Live-blogging the debates

Pete: I don’t feel like you’re getting a fair amount of screen time tonight.

Kamala: I feel like you’re getting even less.

Joe: You stutter and stammer like you’ve spent all of seven seconds preparing for this debate.

Beto: You’re still here?

Elizabeth: I normally love you but you seem a little stabby toward people tonight. It’s beneath you.

Andrew: Decriminalize opioids? I think that’s going to require a little more nuance to sell as a viable policy proposal.

Anderson: CALL ME.

Tulsi: No.

Anderson: WHY HAVEN’T YOU CALLED?

Pete: Your lashing-out at Beto about courage is out of character for you.

Cory: I always agree with you, I always like you ... but I can never find anything interesting to say about you.

Julián: I always agree with you, I always like you ... but I can never find anything interesting to say about you.

Amy: Why did your people just call us in the middle of the debate? Are they not watching you right now?

Everyone: You’re all a little wobbly at directly answering the questions you’re asked.

Bernie: I pretty much always agree with you. But you’re yelly and disconcertingly old and please groom someone younger and less abrasive to carry your torch.

Tom: I’m wary of the personal influence of your personal wealth on your policies, so I’m equally wary of your populist messages. But I’m listening ...

Everyone: Please shut up when your time is up.

Joe: I admire and appreciate your vast political experience, but more and more it feels like it’s creating baggage and distraction.

Tulsi: No.

Andrew: You’re an example of how a REAL businessman knows REAL things and how they can thoughtfully, practically, REALLY work. I have faith in you.

Ron Reagan: Ballsy ad buy.

Elizabeth: I greatly admire your knowledge, intelligence and preparedness. You set the bar high.

Tom: YES! Take on trump and crush the shithole.

Cory: Nice dig at trump’s health. I hope he chokes on his bile and dies.

Marianne: Why aren’t you here tonight? Too weird?

Joe: You meander and stumble like a trump when you talk. I’m concerned.

Kamala: You’re so freaking smart and I love your take-no-bullshit prosecuting-attorneyness. I’d be proud to call you President.

Pete: I’d still be prouder to call YOU President.

Anderson: I DON’T CARE IF YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF MODERATING A DEBATE. YOU OWE ME A CALL. I’M NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER OR PRETTIER HERE.

Pete: How did I miss your proposal to expand the Supreme Court? I’m skeptical, but I believe in you and your thinking so I’m listening ...

IS IT ME OR DOES PETE KEEP GETTING CUT OFF SOONER THAN EVERYONE ELSE WHEN HE GETS TIME TO SPEAK? IS HE BEING PENALIZED FOR HAVING THE MOST ADORABLE HUSBAND?

Pete: “That’s not how donald trump got within cheating distance of the White House in the first place.” I LOVE YOU.

I have to pee and I’m tired. I may have to cut this short. Tell me if I miss a big splashy production number or something at the end.

We may like her feely-goody simpleton messages of love and positivity and even some of her good-sense policy proposals

But this woman who has called vaccinations "Draconian" and suggested that her god is more powerful than AIDS medications has now proposed that skipping-through-meadows happy wishful thinking can influence massive, apocalyptic hurricanes and is no more fit to be the leader of the free world than the massive, catastrophic shitshow we have now.

Please stop giving her agency and legitimizing her enough to appear to be a viable presidential candidate. She's equipped to be a LiveLaughLove spiritual book writer and nothing more.

BOOT! EDGE! EDGE!

Pete set up a campaign office in Cedar Rapids today and tons of people stood in the heat to cheer him on. AND I GOT A T-SHIRT!

FINAL DEBATE TAKEAWAYS:

• Pete is the co-winner with his calming, authoritative presence and genuine affability
• Kamala is the co-winner with her commanding presence and emotional connection
• Bernie and Biden seem like yelly old men
• Eric Swalwell: I’m 100% on board with your assault-weapon-buyback proposal
• “Two words down the line” means TWO WORDS
• Shut up, Bernie
• Just shut up
• Marianne Williamson: You’re just ... odd
• I’m officially tired of old politicians. Bring on the young people and their fresh perspectives and ideas for fixing what the old folks can’t seem to stop fucking up!
• Shut up, Bernie
• 19 Democratic candidates. If there’s one good thing that stable genius has accomplished, it’s inspiring this wave of young, smart, skilled, competent people who all seem genuinely committed to repairing and reinvigorating our tattered country
• Kamala: Nice plug for your web site!
• Pete: Your closing statement is just ... everything

I had to cancel yesterday’s run because I had a pretty epic headache relapse that kept me in bed until noon

And because my hair looked too nice for my ritual selfie. Thankfully the headache dissipated as quickly as it powered up and I was able to go to work and paint woodwork and swoon over Corey Booker.

But now my head feels great and my hair is a disaster (coincidence?) and it’s life-suckingly humid and I have three miles to run!

KEY DEBATE TAKEAWAYS:

• Corey Booker answers his own damn questions

• Gay people are citizens who de facto deserve to be treated as such and not as pawns in manipulative political theater
• Mitch McConnell is universally regarded as a drug-resistant-syphilis public-health outbreak that needs to be quarantined and annihilated
• Rachel Maddow: I would happily turn lesbian if you’d please marry me
• Nobody’s afraid to play the Let Me Tell You About This Devastatingly Horrible Personal Tragedy That Happened To Me And/Or My Family card
• One unexpected side benefit of this bountiful diversity of candidates: It’s so much easier to differentiate among people when they’re not all wrinkly old white men
• John Delaney: Just fucking shut up when you’re told to
• Tulsi Gabbard: I predict you’ll be voted off the island first
• I find myself feeling WAY more confident in people who have military experience
• Seth Moulton: Well-placed ad buy right before the closing statements!
• Julián Castro: Your bilingual demonstrations are awesome and I wholeheartedly applaud them both for what they celebrate and for whom they piss off but they come off as staged and gimmicky and maybe you should practice them in front of the mirror so they feel more natural
• Amy Klobuchar: You performed better than I’d expected—I’m sorry I undersold you to myself and I promise I’ll pay more attention going forward
• Beto O’Rourke and Corey Booker: Your passion and intelligence and thoughtfulness make you my front-runners of this debate
• Shit—I feel the same about Elizabeth Warren
• THERE ARE TOO MANY AWESOME CHOICES HERE—this is such a profoundly impressive bunch of people and intellects and perspectives
• Taking turns isn’t anybody’s strong suit
• But I LOVE the overall spirit of respect and universal commitment to our country’s best interests
• And it’s so thrilling to hear people talk in informed, coherent, meaningful sentences
• THAT I can tell you

Yup!

We're all ...

red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve and cream and crimson and silver and rose and azure and lemon and russet and grey and purple and white and pink and orange VOTE BLUE!

THE UNDERLYING ROOT OF MY FURY ABOUT TRUMP AND HIS UNCHECKED, UNFETTERED, IRREPARABLE DESTRUCTION OF THE NOBLE AND HERETOFORE INCREASINGLY SUCCESSFUL AMERICAN EXPERIMENT

I can't believe that in the entire Democratic party's top leadership, we can't find one person to define a unified brand and a clear message and a single-concept campaign of voter-ready talking points and sound bites and kick what is an easily, EASILY kickable collective trump-party ass.

Do Democratic leaders have NO competent marketing consultants on their speed dials? Do they have NO concept of how every successful company and organization and big celebrity and small-time social-media sensation and trumpian cancer packages and sells itself in the consumer marketplace?

Never even mind the eventual filleting of the electorate into deep-dive targeted marketing; Democrats don't even have a rudimentary umbrella concept to sell to and fire up and unify frustrated, horrified, furious, and NOW MORE THAN EVER EASY TO SELL TO AND FIRE UP AND UNIFY American voters.

In my 30 years of dealing with more inept, incompetent, road-blocking advertising clients than I can count, I've NEVER seen one so disorganized and aimless and market-averse and pathetically unable to grasp even the lowest of low-hanging fruit.

Trump and his laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank sycophantic orbit have figured it out; they discovered they could fire up legions of low-information, emotionally inarticulate, festering-in-xenophobia voters with overly simplistic, lost-in-the-bombast irrational, who-cares-if-it's-blaringly-hypocritical-to-the-point-of-being-blatantly-untrue promises of dropping-magically-out-of-the-sky JOBS and ten-dollars-a-month TAX SAVINGS and dangerously aimless NATIONALISM and hush-hush racism and IF THIS FUCKING MORON CAN SOMEHOW GET RICH AND BECOME PRESIDENT THEN THERE'S HOPE AND PROMISE FOR ALL OF YOU FUCKING MORONS TOO HERE BUY THIS SHITTY MAGA HAT THAT WAS MADE IN CHINA.

Jesus, Democratic leaders. I have tons upon tons of experience in successfully developing and accomplishing this essential marketing strategy for big and small clients in multiple countries. I've never done it in the political sector, but how hard can it be giving how less-than-low you've set the bar? I'm just a small-potatoes writer in an only-four-Representatives state whose ideas you'd never even look down on from your top-of-the-national-party level, but at least I can recognize the foundational problem here. And I and every other competent marketing professional--clearly more than you--know exactly what you need to do to fix it. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?