2020, the election campaigns have begun

[Labster]

Elizabeth Warren just killed a man and it was glorious.

Well, don't just leave it at that.

Enough said, right?

Bloomberg represents a unique threat to the others.  Most candidates drop out when they run out of money, Bloomberg can keep spending as long as he wants to.  He's also at a disadvantage -- everyone else has been doing this for a year, and as a new entrant he didn't even know how to get himself more time in the debate.  So everyone decided that now is the time to strike.

You didn't even mention the best part, where Warren tried to get Bloomberg to release people from non-disclosure agreements in relation to sexual offenses, and Biden pointed out that he could do it right now, on national television.  Both of Bloomberg's responses, fumbling around "honoring agreements made willingly" got boos from the crowd.

He's really vulnerable on that, and will continue to be until he grants the release.  I think all of the people willing to vote for a New York billionaire who won't release his taxes and has a pile of NDAs with women for sexual harassment have already made their choice.  But I also think that it means he's not in the race all the way.  He still sees more risk in disclosure, and possibly getting more lawsuits.  But as a candidate, the risk is in not airing your dirty laundry immediately, and having it come out as a steady drip of opposition research.  Any good campaign consultant would have seen that line of questioning coming, yet Bloomberg was so obviously unprepared for the question.

Anyway this debate was fairly good for drama and people attacked each other a lot.  Finally, after the love-fests of the past are gone.  They all like each other for real, but they all want to win.  It's just politics, after all. They also spent thirty minutes critiquing each other's Obamacare fanfic, all of which will never become law because Republicans will kill it in the Senate.