Let us know when they are in your neighborhood. I’ll go out of town that week 
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If the internet existed back when they stopped broadcasting the debates on the radio, I bet you would have complained.
Or maybe your local AM talk station does broadcast them and I just solved your problem!
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I guess nobody else here watched the first session of debate #1. I watched most of it until I fell asleep near to the end. Here are my impressions:
Most of the candidates did pretty well in my view. Some were better, of course, others were worse. I found Beto low man. He is something of a dork. The Mayor (of NYC) came across better than I anticipated he would. Tulsi was the obvious star, as shown this morning on Drudge. But the other candidates did well, too, including most of the lesser known ones.
The technical screw up with the microphones was stupid and intolerable. Otherwise NBC did a good job. I think the moderators asked questions to which Democrats across this country would want answers. So kudos to the mods.
All in all we saw a lively, spontaneous, group of contenders . . . . except for poor Beto. Is that guy on drugs?
Tonight?
I don’t see how tonight’s group will be able to better the performance of group #1. From what I have seen of Biden, I think he will have a difficult time measuring up. Poor Mayor Pete really has his hands FULL back in his home city and that situation is dragging down his national prospects. Bernie? Always entertaining but by now a known quantity with nothing really new to offer in his bag of tricks.
As was the case last evening, it will be the fresh faces whose task it will be to carry and enliven tonight’s debate. They likely can do it, but will the moderators give them the opportunity? Or will it be Joe and Bernie all evening? I hope not.
As usual shinobi, your summary was right on… Here it was broadcast on MSNBC tv. I never have watched that station & had a hard time finding it. So I went to my handy computer & managed to find the station #.
I watched the whole thing and I did not at all get the same impression as you about Beto. I thought he did as well as everyone else. I watched online at 1.25x as I do almost everything, so perhaps at normal speed someone might seem like they’re on drugs while at 1.25x they do not, I don’t know.
I don’t understand the fascination with Tulsi (but I also don’t read bullshit propaganda you referenced). She didn’t get that much time to speak and she didn’t say anything extraordinary.
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OK, let’s set aside my personal opinion. We can go instead to analysis from entities which regularly engage in such activity:
From CNN:
Beto O’Rourke : Hard to watch. Badly out of his depth from a policy perspective. Too rehearsed in his answers. The idea of him starting his first answer of the debate by speaking Spanish might have seemed like a good idea in his debate prep room but it played as pandering and overly planned in the moment. If one of O’Rourke’s goals coming into this debate was to show he was more than a good-looking but sort of empty vessel, it, um, didn’t work.
From the Washington Post:
O’Rourke : I wrote before the debate that O’Rourke was one of the candidates who needed the most out of it. He didn’t get it. Off the bat, he was asked a question about marginal tax rates and declined to offer a specific answer — instead offering an apparently pre-rehearsed Spanish monologue — and again didn’t really answer after being offered a narrower question about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) 70 percent rate. Later, he was asked why he wasn’t willing to get rid of private health insurance, and he was challenged on it by de Blasio. Rather than offer a forceful defense, he was rescued by former congressman John Delaney (D-Md.), who offered a much more studied answer. Later, when Castro hit him for not supporting a specific change to asylum rules, O’Rourke offered a broader rebuttal about his favored reforms. He righted the ship somewhat when talking about gun control later in the debate, but the whole thing reinforced the narrative that O’Rourke is somewhat out of his depth on policy.
From Newsweek:
But one of the biggest losers of the night was O’Rourke. Despite the fact that he had the second-most amount of time to speak, the former darling of the Democratic party failed to have a breakout moment that set him apart from the pack. The most interesting moment for the Texas Democrat may have been his very first answer, to which he responded in Spanish, though he did not answer the question.
Despite rising to national stardom during his 2018 Senate run, O’Rourke’s presidential campaign has barely been able to lift off. After months of speculation, O’Rourke announced his 2020 White House bid in mid-March on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. The cover photo showed the Texas Democrat quoted as saying “I want to be in it. Man, I’m just born to be in it.”
Following his national announcement, O’Rourke kept his 2020 campaign mostly on the ground with in-person campaigning. He held more than 150 town halls mainly in early primary states, meeting voters in coffee shops and on college campuses.
The campaign style, while successful during his 2018 Senate run, didn’t work too well initially for his presidential bid. O’Rourke sagged in the polls, averaging just 5 percent support. Just two months into his 2020 bid, he essentially launched a campaign reboot. Despite the relaunch, O’Rourke is averaging just 3.3 percent in national polling, according to Real Clear Politics.
From Yahoo.com:
Beto O’Rourke
The former Texas congressman, who shot to national attention during his close-but-no-cigar run for the Senate in 2018 in a deeply Republican state, had a bad night.
He has been able to raise a lot of money from donations, but was out of his depth on policy here and sounded forced.
Speaking Spanish was a good way to reach out to the Latino vote - but being beaten on immigration issues by Mr Castro was not.
He needs to start looking like a well-rounded candidate to lift his sagging poll numbers. But he did not do that here.
From the Boston Globe:
O’Rourke, who attracted a lot of early campaign attention, seemed not quite ready for prime time. That was particularly true when former HUD Secretary Julián Castro challenged his fellow Texan on immigration. O’Rourke has a comprehensive immigration plan of his own, but did not do well at either answering or parrying Castro’s challenge about decriminalizing the unauthorized crossing of migrants at the US border.
From Rolling Stone:
LOSERS
Beto O’Rourke
Whether it was jealousy over the fawning press coverage he’s received or the memory of his anemic debate performances against Ted Cruz, it was obvious Beto had a bullseye on his back from the moment he walked on stage. He’d barely opened his mouth in response to a healthcare question when Bill De Blasio attacked him for supporting a broken system; Julian Castro accused him of of not doing “his homework” on immigration. He seemed nervous throughout the evening, and it didn’t help that, when asked whether he would support a marginal tax rate of 70 percent on the highest earners, O’Rourke responding by breaking into Spanish. Yes, the debate was being aired on Telemundo, but it felt like an attempt to run out the clock — especially when, asked a second time, O’Rourke refused to answer the question.
.
.
Now everyone agrees the aforecited sources are without exception scandalously right wing haters of a good man, Beto the Magnificent. Also, pigs can fly.
Seriously, nobody of substance anywhere determined Beto to have done a good job. Compared with what Democrats are saying about him, my merely having labelled Beto a “dork” amounts to praise.
O’Rourke the dork . . . . . . it has a ring to it . . . . . the ring of truth.
The 70 percent rate is a lofty goal. The few people affected by it might just decide to give up citizenship and go live somewhere else, which is probably easier to do now than when the top marginal rates were this high last time. Anyone answering “yes” to this question is lying, because they know it’s not reasonable and it won’t be done. But answering “no” makes them seem not progressive enough. Not answering it directly is probably the right thing to do, especially if you don’t have a plan to do it and don’t know the numbers (how much it could bring in and what it would be spent on).
Health insurance: same thing. Getting rid of private insurance is stupid, and it’s not gonna happen even if Bernie or Warren win AND get the Senate. DeBlasio’s blanket statement that “it’s not working” is an oversimplification – the “moderates” aren’t wrong when they say those who want to keep their insurance should be able to do so.
The specific section that Castro mentioned was perhaps too deep into policy. I’m guessing most people watching had no idea what he was talking about.
I’ve never been a fan of Beto, but I still think he did fine.
OK, guys, an update here in the wake of completion of the first debate sessions.
First I want to reiterate I believe this entire process is being handled VERY well by Mr. Perez, who is DNC chairman. The Democrats should be holding their heads high regarding process, and what Perez has accomplished so far is no easy task. But now looking forward:
There will be a second debate, on CNN and live streamed via CNN.com, at the very end of July. The format and number of contestants will closely parallel the first sessions.
It is following the July sessions that the sorting out process will begin in earnest. Perez has set a higher bar for the mid-September debate (there will be no debate in August) and you can rest assured some candidates will be dropping out. The latter debate will be broadcast by ABC, so good on Perez for that.
Following September there will be one debate each month right on through the first seven debates.
Word is Joe Biden has fallen 10% in the polls. It’s no shock. He came across in the debate as VERY old.
If Biden does not up his game at the end of July, his candidacy is toast.
This is just the invitation that Hillary needs.
I’m not a Democrat . . . or a Republican either, for that matter. But I have to express some empathy here for fellow old guy, Joe Biden.
Old Joe is getting his butt kicked and I can relate. I feel sorry for him. OK, Biden’s politics differs from my own by a lot. But he is not some sort of ogre. There are actually some decent aspects to the Vice President. It pains me to watch as his takedown unfolds.
And then there is President Obama. Obama is doing the right thing by remaining above the fray. He really has no choice; he must do what is best for the party. But Biden served alongside the President for eight long years. Would it kill Obama to utter just one kind word on behalf of his friend? Something like “stop kicking my buddy in the nuts” would work. Anything, really. But all we hear is the sound of chirping crickets.
Poor old Joe. If he had run four years ago I think he would have had a real chance. I feel his pain.
Huggybear has said LOTS of negative things about members of the opposition that were not true.
Aren’t ogre’s fictional?
And couldn’t this be said of almost everyone?
Sorry for the Debbie Downer-ness, but I’ve seen this happen to so many people that I can’t really shed a tear for 'ol Joe. I don’t take joy in it, but it doesn’t bother me to for him to get of taste of what his party’s been dishing, more and more aggressively, since at least the 80’s.
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I think what you wrote is OK . . . all of it not just what I quoted.
A good part of what wrankles me has to do with the press vs. the people, in this case “people” means Democrat voters. As I have written up thread, I respect the job DNC Chair Mr. Perez has done so far to offer his voters their choice of candidate, of nominee, this time around. I want Democrat voters alone to make this choice, and Perez is coming through for them big time, at least so far.
I also respect President Obama’s stance. Sure it would be great if he had a kind word for poor old Biden. But I understand it is too early for the President to speak out. He simply cannot, for the good of his party. President Obama understands this, much to his credit.
I also acknowledge the validity and fairness of attacks on Biden from his primary opponents. They all are seeking the same Democrat POTUS nomination. Biden has to have the juice to be able to parry those attacks and fight back. Lacking same he does not deserve a shot at the big chair.
What does piss me off mightily is the filthy American mainstream media injecting themselves into all this, ganging up on Biden as they have been doing for several years on Trump. Straight up, they are communists, or at best socialists. And they have a lot of influence on the weak minded. Trump has withstood their BS somehow, but I’m not certain Biden will be able to do so. That is so very unfair. Biden deserves press treatment which is evenhanded. And he is not getting it.
ETA
Perhaps I need to clarify what I mean by “evenhanded”. I believe all the Democrat candidates have warts (and God knows Trump has warts). But it is manifestly unfair for the press to focus on Biden’s shortcomings, or those of people close to him, while purposefully failing to expose the transgressions of candidates they favor. Case in point, and this is only one of MANY:
Bernie’s wife has done, in the past, things equally as questionable as Biden’s son. Does the press focus on this? Nope. You hear very little about it. Do the other Democrats have skeletons? Sure, but the press ignores them while going after Vice-President Biden hammer and tongs. I want Democrat voters to choose their candidate, not the American mainstream media. And I want a level playing field.
One minute I think I have you figured out politically. You can’t stay in the middle for much longer. I guess it’s your prerogative. But I’ve made up my mind a long time ago.
You write a good story shinobi. Make up your mind! 
Not to worry, pattyb53. I’m about as far from the political middle as one can be.
Think about where Bernie is. Now go 180 degrees around the political spectrum. That is where you will find me.
The current nomination process is terrible for the Democrat party, just as it was for the Republican party 4 years ago. If anyone were to do what is best for their respective party, they would do something about the terrible process.
The media is making you think that this is what is happening, but it’s not. Far from it. With the current process, the extreme voters in the party are getting an disproportionate say in where the party goes while the vast majority of Democrat voters are being left behind.
Jay Cost does a great job explaining it here:
Perez is no DWS. It was Debbie who set the standard for favoritism.
If the press butts out the process will be as fair as it can be. And that is good for the Democrat Party and good for the country.
I wasn’t talking about fairness between the candidates as the biggest problem, although that does matter and I think they will do a lot less to tip the scales this time.
The media isn’t choosing the candidates. If they were, there wouldn’t be 20 of them from across the Democratic spectrum. Yes, there are more progressives than centrists but that is the state of the country as extremists on both sides are winning out.
Holy Smokes! Did Biden switch parties? 
Thank you. It’s been a long week and I needed that.
Oh, and thanks for not deleting it before I read it.
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