I’m going to forego entirely my Top 25 format and, instead, put the teams in seeds/regions. We’ll see how it goes.
Midwest (Indianapolis)
East (New York)
South (Houston)
West (Los Angeles)
I was looking back and it looks like I didn’t do a post for my January donations, so I’ll combine last month and this month together. I got February’s in just under the wire – about 90 minutes before it turned to March. I think I also waited almost until the end with January.
The rules, as usual, are that I give a total of $20 a month, usually at $5 a candidate or cause. Also, I don’t count the donations I’m giving to myself in my campaign for Knox County Commission, District 4.
In January, I gave $5 to Elizabeth Warren and gave $5 to the Knox County Democratic Party. I also gave $5 each to my fellow Democrats running for the Knox County Commission (Districts 2 and 5), Courtney Durrett and Kimberly Peterson.
In February, I gave $5 to Elizabeth Warren and $5 to the Knox County Democratic Party. I also gave $5 to Renee Hoyos’ campaign for Congress (TN2) and $5 to Stacey Abrams’ organization Fair Fight.
I think it’s possible this might be the last month I give a donation to Elizabeth Warren. Unless something changes in March, it looks like it’ll come down to Bernie v. Biden. At that point, I’ll probably stop donating to Presidential candidates until we have a nominee.
So, I watched the debate, but not live. There was a campaign related meeting I had to go to and a basketball game to watch first. I took notes as I normally do, but it was too late to write something up last night while it was fresh in my mind. I have a grandma doctor appointment to go to this morning and another campaign thing to handle after lunch with the MadDoc. Therefore, I’m just going to bang out a few quick thoughts and give you my ranking.
The moderators were pretty terrible. They let the candidates talk all over each other. It was entertaining to watch the first section because of all the fighting and jabs at each other. On the other hand, it wasn’t a great look for the Dems. For better or worse, this chaos will abate after Super Tuesday. Or, at least, I hope it will.
When they got to the second section, it turned boring. The fact is that the Dems really don’t disagree too strongly on most issues. That’s why almost every debate has included a healthcare section, because that’s where you can find meaningful differences between the candidates.
The Democratic voters in South Carolina are overwhelmingly African-American, which explains the number of questions and answers touching on race. The group of white men and women on the stage have to show their bona fides in advance of the South Carolina primary. It made for an awkward section of the debate.
The last question was ridiculous. With that said, I though Warren and Pete had the best answers. Warren, then Pete, if I’m ranking them.
I was stingy with the “good answer” notes. I gave one each to Warren, Steyer and Bloomberg.
I’ll also note that I paused the debate for a bit because MadDoc and I got into a rather contentious discussion when they started talking about legalizing marijuana. I’m for it, she’s against it. She comes at it from her knowledge of studies of long term marijuana use and her experience with patients who use it frequently. I come from my legal background, my pro-defendant bias in the criminal justice system, and my peculiar brand of libertarianism. Since I know she will read this at some point, I’ll say that I understand her perspective. But she’s still wrong ;-).
Now, on to the ranking.
I’ve decided it’s time to shake things up. Instead of doing the rankings as usual, I’m going to transition to something more like Bracket seeding. It was a wild weekend in college basketball and it’s starting to get serious with the bracketology. I thought I would take a look at a couple of the high profile brackets and then come up with my own seeding, about the first 6 seeds. I’m looking at the brackets from Lunardi, Palm, NBC and Bracket Wag. It looks like a couple of these haven’t updated since the losses on Saturday, but it gives me a starting point.
Not all the brackets provided a true seed list, but I did my best to figure it out. By averaging them, the true seeding list (1-6) would be something like:
Like I said, a couple of these brackets haven’t been updated since the Saturday games. Arizona, Ohio St, and Marquette, as well as BYU and Michigan, didn’t appear in the top six seeds of all the brackets. I did a guesstimate to come up with this average of the top 1-6 seeds. So, that’s going to be what I start with. I’ll provide my true seeding below and then continue to update until Selection Sunday.
As you may recall, my old band from my days in Northern Virginia are getting back together for one last gig. A wedding in June. I gave some more details here. Our last practice with the whole group was in November. Tomorrow, we’re going to have another go. I’m flying up in the morning. We’re practicing tomorrow night and then I’m flying back on Saturday. I scheduled this originally on a day when the MadDoc was scheduled to be on call the next day. The MadDoc is off call for a bit as she recuperates from surgery, but the show must go on. So I’m flying tomorrow anyway.
I think one of the guitarists from the band is out tomorrow. But we’re going to make our way through as many of the songs as we can manage. The good thing after the last practice is that we pared down the list and most of what’s left are songs that we have done a million and six times.
Just in case you’re curious, here’s the new list we’re aiming for, in the order we’re thinking of playing them:
Set 1
Set 2
Set 3
There were only six people on the stage tonight. No Tom Steyer, no Andrew Yang and welcome Michael Bloomberg.
A very interesting and combative debate tonight. Plenty of attacks on Bloomberg. Sanders got some attacks, but not as many as the front-runner would normally expect. Pete and Amy don’t like each other and that showed.
The first hour or so was electric. All of the attacks on Bloomberg came out. They asked about the socialist thing with Bernie. Bloomberg called it communism. Amy asked if Pete was calling her dumb. It was really a fun debate from that perspective.
When I get to my ranking, I’m going to go into who I think did the best in the actual debate. But if you want to say whether the debate performances will have an effect on the vote in Nevada or South Carolina or beyond, that’s harder to say. Looking at this issue, I think Bernie came out ahead, even though his debate performance was just OK. He wasn’t attacked and, as the front runner, that means he’s a winner. Bloomberg was terrible in the debate, but how many people actually watched the debate? Are his ads going to save his overall standing in the race? Warren was probably the best in the debate (not just me saying it), but will it actually help her? Maybe not.
On to the ranking:
We’ve got early voting in Tennessee and it extends until next Tuesday, at least here in Knox County. I’ve been a Warren supporter since last summer, so it has been my plan to vote for her in the primary for a long time. Recently, though, the rise of Bernie has changed the calculation a bit. I was toying with the idea of holding off on voting until after the Nevada caucus to make sure that Warren isn’t completely out of the running by Super Tuesday. But I figured I should vote my heart here in the primary no matter what. So I turned the little circle thing and voted for Elizabeth and me on my ballot. The only races with Dems in them in my precinct.
No matter what happens in the Primary, I’m blue no matter who. We need to vote Trump out of office.
See you after tonight’s debate.
Will any of the top 3 (Gonzaga, Baylor, San Diego State) lose before the NCAA tournament? Or Duke, Kansas, Dayton? I think Kentucky is maxed out at a 2 seed and that’s only if they win out. Probably a 3 seed. Beat LSU on Tuesday and things look good for the 2.
I’ve always thought this was a great song. One lyric came to me again today in the midst of the fall of Warren and the rise of Bernie:
“Tax the rich/feed the poor/Till there are no/rich no more?”
I’ve got no problem with taxing the rich or feeding the poor. I always thought the goal ought to be no poor no more. Maybe it doesn’t flow as well in the world of songwriting. But, I wonder if that’s the difference between Warren and Sanders supporters. Warren supporters focus on eliminating poverty, while Sanders supporters want to get rid of the rich?
Just a thought.
We’ve had the Iowa Caucus debacle and the New Hampshire primary, so I think it’s time to update my ranking. Andrew Yang and Michael Bennett dropped out (although Bennett hasn’t been in my ranking for a long time). Biden is on life support and Warren looks to be done. Bernie is the frontrunner, while Pete and Amy are vying to be the main moderate alternative. And Bloomberg is waiting in the wings. What to do, what to do?
Mad Dog, Esquire 