First of all, I'd like to apologize to everyone here for my previous positive remarks about Marianne Williamson. She struck me as a complete, and furthermore highly arrogant and annoying, loon on the debate stage and clearly didn't belong there. In my defense, my initial impression of her was based on this interview by Kasie Hunt wherein, as you can see, she seemed 500,000% more competent. The main thing that drew me to her campaign was the second half of that interview where she discussed foreign policy and embraced the kind of nuanced, complex view of it that I have. At various points, she spoke disapprovingly obviously of the Iraq War and (in a separate interview) of our support for Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen, but also insisted that we should continue to offer support to the Kurdish anarchists in Syria until they have successfully unified their armies and proposed a unique position on what we should do vis-a-vis our ongoing role in Afghanistan: that we should survey Afghan women on what our future role in the country should be, given that they have the most to lose from the legitimization of the Taliban that any peace agreement with the Taliban would yield. I instantly liked her after that because the other Democrats are all embracing less nuanced foreign policy views that I agree with less. So she DOES have a brain in there somewhere, I promise! But she's absolutely abysmal in the debate format wherein she can't speak on her own terms...or, you know, stick to the topic at hand and offer policy solutions apparently.

But I think one of the takeaways from this second debate night for me was that, not just Marianne Williamson, but simply put, people with no governing experience in general aren't qualified for the highest office in the land. Speaking of which, I've heard a lot about Andrew Yang and had seen a couple interviews with him where I thought he was okay (he was never a favorite of mine) I guess before the debate, but the debate clarified for me that he shouldn't be running. Don't get me wrong: he's a nice guy and I actually agree with the idea of establishing a universal guaranteed income that he's running on. But what I came away with from hearing him talk was that he's a businessman who talks like one and that I think is a problem for him. For example, when he was asked early on how he would finance his universal guaranteed income policy, I found I could barely understand anything in his explanation because it was offered in the language of The Economist magazine, not English. I also just think that one-issue campaigns are always misguided (including that of Washington Governor Jay Inslee too). Mr. Yang explained in his closing remarks that a one-issue campaign such as his can bring together "a much broader coalition" than the other candidates are capable of building to defeat President Trump. Based on the long history of one-issue presidential campaigns I've seen so far in my 37 years of living, I disagree with that logic. While single-issue campaigns offend few people, they also galvanize few people, which is why they always fail, and badly.

Also, many have spoken about the minimal air time Andrew Yang got, partially as the result of his polite refusal to interrupt other candidates and rigid dedication to the official speaking time limits. That tack showed him to be a nice guy, but also left me with the impression that the hyper-aggressive Donald Trump would eat him alive in the debates next year if he were nominated; like Yang wouldn't be able to get a word in edgewise because he wouldn't fight any of Trump's inevitable interruptions and attacks. I think you have to be more assertive than what Mr. Yang displayed Thursday night to defeat someone like Trump.

Anyway, and I hope I don't sound terribly elitist for suggesting this, but I've really come to feel after these debates that, between candidates like these and our current president, it would really behoove us to elect somebody who is capable of doing the job this time and who halfway understands what it entails. There are a lot of candidates in this field who can offer that. After watching these debates, here are my personal favorites, in order of preference:

1) Elizabeth Warren
2) Kirsten Gillibrand (though she won't win)
3) Kamala Harris
4) Bernie Sanders

Nobody else running is seriously in my realm of consideration at this point. I mean Julian Castro and Cory Booker proved themselves, for example, to be very competent candidates and I liked Tim Ryan's spirit at least, but I'm voting for someone not just based on their level of competence, but also based on the extent to which I agree with them on the issues and the above four candidates I find the most agreeable by the right combination of both of those metrics. I also really, really want our next president to be a woman -- someone who can understand and relate to someone like me better than our current rapist in chief -- so sorry if that offends anyone.

Speaking of Kirsten Gillibrand, yeah I figured she'd get nowhere from the outset, but she's a highly competent candidate who is broadly aligned with a lot of my own thinking on the issues, as well as a lot of my general priorities. I get that people are annoyed by the fact that she interrupted other candidates a few times in Thursday's debate to get in on the conversation, but contrast that sentiment to how people are complaining about the fact that Andrew Yang didn't! I think there's a double-standard there in people's expectations. The reality of the matter is that Kirsten Gillibrand was polling well below 1% support going into the debate and was virtually invisible in the media and accordingly needed to get people's attention in some way. She knew she needed the visibility this debate would provide her with badly and that this was one of only two such chances to gain traction and probably the better of them and hence I think calculated that there was greater risk in remaining invisible. She clearly had spent an inordinate amount of time preparing for this debate and knew that she had to make herself as visible as possible therein.

As to the complaint the she wrongly attached herself to Bernie Sanders...yeah okay, again, she stood at less than 1% in the polls going in while Bernie was averaging 16.6% according to Real Clear Politics, so I think she figured that even if only one-tenth of Bernie Sanders voters gave her a second look as a result, that would be an improvement for her campaign. Indeed, really all the candidates who have been judged as having fared well in these debates have accomplished that feat in part by attaching themselves to another, better-known rival in some way, like Kamala Harris did vis-a-vis Joe Biden, Julian Castro did vis-a-vis Beto O'Rourke, etc. etc.

That said, I don't think Gillibrand has a chance because, after Hillary Clinton, I think that Democratic voters are just simply biased against the idea of nominating a full-time feminist candidate. Part-time feminists like Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are acceptable, but not women who prioritize women's issues, even if from an otherwise completely different worldview than what Clinton represented. A lot of the answers she gave SHOULD have earned her a bigger response in the room by all logic.

What other commentary to offer here? Oh! Hey @KLAMarine, remember when you explained to me before the debates began about how Biden totally does support racially integrated busing now? Did you check out the highlight from Thursday night's debate by chance to see confirmed which of us was right? It was only the single most defining exchange of the whole event! Just thought I'd point out how wrong you were. And @HylianSwordsman, I think my previously-voiced concerns about the Democrats potentially gravitating toward actual confiscation of guns were borne out more fully in the second debate night wherein one candidate actually proposed to do exactly that (Eric Swalwell). Although Swalwell's proposal only related to assault weapons and thus wouldn't affect me, I think that any attempt at actually confiscating firearms in this country is very dangerous when you have lots of heavily armed militias out there openly threatening to start a civil war if federal agents come for their guns. Our situation, in that regard, is very different from that of other countries that have more or less disarmed their populations. I think we have to be more careful and embrace a moderate approach to reducing the volume of guns in circulation here (like reasonable purchasing regulations and voluntary gun buyback programs), even when it comes to assault weapons.

Also, a lot has been said about Tulsi Gabbard of late here. My thoughts on her are that she strikes as...well it's as if Michael Flynn were running for president. She strikes me not so much as anti-war as downright anti-Western with how she doesn't just oppose American military interventions in the abstract, but actually praises foreign dictators and police states and the wars they fight against their own populations. I saw one interview where she explained how supposedly we (the United States) were supporting "Al Qaeda" (her term for ISIS) in Syria by not actively supporting the glorious regime of Bashir Al Assad and his heroic chemical weapon strikes and application of rape as a weapon of war. He's such a great guy who has just been fighting "terrorists"! Apparently, Kurdish anarchists fighting (and at this point successfully defeating) ISIS on the one hand and "Al Qaeda" on the other are the same thing in her mind. She promises a "century of peace" if elected to a four-to-eight-year presidency. I seriously think she might be getting paid. I don't get the internet's passion for this candidate. It scares me a little. She's probably the single most genuinely dangerous candidate.

My favorite part of the debate is when all the Democrats showed they care more about illegal immigrants than US citizens. The sad thing is people will still vote Democrat.

#New National @MorningConsult Post Debate Poll:
Biden 33%
Sanders 19%
Harris 12%
Warren 12%
Buttigieg 6%
Booker 3%
O'Rourke 2%
Yang 2%
Bullock 1%
Castro 1%
de Blasio 1%
Delaney 1%
Gabbard 1%
Gillibrand 1%
Klobuchar 1%
Moulton 1%
Ryan 1%

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) June 30, 2019

This was after a third debate?

After the Thursday debate.

I'm not keeping the sharpest eye on this stuff: first or second?

My favorite part of the debate is when all the Democrats showed they care more about illegal immigrants than US citizens. The sad thing is people will still vote Democrats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMSmoNOZJ9Y