Matt Bruenig of the People's Policy Project: Warren got the worst of the wine cave exchange.

[highplainsdem]

Wanted to post this as an OP because this is the opinion of someone on the left of the Democratic Party:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/12/20/pbs-politico-december-debate-expert-roundup-088565

Warren got the worst of the wine cave exchange.

Matt Bruenig is the founder and president of the People’s Policy Project, a progressive think tank.

The biggest moment of the night came when Warren finally struck back against Buttigieg, who has been gradually siphoning support from her over the last two months. Warren predictably focused on the recently-leaked pictures of Mayor Pete’s gilded wine cave fundraiser and his general eagerness to raise money from super-rich people. Somewhat surprisingly, Mayor Pete got the best of the exchange when he pointed out that Warren’s net worth is 100 times larger than his and that Warren has herself participated in exactly these kinds of fundraisers in the past—and even rolled over money raised from those old fundraisers into her presidential campaign account.

Both candidates came out of the exchange looking bad, which is ultimately a bigger problem for Warren than Buttigieg, as it’s Warren who needs to find some way out of the quagmire Buttigieg has put her in.

As a liberal-but-not-terribly-leftist Democrat, I personally don't see anything wrong with Buttigieg wanting to raise money from rich people. (I'll change my mind on that if we ever get real campaign finance reform.) So I don't think the exchange made Buttigieg look bad to the voters he's likely to appeal to anyway.

But I thought it was interesting that Bruenig, who often backs Warren, thought the exchange hurt her more then Buttigieg.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. No matter how rich you are, you can't donate more than $2800 to a candidate.

The contribution-purity candidates, by bringing up this sort of thing, are implicitly suggesting that a candidate who accepts contributions from wealthy donors is corrupt, or at least corruptible. The suggestion is insulting - and anyhow, how much influence can be bought for only $2800? Right now we have a dumb election system that requires candidates to raise enormous amounts of money in order to buy advertising (just look at how Bloomberg is polling after only a few weeks and $30 million in ad buys). But as long as we are stuck with this absurd, wasteful, unfair system it's galactically stupid to handcuff yourself with your own purity test. Don't bring a spork to a knife fight, and don't look down your pure nose at candidates who are out there collecting and using legal contributions (maximum $2800, whether acquired at a wine cave or a roadside cafe) to buy the sharpest knives they can.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

3. You completely ignore bundling.

Why?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Bundled contributions are still subject to maximum donation limits.

It's not like you can show up at the wine cave and hand the candidate (or the bundler) a million bucks.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

15. No but a bundler can literally hand the candidate a million bucks in bundled funds

That’s why they are called bundlers.

Remember when we all howled at Bush and his designations of “Ranger” and “Pioneer” for his bundlers? I remember. The more funds a bundler bundled the better the access.

[Blue_true]

29. There is nothing wrong with bundlers if they are making their

efforts out of simple support to candidates. The notion that big bundling fundraisers are evil is senseless, and limiting for our side. We have gotten so sidetracked by the bragadacio of $27 per person contributions that we can no longer look at the core intent of donations, and Russian operative have taken advantage of the situation, setting up bots that make small money contributions, all designed to make democrats look bad and eventually help Trump.

[The Valley Below]

2. It was a huge mistake.

[crazytown]

5. Buttigieg was injured.

Last edited Fri Dec 20, 2019, 02:37 PM - Edit history (1)

Warren may have been injured more, but Sanders, Yang and Klobuchar all piled on. #WineCave lit up twitter and was ridiculed.

Link to tweet

[highplainsdem]

6. If Buttigieg needed the left-leaning Twitterverse for support, he'd have been injured. He doesn't

need it.

[crazytown]

7. Biden has not benefited from Warren's fall from polling grace.

That would be Buttigieg. They are direct competitors.

[highplainsdem]

10. I don't see Buttigieg as threatening Biden, but as another candidate

establishing that there are more "somewhat liberal," moderate and conservative Democrats than there are "very liberal" Democrats.

I'm fine with Buttigieg making arguments against the party going too far left.

And I expect almost all his support to go to Biden.

[crazytown]

17. "I expect almost all his support to go to Biden".

Buttigieg is flush with cash and in it for the long haul, but I doubt he will win many delegates.

[highplainsdem]

18. I expect his supporters to switch to Biden before very many primaries are held.

Especially if it looks as though Warren and/or Sanders would threaten Biden's front-runner status otherwise.

[crazytown]

20. Pete is Biden's dream candidate.

No matter how well he does in IA and NH (the stronger the better) he will bomb in the South and go a long way towards delivering the nomination to Joe. My 2c.

[highplainsdem]

22. I agree.

[TidalWave46]

14. People put too much emphasis on Twitter.

For example, only the people who watched the debate, and just happened to cross pass with the tweet you highlight, would even know what it was about. The same goes for the other half of twitter posts about it. A lot of people don't get that it has become an echo chamber of self selection with limited true influence outside of raising advertising revenues and helping to get breaking news out of very difficult areas around the globe.

[crazytown]

19. "only the people who watched the debate ... would even know what it's about"

Exactly. This is an OP about the impact on people watching the debate.

[TidalWave46]

23. That's why this point is insignificant and that point flows directly from my comment.

"#WineCave lit up twitter was ridiculed."

[Kahuna7]

8. It came across as petty to me. She was quite amused while Harris...

was going off about trump and twitter. Now she's getting rolled eyes over making a fuss about a fund raiser in a wine cave.

[crazytown]

9. Klobuchar, Yang and Sanders all made a fuss.

Klobuchar's 'wind cave', Yang's 'shaking that money tree', and Sander's 39 billionaires. If the strategy was to highlight Pete's Big Money backers, it succeeded.

Link to tweet

[Kahuna7]

11. it succeeded in most viewers roll their eyes almost out of their heads...

the progressive wing may care about this stuff, but most voters won't.

[crazytown]

13. Warren and Buttigieg are direct competitors

The polls will tell the story.

[highplainsdem]

12. That's one of the silliest tweets I've ever seen.

[Cha]

28. Yeah.. it was.. purity is petty.

[marlakay]

16. I left the room after it started

Maybe because I was raised in Napa and have toured throughout lifetime a lot of the wineries and Just took a wine class and wine is my fun thing

I agree with Elizabeth that we need to give the little people a voice but it didn’t look good last night, I think she could have made her point and stayed out of wine caves.

[highplainsdem]

21. Given the socioeconomic groups polls indicate Warren appeals to (better educated and wealthier than

Sanders supporters), I'd expect there to be a lot of wine aficionados among her supporters, and I'd think most of them would understand havng a fundraiser in a wine cave. It's little different in terms of a typical upscale fundraiser venue than an upscale restaurant, and since Warren hasn't been averse to those, it seems odd for her to focus on "wine cave" as if just the term somehow indicated corruption or disgusting excess.

[emmaverybo]

26. I think "wine cave" sounded deliciously corrupt to one of her advisors. In the long run, I don't

think she helped or hurt herself. Needle didn’t move for Pete Buttigieg either. But good discussion among ourselves and some Twitter fun.

[PatSeg]

24. I agree

All the candidates need to focus on their own message and not attack one another. I looks really bad and it tends to turn off voters. It almost always backfires on the person doing the attack. Save the assaults for Donald Trump.

[BeyondGeography]

25. Some fun facts about the wine cave owner (hint: this is ultimately a bigger problem for Pete)

Wine cave owner Craig Hall made a fortune on a for-profit HMO, got a $300 million bailout in the S&L crisis that helped take down Jim Wright and secured an Austrian ambassadorship for his wife because, you know:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Cha]

27. This is the thing.. hypocrisy is not a good look & "purity" isn't, either..

The biggest moment of the night came when Warren finally struck back against Buttigieg, who has been gradually siphoning support from her over the last two months. Warren predictably focused on the recently-leaked pictures of Mayor Pete’s gilded wine cave fundraiser and his general eagerness to raise money from super-rich people. Somewhat surprisingly, Mayor Pete got the best of the exchange when he pointed out that Warren’s net worth is 100 times larger than his and that Warren has herself participated in exactly these kinds of fundraisers in the past—and even rolled over money raised from those old fundraisers into her presidential campaign account.

It's like.. " it's good for me but not for thee"?

Damn the purity tests.. We've gotten too much Grief over "purity" already.

[Steelrolled]

30. I agree Warren came out behind, but it minor.

I always wonder how much discussion there is with campaign people about this kind of thing, to guess how risky it is.