Although I enjoyed reading Jim's piece on the Democratic debate last night, I don't agree with his opinion about whether one should feel obligated or not to watch the debate last night as a lot is at stake for our country. Sure, you could be cynical and compare the first debate to something as trivia as deciding whether to watch the debate versus having a nice meal out or watching Netflix. However, it's pure hubris to think that he can summarize and tell me what happened during the debate last night. First, I wonder if he really watched the debate with the same amount of intensity as lobbyist and campaign watchers especially in the DC area? Aside from the factually introductory paragraph, the opinion piece bias starts in the second paragraph when he criticizes the DNC for having a propensity to meddle in this case the debate lineups causing a lack of coherence. Drawing straws for is the best way I know to be fair in dividing up the 20 candidates in the Democratic field. Now there could be an argument for two subfields of 10 vs 4 subfields of 5; however, my guess is that TV time and other considerations constrained the field to 10 and two nights. I did like Jim's breakdown and opinion on the long-shot candidates and his question of "Will they fight?" because we did see some fight between Castro and O'Rourke about Beto's interpretation or perhaps misunderstanding or lack of knowledge about Section 1325. He was bold in making the statements about candidates needing to light another candidate's home on fire; however, his opinion piece had no spark as I would follow up with comments on explaining to the reader the relevance of Section1325 in last night's debate. I appreciated his insights into the latest Democratic campaign jabbing between Booker and Biden; Sanders and Warren and other candidate dynamics that reminds me of a survival of the fittest competition between the stronger and the weaker candidates. I don't know Jim's political leaning or Slate's political leaning; however, my guess is that both journalist and media outlet leans left. We will have to see what happens tonight during the 2nd Democratic debate to see whether there really will be an adult table and a kid's table debate. For me, I plan on watching both debates as I am not familiar with many of the candidates in Democratic field; I want to spend the time to get to know each and every one of them. Although time will tell who will last in the race for President. I will let each reader who watch decide who had what "moment" and let the poll numbers indicate the winners in each mini-round of debate.

This is a fun, somewhat playful, opinion piece on whether or not the upcoming Democratic Debates are worth tuning in for. There's some information in the piece, but most of it is gossipy and speculative.

The Debates are just another circus for idiots who actually believe that they, the little people, have the slightest thing to do with electing a President. It’s a way for them to pretend to feel empowered, and voyeuristically see their favorite (or unfavorite) candidate shine, or take a fall. It’s a dimwitted personality contest for the bored cyphers of Empire, so they can walk into work the next day and say “Oh, I really like Candidate X! He/She/It has what it takes to put our great country back on track! I’m going to vote for He/She/It, because my vote really matters, tee hee!” Idiots all, those who follow politics, those who vote, those who think they are anything but meaningless peasants, debt slaves to Capitalist Fascism.

This article does lay a good foundation for how the debates are set up, but that's about it. Otherwise there is a lot of exasperated conjecture about if and how these debates will be important to anyone. As I'm reviewing after the debates I can say in my opinion, Jim was wrong about most of the guesses. I don't think it really matters that he was wrong.