Did Howard Dean Explain Why he set up the 6 Debate Schedule ?

[JI7]

maybe he is biased against it since he didn't do well in debates when he was running and without them he thinks he would have won the nomination.

[Thinkingabout]

1. Maybe he was trying to save other candidates who do not do very well in debates.

[JonLeibowitz]

32. Your reasoning is consistent with his endorsing Hillary Clinton, for sure. Good Thinking! n/t

[Thinkingabout]

36. No, it may be the knowledge Sanders is not a good debater.

[JonLeibowitz]

37. Your opinion, not 'knowledge'. As a Sanders supporter I would love to see many more debates.

It would make Sanders even stronger for when he faces the Republicans in November.

[Thinkingabout]

38. So far in the debates it has not been revealed they have made

Sanders stronger, in fact debates has brought to the fore front Sanders weakness in the area of foreign affairs. He has had several opportunities to redeem himself in talk shows and again he leaves the foreign affairs subject and deflects to his financial statements.

[JonLeibowitz]

39. My opinion is that when people hear Bernie speak it is always a good thing.

If Sanders had weakness in the area of foreign affairs then he would be the one that made a disastrous blunder in invading Iraq. But wait, that was Clinton (who according to you has superior knowledge in foreign affairs). And Libya. Oh wait, that was Clinton. Since when have Democrats considered the Monroe doctrine of foreign policy to be a weakness?

As to deflections to financial statements, the occurrences to which you refer he was asked a dual question about national security as well as his vision for the country. So he answered both in the same question. Not a deflection

[Thinkingabout]

40. No, he deflected Sunday on MTP, it was not a dual question.

I do listen to Sanders speak, I do not like his position on several issues.

[Midnight Writer]

2. OK, I'll bite, although I suspect this is a setup

Howard Dean had nothing to do with setting up the debates, the schedules or the participant qualifications.

Howard Dean is not the Chair of the Democratic National Committee and has not been since 2008.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is the current Chair of the Democratic Committee and it is she and her staff who negotiated the debate schedule with the news networks.

[djean111]

30. He said he was the one who set it up, yesterday, when on TV with O'Malley.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=955306

Howard Dean is hosting Morning Joe this morning and O'Malley is the guest. After O'Malley dissed DWS for the small number of debates, Dean said that he (Dean) was actually the architect of the 6 debate schedule, but asked why O'Malley and Sanders didn't just schedule their own debates, inviting Clinton to participate if she wanted to, if they felt they wanted more than the "official" ones. O'Malley said that he had reached out to the Sanders campaign proposing exactly that, but said that the idea was rejected and that Sanders didn't want to have more than six debates. I thought that was interesting, if true, and had not heard that before.

DWS said the SHE created the debate schedule. And the debate rules clearly state that any debating each other outside of those six debates would be excluded from further DNC debates. Bernie did not take O'Malley's invitation to debate outside of the DNC schedule, and Bernie did publicly call for more DNC debates. The spin, eagerly lapped up and swallowed here by non-Bernie followers, is that Bernie just did not want for debates. Which is bullshit.

Looks like I will be voting for Bernie come hell or high water. What a duplicitous field. IMO and all that.

[Tanuki]

3. He says it was to protect the candidates from excessive demands to debate 20 0r 30 times

http://wamc.org/post/howard-dean-discusses-democratic-debate-schedule#stream/0

[brooklynite]

4. I think you're misinterpreting what he said...

...he was referring to the 2008 Primary when there were six debates sponsored by the DNC; other debates were sponsored by other entities.

[JonLeibowitz]

33. Convenient of him and MOM to ignore the exclusivity clause. How cute they must think they are! n/t

[MADem]

5. No, but Sanders' staffed explained that he didn't really like debating--it wasn't his strength. nt

[Uncle Joe]

6. Apparently that's why all the focus groups and on line polls of people viewing the debate in

real time overwhelmingly thought Bernie won the debates.

[MADem]

10. Sanders said he didn't want more debates to Martin O'Malley, too. Unless MOM is lying--and I don't

think he is.

If you're going to hang your hopes on a single focus group (not "all" -- I only saw one that favored him at all, and I think it was run by everyone's favorite bewigged wingnut, Frank -cough/bullshit- Luntz) and those Reddit-run "Bernie Brigaded" online polls, you just go on ahead and do that.

Rest upon those laurels, now!

[Live and Learn]

11. I'll put Sander's honesty reputation up over O'Malley's anyday.

And we needn't even speak about Hillary's.

[MADem]

16. So what are you saying? That MOM isn't telling the truth?

He is misrepresenting his conversation with Sanders?

That the staffers in the NYT article were lying?

What ARE you saying, precisely? Everyone fibs, even Sanders' staff--and the only one truth-telling is Bernie?

[Live and Learn]

19. Yep! I am calling a lie a lie. nt

[MADem]

20. How ... FASCINATING!

[Live and Learn]

22. Glad you find the TRUTH facinating!

[MADem]

26. I do, actually--and I appreciated learning it in that NYT article.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/29/top-bernie-sanders-aide-rankles-those-in-and-out-of-campaign/

[Live and Learn]

27. The article which has been previously discussed and shown not to state what you are claiming?

Are you sure you know the definition of truth?

[MADem]

29. It's obvious that you enjoy the gift of literacy.

It's not terribly difficult to read. Here, I'll give you the link yet again:

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/29/top-bernie-sanders-aide-rankles-those-in-and-out-of-campaign/

[Uncle Joe]

41. There were three focus groups from the first debate, Bernie won them all.

If the corporate media has held focus groups since, they've been hidden.

Bernie overwhelmingly won the Internet, when CNN used real time viewers of Facebook to grade the first debate and they realized that Bernie was kicking ass, they immediately denigrated the people on Facebook by referring to them as "kids" five times in under one minute and thirty nine seconds, before and while releasing the results, now that took some effort.

The vast majority of people on Facebook are over 25 years of age and probably older than Don Lemon.



Bernie has repeatedly called for more debates and that the schedule of them was rigged as well, Bernie has also stated that he won't participate in unsanctioned debates, that was the question that Dean put forth and O'Malley at best spoke a half truth with his answer.

[AgingAmerican]

8. Did his 'staffed' say that?

Well if his 'staffed' said that it must be gospel!

[MADem]

9. Ooooh, mock me roundly for a typo now!!!!!! Go on!!! Give me a beat-down!!!!!

It is gospel. They're quoted as saying so -- his "staffers" that is. Ooooh--and Martin O'Malley as well--unless we want to throw him on the "Big Old Liar" pile, too...?

Here--let me give you a LINK to PROVE what I said:


http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/29/top-bernie-sanders-aide-rankles-those-in-and-out-of-campaign/?_r=0

As for the Sanders campaign’s approach to the party committee, people briefed on the flap about the number of debates believe that Mr. Sanders has fed on outrage against the D.N.C. that was created by others, not his own team, in efforts to deal with the data issue. These people described Mr. Sanders’ team as decidedly less emphatic in private discussions about having more primary debates than they have been in public, realizing that debates are not his strength.

Mr. Briggs denied that claim. But in an interview on MSNBC on Tuesday morning, Martin O’Malley, the low-polling Democrat who has pushed the hardest for more debates, seemed to confirm that Mr. Sanders had not been aggressively seeking to buck the party establishment.

“I asked Senator Sanders” to do more, said Mr. O’Malley. “Senator Sanders didn’t want to do more debates either. He kind of liked where it is.”

Sounds like Sanders' supporters are, once again, not doing their candidate any favors.

[Live and Learn]

12. We forgot that was your job. nt

[MADem]

14. Ha, ha--and Sanders STILL didn't want more debates!

I guess the people whining that he did are now out of a job, eh? They'll have to find something else to complain about!




Do go on and keep making it about "me" though--it proves a point I've made off and on for a long while.

[Live and Learn]

15. Nope, but Hillary STILL voted for the Iraq War! nt

[MADem]

17. And Sanders wrote some ill-advised essays that are denigrating to women. nt

[Live and Learn]

18. Essays that you apparently couldn't understand and which in no way compare to killing thousands

regardless.

[MADem]

21. Oh, I understand them just fine.

The one on cancer was particularly elucidating. As was the one on child-rearing.

[Live and Learn]

23. I don't think you do! nt

[MADem]

24. You probably need to do some googling. nt

[Live and Learn]

25. You probably need to do some soul searching, if it is still possible. nt

[MADem]

28. Take your own advice, there, sport.

Do you really think you're changing hearts and minds with that kind of commentary? Holding the "high ground" with that sort of snark?

Live and Learn
25. You probably need to do some soul searching, if it is still possible. nt

If your goal is to bring people TO your candidate, you're doing a ghastly job of it, you know! Then again, in the context of the attitudes on display in that NYT article, you're just a happy member of the pack, it would appear...

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/29/top-bernie-sanders-aide-rankles-those-in-and-out-of-campaign/

[beam me up scottie]

35. Don't bother responding to him, he's been pushing the "rape essay" meme for months.

He doesn't seem to realize that most adults are capable of reading it in context and understanding it was about gender stereotypes.

He hasn't convinced one person to stop supporting Bernie but that doesn't stop him from posting it over and over again

I don't know one intelligent person who read that essay and was scandalized by it. Some people should read more I guess.

[JonLeibowitz]

34. What makes you think that "people briefed on the flap" means anyone in the campaign?

It's a story based on anonymous sources and entirely unreliable. I would say I am shocked to see it in the NY Times, but then I really am not anymore.

[TSIAS]

7. I don't know

However, he may have won the nomination had he not been rat-fucked by a number of his Democratic opponents that year.

[Live and Learn]

13. +1000 Though that doesn't explain his turnabout.

As a former Deniac, I am greatly disappointed.

[jfern]

31. Dean never set an exclusion rule

In 2008, there were 6 DNC sponsored debates, and 20 other debates.

[GeorgeGist]

42. Dean is currently a Hillary proxy.

Everything he says publicly, regarding Hillary, is to benefit Hillary.