe Biden

• from POLITICO: Biden nets fundraising windfall in 2-day Florida swing. biden began the week by casually raising 2.2 million in a swing around florida. this is one of a series of several fundraisers since biden announced; according to POLITICO biden raised $700,000 earlier this month in Hollywood, and $700,000 of the $6.3 million biden raised in the first 24 hours of launching his campaign came from an event.

• from Slate: The Premise of Joe Biden’s Campaign Is That Every Left-Wing Criticism of the Democratic Party Since 2008 Has Been Wrong. slate's article takes the stance that joe biden is essentially bucking the democratic orthodoxy since obama's first win in trying to work as a bipartisan candidate, appealing to white-working-class voters, and by continuing to use big donors over grassroots organization. so far, it's working pretty well--but see also that NPR article above which notes much of this so far is seemingly driven by name recognition.

Beto O'Rourke

• from POLITICO: Slumping O'Rourke looks to regain mojo at prime-time town hall. beto o'rourke has slumped pretty badly in the past few weeks, and this has led him to take on something he said he wouldn't really do: cable television. this townhall was o'rourke's first big media appearance, amazingly enough, and it's a part of his changing strategy toward the media as he seeks to figure out how to actually become relevant again in the primary.

• from FiveThirtyEight: Beto O’Rourke Ignored Cable News — And It Ignored Him. unfortunately, o'rourke's reboot has come to largely coincide with a few new candidates. consistently behind the major frontrunners of the campaign already in terms of cable news mentions, o'rourke got pushed behind new york dipshit bill de blasio for the week of may 12, which is laughable. this will probably not help him any.

• from POLITICO: O’Rourke feels 'really good' about 2020 campaign. o'rourke is still optimistic, though, about his chances. he rejects the media's narrative that his bubble has basically burst and that his fleeting Candidate of the Month moment has passed.

Elizabeth Warren

• from the Atlantic: Elizabeth Warren Takes a Different Strategy to Court the Black Vote. warren's approach to the black vote is getting some attention from the media this week. education policy and other policies related to racial discrimination are the crux of warren's approach here so far, with a particular emphasis in this case on things like funding for HBCUs (which have been pushing for such for awhile now). for the most part, this has been received quite well by the black community--it is up in the air though whether or not warren's policies could pass congress though, which is... bad, to say the least, about a lot of education reform.

• from the Guardian: 'Let's figure this out': Elizabeth Warren's calls to supporters delight the internet. warren's also been calling up supporters randomly, which has caused quite a bit of internet attention. to my knowledge she's the only person to really make this a part of her campaign so far, and while this has been done in the past by candidates, it hasn't really been done to the extent warren's been doing it recently (she's been doing it since she announced her campaign!)

• from Vox: What’s behind Elizabeth Warren’s comeback in the polls. warren has seen a slow, but steady uptick in her polling for about the past month, amounting to a movement of about 3 points. that's not much, of course, but it's allowed her to solidify her position as the 3rd place candidate in the primary on average. she also is one of the net most liked people in the primary and it seems like she only has an ability to go up.

• from the Center for Public Integrity: Elizabeth Warren decries big money in politics. Her campaign treasurer embodies it.. it's not all good for warren, though. her campaign treasurer, Paul Egerman, is tied to a number of positions on campaign finance that stand in apparent contradiction to how warren is angling herself. this is obviously not a deal breaker for the overwhelming majority of people, but it is a mild annoyance that probably could have been avoided.

Kirsten Gillibrand

• from the Guardian: [LONGFORM] Kirsten Gillibrand can't break through – is sexism to blame?. the guardian has an interesting piece on the course of the gillibrand campaign so far, and whether or not sexism (or gillibrand just not being that compelling of a candidate and lacking the national profile to break through) is to blame for her failure to really get anywhere with future primary voters. the answer is probably both: gillibrand simply isn't that interesting and doesn't have enough recognition, but she's also not being aided by the media in that end.

• from CBS News: Kirsten Gillibrand proposes "Family Bill of Rights" to make raising children safer, more affordable. policy-wise, gillibrand has proposed the "family bill of rights". CBS reports the following:

Focusing on various aspects of childcare up to kindergarten, Gillibrand said her plan "levels the playing field starting at birth" for children and parents.
The plan also aims to fight pregnancy complications and maternal mortality by "providing states and hospitals with access to new resources to develop and implement standardized best practices." Gillibrand also proposed solutions modeled after a 2017 bill introduced by former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, which called for funding to study maternal and obstetric health records in rural regions of the country.
The "Family Bill of Rights" would implement equal adoption rights meant to prevent discrimination against prospective parents belonging to any religion, socioeconomic class, or gender. To make adoption more affordable, the plan offers a refundable tax credit for families that have adopted.

• from Vox: Kirsten Gillibrand’s new policy platform is about making parenting affordable. Vox also has a good breakdown on the tenets and ideas the plan brings to the table. compare also elizabeth warren's ideas.

• from POLITICO: Gillibrand zeros in on abortion in wake of new state laws. most recently, gillibrand has honed in on abortion rights, although as the article notes even this scantly distinguishes her from her better known, better polling counterparts.

Cory Booker

• from Vox: Cory Booker wants banks to stop charging so many overdraft fees. in between campaigning, cory booker is taking on overdraft fees, trying to get a bill passed which would: "bar banks from imposing overdraft fees on debit card or ATM transactions. It would also curb the number of overdraft fees that could be levied on check-based transactions and prohibit banks from reordering the sequence of user activity." i imagine if this does not get passed, he will probably start campaigning on it (provided he isn't already).

• from POLITICO: Booker builds out campaign team. booker's campaign team is being built up this week. among other things, his team is taking on a number of clinton campaign staffers, EMILY's List folks, and a few staffers from 2018 gubernatorial and senate campaigns.

John Hickenlooper

• from CBS News: John Hickenlooper releases plan to reduce gun violence. john hickenlooper released a plan on gun violence, which to my knowledge makes him the third or fourth candidate to do so. compare cory booker's plan to combat gun violence; the two are relatively similar, but also have quite a few differences.

• from NPR: Former Colorado Governor And 2020 Candidate Urges Distance From 'Socialism'. hickenlooper has also clearly sorted himself to the right side of the pack already, mostly through his emphasis on bipartisanship and distancing himself from the left-wing shift of the party. hickenlooper was known for being fairly moderate as colorado's governor, it should be noted, so this is not out of character for him.

Everybody Else

• from POLITICO: Kamala Harris says she now backs independent probes in police shootings. kamala harris came out in support of independent probes into police shootings, which appears to be the first time she's come out in support of this during her political career:

“I had a very real, personal experience where I had to fight to keep my case — and my argument was, ‘I was elected to exercise my discretion, and no one’s going to take my case from me,’” Harris said in the MSNBC interview. “It was that personal experience that informed my principle, which is that these cases shouldn’t be taken from the person who was elected to exercise their discretion.”
But Harris said it’s now clear to her that there needs to be an independent entity brought in to probe the recurring shootings and brutality by police officers from the beginning.

• from the Guardian: 2020 candidate John Delaney pitches vastly unusual climate change plan. john delaney, the first candidate to announce for the 2020 presidential primary all the way back in 2017, has an unorthodox climate change plan. in essence according to the Guardian, his idea is "to capture carbon dioxide pollution heating the planet and transport it in pipelines criss-crossing US" which is... novel? i guess? this is of course not going to happen. delaney is a <1% poller and he has no profile at all, but add it to the list of ideas.

• from NPR: Julián Castro Wants To Redefine Which Immigrants Have 'Merit'. julian castro has mostly been focusing on immigration issues, which shows in his interview here with NPR. this is unsurprising for fairly obvious reasons--castro being the hispanic candidate that he is and mostly drawing his support mostly from hispanics.

• from Buzzfeed News: [LONGFORM] Democrats Like The Idea Of A Gay President. But They Are Quietly Worried About Mayor Pete. pete buttigieg has been cruising fairly nicely since he entered the race, but behind the scenes it's unclear even among the democratic caucus whether or not he'd ever be able to get over the hump in the primary, much less the general. as this longform piece notes:

Nearly 30% of Democratic voters believe it is “always wrong” for “same-sex adults to have sexual relations,” a 2018 poll found. In a poll just last month, 86% of Democrats and left-leaning independents said they are “open” to electing a gay male president — but a majority said they didn’t think the country was ready.
That’s a stark contrast to 2007, when most voters said they thought the country was ready for a black president, and in 2015, when most voters said the country was “ready” for a woman.

it's also pretty likely that things would get wacky in the general, given that buttigieg is already drawing small, anti-gay protests.

Opinions & Other

• from the Guardian: The Democratic 2020 frontrunners are too old. And I say that as an old man myself. this opinion presents a common refrain with the frontrunners, who are all quite old and would be pushing it in age by the end of their first terms (much less their second term if they seek it). there's of course no real way to get around this short of electing one of the less significant, younger candidates, so...

• from NBC: Democrats shouldn't focus on impeaching Trump. They need to focus on beating him in 2020.. this is one of the other refrains, although it's less common. whether or not it's a valid one is debatable, though.

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there.

week nine is here, and while we don't have a lot of candidates this time, we still have a bunch of stuff to go through. the opinion section is back this week, since there were a few pieces of the sort, but it's pretty short this week. we actually have more [LONGFORM] tagged pieces this week than op-eds, so that's always interesting. anyways.

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 1 • Week 2 • Week 3 • Week 4 • Week 5 • Week 6 • Week 7 • Week 8

News

General Stuff

• from Buzzfeed News: [LONGFORM] “Abolish ICE” Was The Call Of Last Summer. 2020 Democrats Have Moved On.. despite the big hooplah surrounding this last year, it's been surprisingly quiet on the abolish ICE front since then, to the chagrin of many immigration activists. given the fact that it's fairly radical (despite ICE only being an agency since 2002), don't expect a lot of movement here; many of the democrats running who adopted the drumbeat last year have almost totally dropped it and show no signs of really picking it back up.

• from The Atlantic: [LONGFORM] The 2020 Presidential Candidates’ Families Look Like Americans’. this is an interesting piece which analyzes how even the "nuclear" family which we're all so used to has essentially ceased to exist on the campaign trail, on both sides of the aisle, and become more reflective of what you'd expect of such a large and diverse country:

Of the 24 candidates, eight have blended families: Donald Trump has children with multiple partners; the candidates Elizabeth Warren, John Hickenlooper, Bill Weld, and Joe Biden are married and have children from previous marriages, while Bernie Sanders is married and has a son from a previous relationship; Sanders, Tim Ryan, and Kamala Harris all have stepchildren. Seven are remarried divorcés or divorcées (Trump, Warren, Hickenlooper, Weld, Sanders, Eric Swalwell, and Tulsi Gabbard), and four have no children of their own (Harris, Gabbard, Pete Buttigieg, and Cory Booker). One has a spouse of the same sex (Buttigieg), one is a remarried widower (Biden), and two are unmarried (Booker and the self-help and spirituality author Marianne Williamson). Two candidates have at some point lived as single mothers (Warren and Williamson).

• from Pacific Standard: What Role Will Religion Play for Democratic Presidential Candidates in 2020?. religion has been largely absent from the democratic side of presidential elections for awhile, but interestingly even as organized religion starts to decay in america, this year you're seeing a few democrats pick up the banner of religion in their campaigning. this might be because WASP-types tend to vote heavily republican and even scalping a few of them or making them more hesitant to pull the lever for republicans could render a republican unable to win nationwide except in particularly unique circumstances--but it could also just be that there are a lot of candidates this year, and some of them just happen to be openly religious and democratic. either way, it's too early to really say how this will shake out in future elections, but keep an eye on it.

• from FiveThirtyEight: [LONGFORM] How Will Democrats’ Move Away From Caucuses Affect The 2020 Race?. a lot of states which used caucuses in 2016 are not going to be doing so again in 2020; in fact, the caucus system is basically dead at this point in the democratic party. besides turnout, though, it's unclear how this will actually affect the 2020 race. maybe the biggest subplot of this will be the party-run primaries some states will be having (which differ significantly from government-run primaries: "While state governments might open hundreds or thousands of polling places statewide for 12 hours or more, party-run votes might provide less than one voting location per county or keep the polls open for just four hours on primary day. These party-run affairs will likely offer forms of early and absentee voting in 2020, but seeing as they won’t be able to rely on the state-run systems that normally handle these kinds of election administration, it’s unclear how effective the parties will be at managing this on their own.") beyond that? shruggie.

Joe Biden

• from POLITICO: ‘Slow and steady’ strategy pays off for Biden. biden's early game so far has been pretty laid back compared to just about everybody else. this is very much intentional--biden has several reasons to not want to attempt the wild pace of everybody else, namely that he's old and gaffe prone--and so far, seems to be working. biden's lead has been retained thus far in the primary and doesn't seem to be really abetting yet.

• from The Atlantic: Joe Biden’s Bet That 2016 Didn’t Change Everything. this piece by The Atlantic goes into a bit of detail about the big bet of the biden campaign: "that in the four years since Trump launched his campaign, the country hasn’t changed, the Democratic Party hasn’t changed, and politics hasn’t changed." it's an interesting bet, one which i'm not sure is exactly correct. also, this feels like possibly the most accurate summary of biden's case for the presidency thus far:

[...]It’s early days yet in the Democratic primary, but Biden’s campaign is discussed in some circles as a self-fulfilling prophecy: that he will win the Democratic nomination simply because he appears the likeliest to win the nomination, that he will beat Trump simply because everyone is talking about how electable he is—not because voters are actually excited about him or the specifics of what he’s running on.

• from NBC News: Joe Biden at rally casts himself as candidate who could unify the nation. not surprisingly, biden's angling remains as the centrist unity candidate. in his words:

"I know some of the really smart folks said that Democrats do not want to hear about unity. The Democrats are so angry, the angrier that candidate could be the better chance to win the nomination. I do not believe it," Biden said. "I believe Democrats want to unify this nation."
[...]
"I am running to offer our country — Democrats, Republicans and Independents — a different path, not back to a past that never was but to a future that fulfills our true potential,” he said.

Elizabeth Warren

• from POLITICO: How Sen. Elizabeth Warren would protect abortion rights. warren is pushing a few new proposals on protecting reproductive rights. specifically:

Warren would call on Congress to pass laws enshrining the right to an abortion that would preempt any state attempt to ban the procedure or impose onerous regulations on abortion providers. She would also push for the repeal of the Hyde amendment, a long-time prohibition on federal funding for abortion and sign executive orders rolling back recent Trump administration moves aimed at cutting Planned Parenthood out of the Title X family planning program.

a lot of this is contingent on congress, you might note, and this is one of the big weaknesses of her plan here. democratic control of the senate in either 2020 or 2022 is far from a given, meaning that in the event they fail to take control of the senate this plan basically cannot go through since it'd fail on a party-line vote. (she might be banking on the democrats splitting the chamber 50-50 since it is unlikely they'd--in 2020 anyways--outright win the senate.)

• from CBS News: Elizabeth Warren introduces bill to curb defense lobbying. warren's also introduced a bill in congress which, among other things, seeks to "ban defense contractors from hiring senior officials directly from the Defense Department and extend to four years the ban on former generals lobbying the Pentagon", "[disqualify former contractors who join the government] from working on any issue that could help or hurt their former employer for four years", and "limit foreign governments' hirings of U.S. national security officials."

• from CBS News: Elizabeth Warren introduces plan to reduce military's carbon footprint. aside from abortion and lobbying, warren's also been busy with climate policy. specifically she's pushing for "the military to reach zero carbon emissions for all non-combat bases and infrastructure by 2030." this is a surprisingly ambitious goal, because the military's carbon emissions have been increasing recently.

• from Jacobin: How Warren’s Climate Defense Bill Undermines Itself. of course, warren's bill isn't without some controversy. jacobin argues that some of the provisions of the bill essentially undermine it completely, specifically the "market waiver" and the "war waiver":

WAIVER: the Secretary of Defense may waive the requirements of this section . . . [if] he determines that market conditions for a product or service make it difficult for the Department to acquire that product or service and the waiver will accelerate the Department’s acquisition of the product or service.
[...]
WAIVER: the Secretary of Defense may waive the requirements of this section . . . [if] he determines that meeting these requirements would adversely affect the national security interests of the United States . . .

in their view these waivers are likely to be exploited to such an extent by the government that they essentially offset any benefits the bill could have and render it incapable of addressing climate change in the way climate change needs to be addressed in the time we have.

• from In These Times: [LONGFORM] When It Comes to U.S. Militarism, Elizabeth Warren Is No Progressive. more broadly, In These Times makes an argument for warren being basically joined at the hip with military interests, even as she tries to address some of the biggest problems with it. specifically they note that her voting record outside of yemen on military issues is not the best, and they often stand in contrast to some of the policies and rhetoric she espouses on the issue.

• from Vanity Fair: Can MAGA Country Learn to Love Elizabeth Warren?. vanity fair notes meanwhile that warren seems to be gaining some traction with trump voters, at least on policy issues:

[...]In a recent focus group observed by Axios in Sioux City, Iowa, voters who flipped from Obama to Trump “strongly supported” Warren’s plan to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt for voters whose families made less than $100,000 a year. They echoed her message that many Americans are not reaping the benefits of a booming economy, pointing to stagnant wages and a declining quality of life. And there was a strong consensus that big financial institutions should be taxed to pay for infrastructure.
The only catch? The focus group wasn’t told that the student debt plan was Warren’s. All but 1 of the 11 Obama-Trump swing voters in the group said they would re-elect Trump if he were running against Clinton.

Kamala Harris

• from POLITICO: Kamala Harris' next target: Banning AR-15-style assault weapons. a few weeks back harris outlined her plan for gun control (Kamala Harris Says She’ll Take Gun Control Into Her Own Hands As President If Congress Doesn't Act), and this seems to be an extension of that. this would be an extensive measure:

Harris wants to ban AR-15-style assault weapon imports and suspend all other assault weapon imports until the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can analyze whether they should be permanently banned under U.S. law. Her campaign argues the weapons could be banned because they aren't "suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes." This includes all 44 AR-type models listed in the latest assault weapons ban that was introduced in Congress.

• from POLITICO: Kamala Harris: Biden would make ‘great’ running mate. one of the weirder subplots of the week is the row that's been stirred up by a few members of the Congressional Black Caucus suggesting harris would make a good running mate for joe biden. harris herself mostly dismissed this with the humorous jab in the title here, but...

• from POLITICO: 'It's infuriating': Kamala Harris team galled by Biden veep talk. ...her campaign was less than enthralled with this, to say the least. making it doubly awkward, harris is--as a significant black democrat--a pretty visible member of the CBC, so they had to figure out how to address this without egging this on further. this ultimately seems to have been where harris's jab came from:

Anticipating questions from news media on Wednesday, Harris and her advisers settled on the humorous one-liner, according to an aide.

harris remains committed to running for president, obviously.

Cory Booker

• from Mother Jones: Can Cory Booker Really Turn His Back on Silicon Valley?. a significant booker sticking point so far (although it's gone mostly unreported) is his desire to step in on silicon valley and social media; he's been angling himself in this way for the past few years. the problem with this, of course, is that booker has a long history with silicon valley himself. for the most part, he hasn't really been punished for this by the voters, it seems (not that there are many to punish him in the first place of course--he's sitting on like, 4% in the polls now), but it is a legitimate question whether or not his barnstorming on this issue can necessarily be backed up.

• from Buzzfeed News: Cory Booker Vows To Make Roe V. Wade The Law Of The Land As President. on another note, he is one of several candidates who have pledged to do this. not surprising, and i'd be shocked if anybody besides maybe biden eschewed eventually stumping on this, but it's interesting to see how openly people are running on this.

• from POLITICO: Booker campaign official urges donations for Gillibrand to ensure debate spot. also, perhaps demonstrating the extent to which democrats are trying to avoid conflict, booker's campaign is encouraging people to donate to the perennial disappointment of a campaign that gillibrand has been running so she doesn't miss out on a debate spot. kinda wild!

Everybody Else

• from Buzzfeed News: Bernie Sanders Has A Plan To Fix Racial Segregation In American Schools. bernie sanders unveiled a proposal combatting racial segregation in schools this week while swinging through the south on a four-day, four-state tour:

Sanders’ plan would ban for-profit charter schools, which make up a small slice of charters nationwide, and put strict limits on nonprofit charter schools, temporarily banning federal funding for new charters. Charter schools tend to be more segregated than public schools — the NAACP has called to ban them outright — though they are also popular among black voters.
[...]
One significant roadblock for Sanders’ sweeping plan: the reality that the federal government plays a relatively small role in K-12 education. The vast majority of money for education comes from states, which set their own policies; some states ban for-profit charters, and others allow them to proliferate.

• from Buzzfeed News: This Democrat Is Running For President Behind A $9 Trillion Climate Change Plan. jay inslee is getting some attention this week from the media, mostly for his extensive second climate proposal. seriously, it's huge:

Other notable components of Inslee’s new 38-page policy proposal includes investing $35 billion in clean energy and climate solutions research, a big increase over current levels; creating a $90 billion "Green Bank" at the federal level to help finance clean energy development; phasing out potent greenhouse gases called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, in line with global agreements; proposing federal agencies get all of their domestic energy production from clean energy sources and purchase only zero-emission vehicles by 2024.
To pay for it all, Inslee proposes a federal investment of about $300 billion a year, which his campaign anticipates will generate an additional $600 billion a year in outside funding. This adds up to $9 trillion in total investment over a decade.

• from POLITICO: ‘He’s white, male and gay’: Buttigieg hits obstacles with black voters. buttigieg is one of the few democrats who might have genuine problems appealing to black voters, most of which is outlined in this POLITICO piece. in a field this large with multiple minority candidates, he's going to have a hard time (and already is having a hard time, honestly) establishing himself as a candidate minorities should go for. for the most part, i think that his status as white is going to be the bigger barrier than him being gay (at least with the majority of black voters--the article notes the big generational disparity on that: "In 2017, 69 percent of African Americans aged 18 to 29 backed same-sex marriage, but just 40 percent of African Americans aged 65 and older did, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll."), but we'll see.

• from The Atlantic: [LONGFORM] Democrat Steve Bullock Won a Red State in 2016. Can He Beat Trump in 2020?. steve bullock is one of the latest candidates to throw himself into the woodchipper. hailing from the nominally red state of montana, though, he probably has a better case for the presidency than most of the perennial 1% polling crowd. this article mostly outlines who he is, what he wants, and what he's shooting for, because honestly unless you're a politico, you probably have no clue who he is or what he stands for (he's the governor of montana, for the record).

Opinions & Other

• from GQ: Elizabeth Warren Deserves Your Undivided Attention. this piece by drew magary is basically an op-ed, even though it's not labeled such by GQ. anyways, magary basically lays out all of the places where warren's policies would be good, and why in his view they'd be good. it's not that special nor is it the most elegant basically-an-oped ever written, but GQ doesn't exactly run a lot of pieces like this so i figured i shouldn't pass it over.

• from The Guardian: Joe Biden would be a disaster for climate change. this was a theme with last week's post where people raked biden for his awful climate change policy. maybe the biggest takeaway from this op-ed, though, is this line: "As atmosphere scientists Andrew Dessler told HuffPost’s Alexander Kaufman, Biden’s plans would “be more in line with stabilizing at 3-4C of warming, rather than staying below 2C”." this is... not optimal! it's actually barely an improvement over donald's policy, which is in line with 4C+ warming.

• from The Guardian: If New Yorkers won't back Bill de Blasio, nobody else will. oh, by the way, bill de blasio is running for president. nobody cares about him, though, and he's a perennial 1% candidate. super funny how badly he polls, though:

In a Quinnipiac poll last month, 76% of New Yorkers agreed that their mayor should not run for president. This included 70% of black voters, who usually make up De Blasio’s strongest base of support. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump pointed out, De Blasio was a standout in another poll, this time of national Democratic primary voters, for being the candidate with the highest unfavorability ratings. He was also the only candidate with net unfavorability, with more respondents having an unfavorable than favorable view of him. The Quinnipiac poll even showed that one-third of Democrats in De Blasio’s home city – what ought to be his main bulwark of support – disapprove of his job performance.

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there.

EDIT: minor spelling stuff

week six comes slightly early, because i have way too many links and i actually started writing this yesterday because it's just over a page and fuck writing all this in one day, lol. the [LONGFORM] tag continues and finally returns, offering up two pieces to us today.

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 1 thread • Week 2 thread • Week 3 thread • Week 4 thread • Week 5 thread

News

General Stuff

• from FiveThirtyEight: What The Potential 2020 Candidates Are Doing And Saying, Vol. 16. a pretty quiet week for most of the candidates. most of the highlights came after the end-date for this volume and will be reflected in next week's.

• from NBC News: Can a woman beat Trump? Some Democrats wonder if it's worth the risk. even though it's pretty inane, this topic is probably going to be a recurring theme, because voter preferences are some of the absolute weirdest, most unfathomably illogical shit possible. electability is a large part of why this is probably going to be a theme: clinton might have poisoned the well for all of this year's "first" candidates by fucking up in 2016, and that might make voters hesitant to pull the lever for another one. but again, who the fuck knows. voter preferences have an uncanny tendency to make zero sense.

• from the Guardian: Black female voters to Democrats: 'You won't win the White House without us'. another recurring topic is going to be the black female vote, which is consistently the most democratic bloc possible. in really any place where there's a significant minority vote, democrats have to turn these voters out significantly, and obviously presidential primaries and elections aren't exceptions to that rule. most of the candidates don't seem to be doing the best job of winning them over yet.

• from Reuters: Democratic presidential candidates seek union support at workers' forum. union voters could be significant in the democratic path to the presidency, and so you're seeing a lot of democrats try and angle themselves as union candidates also. which one will win out here? i have no fucking clue.

• from NPR: The Democratic Field Is Set: 8 Questions About What Comes Next. NPR offers up a series of questions about the trajectory of the primary, which will probably aid us in the coming months:

1. How far does name identification go?
2. It's there for Biden now, but can he prove himself?
3. Can Bernie Sanders expand beyond his loyal base?
4. Does Pete Buttigieg continue his momentum?
5. Does Elizabeth Warren find her lane?
6. Does Beto O'Rourke get edged out or does he find his way in?
7. Can Kamala Harris supercharge her candidacy – and fend off Biden in South Carolina?
8. Can others have a breakout moment?

Joe Biden

• from the Atlantic: Unlike His Rivals, Biden Sees Trump as an Aberration. we begin this week with how biden is framing his candidacy. one of the cruxes of biden's campaign is that trump doesn't reflect a change of values in the american public or even in the republican party, necessarily. in his view, the status quo hasn't really changed, and if we return to electing people like biden then trumpism will effectively cease. whether you buy that, i leave up to you.

• from Vox: The health care industry is betting on Joe Biden in its war against Medicare-for-all. another thing about biden is that he has very decisively positioned himself against medicare-for-all, which mostly reflects his status as an establishment candidate. this, as it happens, is super great if you're a lobbyist for the healthcare industry, which is unsurprisingly and firmly in biden's camp in this election.

• from Buzzfeed News: Joe Biden Backs A Public Option — Not Medicare For All — As He Argues For Electability. as far as biden is concerned though, this is mostly a matter of electability. among his other points of policy: "[a] on noncompete clauses ... a $15 minimum wage and ... a more simplified process for issuing professional licenses."

• from the Guardian: 'Battle for America's soul': Biden comes out swinging at first 2020 event. beyond that, biden also has this for policy: "reversing Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations" and "enacting the so-called “Buffett Rule” – which would apply a minimum tax rate of 30% on individuals making more than $1m". he's supposed to unveil more of this in the near future.

• from Slate: 10 Questions Joe Biden Needs to Answer About His Views on Race. Slate offers up 10 questions that they feel joe biden is obligated to give us better answers on, thanks in no small part to his incredibly long history of being a dumb politician who might now be on the wrong side of the political traintracks.

Bernie Sanders

• from Buzzfeed News: Bernie Sanders Is Getting A Shadow Organizing Campaign In The Midwest. bernie sanders has had a quiet week in the media, relatively speaking. one of the only notes from this week about him came in the form of people realizing that yes, our revolution does actually exist and yes, it does actually do things. the sanders campaign is probably going to need things like this to win this year.

Beto O'Rourke

• from the Guardian: Beto O'Rourke is coming to California. Can the trip redeem his campaign?. beto has been busy in california the past few days trying to drum up support, which is easier said than done because he's on the wrong side of a wave now. he's been quietly slipping in the polls for the past little while, to a point where he's now usually sixth or so in the order. will stumping in california help with this at all? probably not, but he's gotta do it at some point.

• from NBC News: Beto O'Rourke releases $5 trillion plan to combat climate crisis. on the policy front, he's finally getting around to expanding on what he's running on. his climate change plan is fairly extensive:

The plan begins with proposed executive actions, including rejoining the Paris climate agreement on day one of an O’Rourke administration and moving quickly to raise efficiency standards for buildings, cars and appliances. Longer term executive actions include setting a net-zero emissions carbon budget for federal lands by 2030 and adding more national parks and monuments to protect land and seascapes.
The meat of the O’Rourke plan is a promise to send Congress, as his first piece of legislation, a bill that would mobilize $5 trillion over the next 10 years to upgrade infrastructure and spur innovation — including more than a trillion dollars in tax incentives to reduce emissions, and $250 billion dedicated directly to research and development.

• from Buzzfeed News: Beto O’Rourke Is The Latest Democrat To Make Climate Change Central To His Campaign. Buzzfeed News helpfully fills in some of the other details, such as this:

His plan, starting day one in the White House, would include spending a record $5 trillion on climate action over ten years and mandating the US reduce its emissions to net zero by 2050. (This means the nation, by midcentury, would no longer be emitting more climate pollution into the atmosphere than it was pulling out of it through trees and other ways.)

Elizabeth Warren

• from POLITICO: Warren puts Bernie on defense. POLITICO pitches the interesting take that warren is putting sanders on defense by pushing a shit ton of policy. this seems... dubious? at best, given that warren is polling at literally half of what sanders does, sanders has greatly outraised her, and in general the two just have not interacted especially significantly at any point in the campaign so far. but a take is a take.

• from Truthout: [LONGFORM] Elizabeth Warren’s Student Debt Plan: An Outsized Economic Boon for People of Color. truthout provides an analysis of elizabeth warren's student debt plan, suggesting that it would be the best for people of color. this is interesting, because...

• from Slate: Elizabeth Warren’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Mostly Helps the Middle Class, Think Tank Finds. one of the big takeways most other sources have had is that it would be a boon for the middle class instead. figure that one out.

Pete Buttigieg

• from the Atlantic: Authenticity Just Means Faking It Well. this article is more about authenticity than it is about buttigieg, but its catalyst is buttigieg so i'm placing it in this section. what constitutes "authenticity"? who the fuck knows, honestly, but buttigieg is apparently it in a way that resonates with voters.

Opinion/Ideology-driven

• from Truthout: [LONGFORM] None of the 2020 Frontrunners Go Far Enough on Climate. Truthout opines that realistically, absolutely none of the current frontrunner candidates have a compelling platform on climate change that will work. this might change now that o'rourke has actually unveiled a comprehensive plan, but in general outside of inslee (who is running as The Climate Change Candidate), so far climate change hasn't really played much of a role in the primary.

• from the Guardian: Joe Biden is the Hillary Clinton of 2020 – and it won't end well this time either. this take opines that biden is basically this cycle's hillary clinton and that biden basically does not get it. perhaps the best distilling of this argument is in this paragraph:

Biden’s answer to Trump isn’t systemic change that will make America a more equitable place. He’s not offering progressive policies like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. His is the vaguest and most centrist of battle cries: let’s go back to, you know, “all those good things”. Let’s go back to a time where racism was a little more polite and white people could pretend America was a post-racial society. Let’s fight for the soul of America by pretending that Trump is the problem, not just a symptom of the problem. Let’s pretend that Charlottesville was a direct result of Trump – an aberration – and not a product of a racism that has always existed in America. Let’s rewind the clock a few years to when everything was just fine and dandy.

• from the Guardian: Bernie Sanders v the Democratic establishment: what the battle is really about. this piece takes an interesting alternative frame on the major split that seems to divide sanders from the rest of the democratic party. in essence, it is this:

The Shakir-Tanden debate about money in politics at Cap is also the larger debate Sanders is sparking in the Democratic party. Joe Biden opened his presidential bid by allowing a Comcast executive to host a fundraiser for him at his home in Pennsylvania. Sanders, on the other hand, has written off such fundraisers and is insisting on relying on small donor funders, not corporate executives or lobbyists.

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there.

EDIT: minor grammatical stuff