Biden with a 2:1 lead over his closest rivals.
Also, post-debate polling shows that of the big Democratic field, Trump was the winner - gaining in his head-to-head polls against all the major contenders. Biden and Sanders still have a small (now smaller) margin to win vs Trump, while the others are lagging him.
Swalwell out and Steyer in.
Darn, I lost the neighborhood deadpool. I had Marianne but apparently she has a lot more staying power than I credited her. Plus she is getting a lot of $1 contributions from Republicans who think she is the most fun part of the debates.
“I asked President Obama not to endorse,” Biden said of his former boss. “Whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits.”
Shouldn’t Biden have prefaced his remark with “C’mon man”?
WaPo: Bravado or belligerent, it’s Joe Biden’s response to nearly everything: ‘C’mon, man!’
It’s not just Republicans that go to those kinds of places. 
C’mon man. It shows he’s a regular Joe, just living the regular life like some of his constituents.
For anyone out there who might have been hiding beneath a rock for these last few weeks:
Tonight’s the night!!
Tonight and tomorrow night our heroes will be doing battle on the debate stage. Don’t miss it if you can.
Word on the street is tonight will be “it” for many of the candidates. August debate participants are anticipated to be FAR less numerous.
Easy street. 
Seriously, the ground rules in August will change. It will be much more difficult for candidates to qualify for the debate then. Mr. Perez, DNC chair, is tightening things up to filter out the candidates with no real shot.
Tonight’s round two of the debate will feature Vice President Biden and his several attackers. This should be interesting.
They are saying the VP needs to be less passive than he was a month ago. We shall see how he handles things.
I just found this on the CNN website. They reviewed performances of all candidates in last night’s debate. Most of the candidates earned kind remarks. But:
Beto bombed AGAIN!! Here is what CNN had to say about this loser:
So will Mr. Beto be able to qualify for the August session? Let’s hope not. The guy is a kook bird!! He would not even qualify to run for dog catcher!
That doesn’t sound fair. Candidates should decide when to withdraw, if at all. Jimmy Smits had no real chance of winning, until a brilliant convention speach and a nuclear plant meltdown propelled him to winning the whole thing.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but, less than a year ago, wasn’t CNN saying what a great Senator he would make?
That HAS to be correct. But I paid Mr. Beto no heed at all when he was running against my man, Ted Cruz. I had no clue whatsoever what a consummate idiot Beto is.
Then Cruz’s defeat of Beto turned out to be only the the thinnest margin. I was like: Huh!!!? It should have been a blowout!!
And here we have the jeopardy to Trump. No Republican can win the presidency without Texas. Period. Texas was solid Republican, but the Democrats are VERY smart and the Republicans, as always, are fools. With the overwhelming Hispanization of Texas it is moving closer and closer to the Democrat side. And once that happens the Republican jackasses will never win the presidency again.
Republicans make me sick. All many of them care about is lining their own pockets with $$$$. They don’t give a damn about America.
A lot of people really dislike Ted Cruz and IIRC the polls were showing a close race, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise by that point. Also I suspect TX is turning more blue in part due to many companies (and their workers) moving to and growing their presence in the major metro areas, including a few tech companies and workers from CA. My first visit to the state was Austin not long ago, and the feeling I got was that Austin is to Texas is what San Francisco is to California – a liberal bastion. I’m guessing Dallas is similar.
While urban centers in Texas, like everywhere else, lean more democrat than the suburbs and way more democrat than the boonies, there is no other city in Texas that comes close to the proportion of democrat voters in Austin and the surrounding Travis county suburbs. Dallas is liberal, but not that liberal. Nearby Fort Worth isn’t liberal. Houston is liberal, but not as liberal as Dallas. El Paso and San Antonio are barely liberal. Things are trending leftward though.
Agreed. Austin has been a liberal stronghold for a great many years. The university is there, among other things.
Anyway, we are in a “down” month here for the Democrat POTUS nomination process. There is no debate this month. There will not be another debate until the middle of September. Pay close attention to those candidates Mr. Perez allows on stage then. Because (my opinion):
If you’re not on stage during the September Democrat debate . . . . . .
you are OUT of the race. Stick the fork. You’re done!
I’m looking for a WHOLE LOT of squawking during this upcoming cull, though not until after Labor Day. But reality will hit more than one candidate really hard, and shrieking will ensue.
Update
Here are the qualifiers so far for the pivotal September debate. There are nine names. I do not know whether or not the Democrat nominee will defeat Trump. But should that happen, in my opinion the next POTUS will be on that stage in September. Here are the names in alphabetical order:
Joseph Biden
Cory Booker
Pete Buttigieg
Kamala Harris
Amy Klobuchar
Beto O’Rourke
Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren
Andrew Yang
Two other contenders have already crossed the donor threshold, but fall short so far of having sufficient polling support to qualify for the debate stage. They are:
Julián Castro
Tulsi Gabbard
My bet:
Harris is praying Tulsi falls short and does not show up on that stage. Tulsi really blistered Harris last time.
All the many other candidates have crossed neither the polling threshold nor the donations threshold. They will not be on that stage until and unless they do so.
An addendum to my earlier post:
Because doing so is difficult, I did not account above for the candidacy of Tom Steyer, who only recently joined the race. Steyer is a multi-billionaire who has vowed to spend $100 million of his own money to finance his campaign. He already has spent millions on TV ads in key states. In this regard Steyer is reminiscent of Trump, though I believe Trump is a bit more tightfisted. Of course Steyer is far more wealthy than Trump.
In any event, Steyer is the quintessential wild card. Despite two debates already having taken place, it remains early in this race. I think Steyer has time to make his mark and to make an impression on Democrat voters. If he is on the stage next month I will not be surprised. With nearly unlimited campaign funding, much can be accomplished.
Thank you, Argyll.
Argyll is correct and I (most likely) was in error. I checked Steyer’s net worth prior to posting what I did earlier, and I missed the decimal point between the one and the six. I guess the eyes are going, along with everything else.
Anyway, I agree with Argyll that Trump most likely is wealthier than Steyer . . . . though who really knows the extent of Trump’s wealth?
I can tell you both of those guys are a whole lot wealthier than me! 
So 1.7 billion more than Trump?
Mr. Hickenlooper has resigned from the race. He no longer is seeking the Presidency.
Mr. Gravel has resigned from the race. He no longer is seeking the Presidency. Mr. Gravel is 89 years of age.
Do you think either of them actually were seeking the Presidency? Or were they seeking a moniker for their day jobs, e.g. Joe Hickenlooper, former Presidential candidate? How much does it cost to run? I’ll throw two-bits in for @shinobi to show up on the stump. Of course, with his silver luck, he’s liable to win.
And Shin, I’m shocked that you would attach a sexist title to anyone in the Democrat party. How dare you. 
