Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, 47 – with his military background, part-Mexican heritage, Spanish fluency, Rhodes scholarship and progressive credentials – has seen his tentative steps toward a White House bid win encouragement from pundits and politicians alike.

But Garcetti has a disadvantage that doesn’t hamper politicians like Harris, Warren and Biden who don’t have daily responsibilities for making government work better: He’s a mayor who faces fresh scrutiny each day over how his administration is performing. This has yielded months of critical coverage on three major issues:

1) A Los Angeles Times investigation of a retirement program set up for police officers and firefighters showed rampant abusive practices likely costing city taxpayers “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Under the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP), approved by voters in 2001, officers and firefighters can get both regular pay and a pension in their final years on the job.

The Times probe found that nearly half of the 5,000 men and women who signed up for DROP got substantial increases in their pensions by claiming work-related disabilities. The newspaper found broad evidence of workers’ compensation fraud – and no evidence the Garcetti administration ever acted to counter the fraud, even after being warned about it in 2016.

The newspaper also found no evidence the program has saved money, as voters were promised in 2001. And instead of keeping officers and firefighters on the job, DROP reportedly led to the loss of thousands of workers who filed disability claims.

Despite the findings, Garcetti earlier this month gave his blessing to a new police contract that retained DROP as is and gave officers a raise of up to 5 percent.

Recycling, homeless programs drew sharp critiques

2) A new 10-year contract with seven companies to improve recycling citywide has proven a public relations debacle for the Garcetti administration. Landlords have reportedly seen recycling bills go up three- to six-fold, leaving many scrambling to raise rents that are already considered sky-high. Many individual customers complain bitterly over extra fees added to their bills by the companies for services that previously were provided without additional charges.

City officials claimed to be blindsided by the problems. But as with the DROP program, there’s evidence that Garcetti and the Los Angeles City Council dropped the ball. The Times noted that former City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana had opposed awarding exclusive long-term contracts but was ignored. Santana contended that promoting recycling competition was more likely to lead to reasonable rates.

3) The city’s troubled efforts to respond to a burgeoning homeless problem. A 21-page report by Santana released in 2015 concluded that the city spent $100 million a year on homelessness in unfocused, marginally successful ways.

This year, a public backlash has built over the Garcetti administration’s slowness in responding to nearly 6,000 requests to clean up homeless encampments. City statistics released in February showed that 2,400 of the complaints had gone unaddressed for more than 90 days.

In an interview with the Times, City Councilman Jose Huizar, who represents a downtown district with a heavy homeless population, depicted City Hall’s response as having failed Angelenos.

On the homeless cleanup front, “How can we go to our constituents and say with a straight face, ‘We will get to this’?” Huizar told the newspaper.

Garcetti has plenty of time to make up his mind about a presidential bid, in terms of qualifying for the ballot in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary in early 2020. He also has some leeway in gearing up fundraising and organizational efforts. The last “outsider” candidate to win the Democratic presidential nod – then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama – didn’t publicly signal his intention to seek the 2008 nomination until October 2006, after spending much of the year saying he would not run.

Good morning! Happy Monday.

New polling and a surprise endorsement light up the path to victory for Loretta Sanchez’s quest for the U.S. Senate — but both also illustrate the challenges ahead.

Sanchez — a Democratic congresswoman from Orange County — is hoping to cobble together enough votes from a mix of Latinos, Republicans, independents and Democrats to carry her past Democratic Attorney General Kamala Harris, the frontrunner.

Harris won first place in the June primary by a wide margin — 40 percent to 19 percent — with the vote split between 34 candidates. Polling released Friday gives a clearer picture of how the two candidates stack up head to head, showing Harris in a comfortable, yet surmountable, lead.

And while the polling suggests Sanchez still faces significant difficulties winning over Republicans, Hugh Hewitt, a popular conservative radio host from Orange County, endorsed her on his show on Thursday, giving Sanchez her second high-profile Republican endorsement since the primary.

CalWatchdog has more:

In other news:

• Speaking of high-profile endorsements in the Senate race, Vice President Joe Biden is considering endorsing Harris. The Los Angeles Times has more. 
• The Voice of San Diego dissects Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s decision to present her boyfriend an award for Veteran of the Year, finding trouble with the decision and hypocrisy with the reaction. 
• A new report finds the use of “dark money” dipped in California recently, reports Capital Public Radio.
• “Facing a torrent of accusations, a for-profit company that operates taxpayer-funded online charter schools throughout California has reached a $168.5 million settlement with the state over claims it manipulated attendance records and overstated its students’ success,” writes The San Jose Mercury News. 

Legislature:

• Gone ’til August.

Gov. Brown:

• On vacation.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New followers: @Sal_DiCiccio @dandelcampo2

Unlike the House, where the strength is in building coalitions, individual senators have a lot of power — the place runs almost entirely on unanimous consent. Personal relationships matter and senators don’t respect those they don’t respect or those who can’t keep their promises.

Especially in an increasingly partisan world, the ability to make friends across the aisle is key in the Senate. For example, Boxer was successful on transportation legislation because she was able to find common ground with Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., with whom she disagreed with on almost everything else.

“Relationships are very important in a Senate that runs on consensus,” said Jim Manley, former spokesman for Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Sanchez, an Orange County congresswoman, is running against fellow Democrat Kamala Harris, the state Attorney General and frontrunner in both polling and fundraising, as well as two former state Republican party chairs, Duf Sundheim and Tom Del Beccaro.

Harris, Sundheim and Del Beccaro all lack prior legislative experience. Sanchez says she’s the only candidate who is “ready to hit the ground running on Day 1.” While her time in the House would give her a structural advantage (if elected) over other freshman, the issues any of them would be able to fight for would be largely determined by their committee assignments.

Committee Assignments

The Senate as an institution puts a lot of value in seniority — it’s how committee assignments and office space are doled out. It used to be culturally important too, when new senators were expected to stay quiet and learn for a year, although that’s waning in modern times.

Committees are where senators do the vast majority of their work. Bills usually go through committee before heading to the floor. So senators need to either usher their bills through committee themselves or have someone who sits on the committee usher it through for them.

While candidates talk about what they’ll do when they get to Washington, it really comes down to what committees they are assigned to. In fact, instead of going to Washington to change the world and push a laundry list of party priorities — as candidates often talk about on the campaign trail — the first few years are spent getting on the good side of their committee chairs and ranking members, rising in seniority, gaining clout by cosponsoring bills and working with others, becoming an expert in a policy and then finally starting to move legislation through committee.

The leadership determines assignments. Senators will request what committees they want to be assigned to, but the caucus leadership will decide assignments based on expertise and need.

Manley said that Reid, who is retiring, used to spend a great deal of time post-election working with the new senators to fill spots based on where the vacancies were, making sure committees were adequately represented by the different regions of the country, and of course taking into consideration what the new members want — although there were no guarantees.

Senators usually serve on at least three committees, and prior experience is a factor. There’s a good chance that a state attorney general like Harris would be assigned to the Judiciary Committee. And there’s a good chance Sanchez would be assigned to Armed Services or Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committees, since she currently serves on similar committees in the House.

With Boxer leaving, there will be an opening on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which is a prime spot for a Californian as this committee has jurisdiction over roads and environmental policy. So a Californian could make the case for this assignment based on regional representation. And a nod from Boxer could help too.

Boxer will also leave an opening on the Foreign Relations Committee, where senators can boost their foreign policy credentials — a nice launch pad for a presidential run, if any of them feel so inclined (as the saying goes: every senator sees a future president when they look in the mirror).

Former or current members of Foreign Relations are: President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

History

In the old days, the motto was freshman should be seen and not heard. In fact, the maiden speech was a big deal — freshman wouldn’t speak on the floor for a year.

The tradition has eroded over the years. In 2015, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., waited just a few months into his term to deliver his maiden speech. And Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., made news by actually waiting a year — the only freshman in a class of 13 to do so.

How will experience help?

Besides Sanchez, none of the top candidates have legislative experience. But, according to Manley, Harris’ time as AG gives her other experience, like running a large department and being decisive.

Structurally, Sanchez’s 19 years in the House gives her an advantage over other freshman, since multiple senators are sworn in on the same day. Ties in seniority need to be broken somehow.

Priority is given to former senators, then former members of the House, then former presidents, vice presidents, cabinet members and governors. If none of those apply, then it falls on population of the state. And if that doesn’t work, it goes by alphabetical order.

Sanchez has served with many current senators over the years, since many were elected out of the House. She’s also served on conference committees (when the two chambers come together to work out the differences between the House version of a bill and the Senate version). She’s also served on the Joint Economic Committee, which has members of both chambers on it.

But her experience and existing relationships alone may not get her more respect on the other side of the Capitol. Sanchez would have to prove herself just like the others.

“You either demonstrate you have the chops or not,” said Manley.

Read more: “Sanchez: Don’t Touch the Filibuster“

Beau Biden, the vice president’s late son, died last may of brain cancer. On his way out the door, the protester continued to scream that cell phones were killing people.”

“The FCC is lying to you,” the protester screamed towards thousands of Democrats, with a bright yellow sign to match.

But even as he was being escorted out, Biden, who was speaking at the California Democratic convention, said with a smile, “It’s OK, It’s OK,” noting that his son would have liked the protesting. And he even dipped into presidential politics to take a shot at GOP front-runner Donald Trump, who has routinely kicked protesters out of events.

“Let’s not act like Republicans,” Biden joked as the crowd booed the man.

Second thoughts

Brown himself has teased reporters over the course of the year with remarks that slammed the door shut only to creak it open again. This March, on Meet the Press, he admitted he would join race if he were 10 years younger. “If I could go back in a time machine and be 66, I might jump in. But that’s a counterfactual, so you don’t need to speculate on that,” he said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Now, in the minds of analysts, his own state of mind has become a secondary consideration. More important: the surprisingly fluid nature of the Democratic race.

While observers have thrilled to the chaos inflicted on Republican candidates by the rise of insurgents Donald Trump and Ben Carson, the story with the biggest political implications this summer has concerned Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Despite a superficially significant lead, her persistent challenges on authenticity and trustworthiness — fueled by a classified email scandal set to drag on for months — have raised fears that a party elder will have to ride in to the rescue.

Building the case

That’s where Brown has come in. Neither Bernie Sanders nor Martin O’Malley, Clinton’s main rivals, have gained the confidence of party elites. The political vacuum opened up wide enough to encourage Vice President Joe Biden to consider declaring his candidacy. But his slow deliberation opened a window of its own for Brown, according to supportive analysts.

Last month, former House Speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told Fox News he “wouldn’t be surprised if Michael Bloomberg, Jerry Brown or Elizabeth Warren jump in the race if it looks like Hillary Clinton will implode,” Real Clear Politics noted. “If Hillary starts to implode you will see a vacuum that you have not seen in many, many years,” he warned.

For old-school liberals sensing a 21st century moment, Brown led that pack. “He comes across as something fresh and original,” wrote Michael Kinsley in Vanity Fair. “All that New Age stuff that seemed so weird when Brown ran for president the first time (in 1976) is still part of his repertoire. But he’d be helped if he ran by the extent to which yoga and brown rice and so on have become part of American culture. Jerry Brown hasn’t gone mainstream (or at least not much), but mainstream has gone Jerry Brown.”

Less partisan observers have focused on the appeal to Democrats of his record in office. “Brown is quite popular in the state — 52 percent approval to 27 percent disapproval in a May Public Policy Institute of California survey — and has overseen an economic recovery in the state that many people thought was impossible when he took over the office in 2011,” noted the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza.

A newsy narrative

But Brown’s popularity, as Cillizza also suggested, hasn’t diluted the longtime Clinton critic’s outsider sensibility. The prospect of Brown mounting a renewed challenge to the Clintons’ control of the party would certainly make news. Brown notoriously pushed his combative 1992 presidential candidacy all the way to the party convention, delivering a speech of his own while the party finally formalized its nomination of Bill Clinton.

Now, according to former Clinton administration official Lara Brown (no relation), Gov. Brown’s “more than two-decade long reputation of being the ‘anti-Clinton’ would “endear him to Sanders’ supporters, but would also place him in good stead were the party needing to wash its hands of all things Clinton in the wake of an indictment.”

With the economy improving, his “California is back” message playing well and a landslide re-election victory just four months in the past, the four-time governor is riding high. His approval rating was 58 percent favorable, just 26 percent unfavorable.

That contrasts sharply with his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Just four years ago, as he left office, a Field Poll found Schwarzenegger’s approval rating was terminal, at 75 percent of voters looking on him negatively, with only 20 percent approving. The state was suffering through the middle of the Great Recession, with $20 billion state budget deficits.

However much voters now give a thumbs-up to Brown in the governor’s office, for the Oval Office, they seem ready for Hillary.

When asked whom they preferred for president of the two potential candidates, it came down to 49 percent for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and 26 percent for Brown.

Although Clinton has not officially announced her candidacy, yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported she will do so in April. An announcement that early could help preclude candidacies from such potential challengers as Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and former Virgina Sen. Jim Webb.

As to Brown, he started campaigning late in his three previous candidacies for president — in 1976, 1980 and 1992 — but finished strong, though falling short in the end. An early start definitely would be required this time to have a chance at heading off Clinton.

As to the recent poll, it’s not California voters who likely will decide the candidate, as our primary comes in June. More decisive will be what voters think in the Iowa Caucuses next January and the early primaries in New Hampshire, the Carolinas and Nevada.

However, should Brown and Clinton somehow both run and be contenders on the June 7 date of the California Primary, then Golden State voters really might get to decide who the next president is.

But there are a few problems with this narrative in the Golden State. For starters, the high cost of housing is at least as responsible as stagnant wages for California having the nation’s highest poverty rate. The federal minimum wage could double from the present $7.25, and poverty would still be sky-high here so long as mediocre one-bedroom apartments rent for $1,200 a month or more in urban areas.

What would bring down the cost of housing? Adding more housing stock by limiting regulations blocking new construction and incentivizing developers to build mixes of middle-income and lower-income housing.

Will CA Dems ever do that? Of course not. Growth is evil, yunno. Even if opposing it hurts poor people. Gaia must be honored.

The best way to create middle-class jobs

But where the Democrats’ posturing on income inequality is most unhelpful is with public education. If we wanted to create middle-class opportunities galore for kids in poor communities, we would mandate that they take computer science in high school. I wrote about this angle in March:

Even if minimum-wage hikes don’t kill jobs, the idea that this policy is a promising solution to income inequality makes little sense. In the big picture, what we need are many more people with in-demand job skills that lead to middle-income careers. And what we badly need from our elected leaders is an acknowledgment that California’s approach isn’t working in creating these job skills.

Income inequality isn’t just growing in the U.S. It’s growing in all advanced nations as technological advances wipe out middle-class jobs by the millions. It’s growing everywhere as the job marketplace increasingly values — and strongly rewards — a narrower range of skills than it did previously.

The best way to minimize the disruption this inexorable change creates is by maximizing the number of people with job skills not diminished by “creative destruction.” For starters, we need a focus on computer science and technological expertise in middle school and high school — not curriculums based on the educational values of the 1950s. We also need to make it much easier for displaced workers of any age to go back to the classroom to get practical job training.

Pursuing this ambitious agenda would be far more daunting than raising the minimum wage. But it has promise to significantly reduce income inequality — not nibble at the margins.

Will Biden make this point? Or just posture with Occupy-style rhetoric about the 1 percent?

You know the answer. President Obama may have a good record of calling for incompetent teachers to get the boot, but he has had little to say about the urgent need to revamp high-school graduation requirements for the 21st century.

Why? It’s tough not to think that it’s because it would cost 10 percent or more of high-school teachers their jobs. Never forget that the main opposition in New York state in the late 1990s to ending or scaling back failed bilingual education policies came from teacher union leaders who were upset it would mean pink slips for many “Spanish immersion” teachers.

Get ready for traffic hell, Los Angeles

Meanwhile, Angelenos once again will face a traffic nightmare today because of Biden’s visit and the Obama administration’s latest Socal money-grubbing. Joe Mathews had an enjoyably tart take on this last week:

Bad news: President Obama is coming to California again.

Mr. President, I realize such a statement may seem jarring. After all, our state voted for you twice. When you were first running for president, Maria Shriver said, “If Barack Obama were a state, he’d be California.” But these days, I bet I could rally a majority of Californians behind a proposition asking that you never visit again. And I wouldn’t even have to talk about your record-low job approval ratings among Californians.

No, our fundamental problem with you is more personal than political. You, sir, have developed a reputation as a very poor houseguest.

You often show up with little warning about your itinerary or schedule. (Your excuse? That the Secret Service can’t disclose your movements for security reasons.) Your massive security cordon routinely causes hours-long traffic jams in a state that already has too many of them. I was once two hours late picking up a child from day care because you just had to stop for takeout in Los Angeles during the evening rush hour.

Mathews makes this case that this might be more palatable if the president actually seemed familiar with and eager to address California issues. But Obama doesn’t and isn’t.

Your trips here have come to feel like those political fundraising emails that keep arriving this time of year. You’re spamming us, Mr. President. If you can’t do better by California on these trips, then maybe you should stop visiting.

This isn’t the first time Joe Mathews has griped about such inconveniences. Here he also takes a shot at George Clooney. Now he’s really getting too big for his britches.

By John Seiler

The evidence keeps rushing in that the U.S. and California economies have stagnated for about 15 years. Obviusly, there are bright spots, such Apple, Google and the other Silicon Valley nerd factories.

But for anyone with IQ < 180, there has been no “growth,” only fake booms and real busts. Some numbers appear to be up, such as the stock market or housing prices; but those numbers don’t take into account inflation.

The following chart does factor inflation. It shows that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is in the same position it was in the late 1990s. That is, there’s been no improvement. Total stagnation.

No wonder middle-class families feel squeezed. They have been squeezed. They work hard and save, but interest rates are near zero. They work harder, and their “incomes” rise, but so do taxes. If they run small businesses, federal, state and local regulations keep getting tougher and more costly. The Federal Reserve Board keeps debasing the currency through the inflation called QE3.

The middle class are rats on a treadmill.

Both parties are to blame. Republicans and Democrats pretty much have split power in Congress and the White House the past 15 years. Third party alternatives are kept out of power by a system rigged by the two major parties.

In Thursday’s VP “debate,” here were the “solutions” of the two candidates:

Democrat Joe Biden: Increase taxes and spending even more.

Republican Paul Ryan: Cut spending by increasing defense spending to defend West Germany from the Soviet Union, both of which countries don’t exist any more.

It doesn’t add up and it hasn’t added up for 15 years.

In California, things are even worse because our state suffers intensified chapters of the major parties: Democrats who hanker to be Kim Jong Un and feckless Republicans just wanting to cash in, while blabbing small-government rhetoric to fool the Tea Party.

By John Seiler

I watch debates differently. I look for how each candidate upholds the U.S. Constitution, which each has taken an oath to “preserve, protect and defend.”

In the vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, here’s how many times the Constitution was mentioned: zero.

I listened closely, then checked the transcript.

Same thing for the Bill of Rights: no mentions. The closest either candidate got was Ryan saying, “We should always stand up for peace, for democracy, for individual rights” — and, no doubt if Biden hadn’t kept butting in, Ryan would have added truth, justice, the American Way, baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.

This is more proof that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are moribund documents. They act only as a structure in which the politicians operate: the presidency, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the government bureaus (most of them unconstitutional; all of them doing unconstitutional acts). Inside the structure, the Constitution is completely ignored. Anything goes.

It’s good to know that the government, at all levels, is lawless.

Katy Grimes: I couldn’t decide if Vice Presidential incumbent Joe Biden was manic during the VP debate last evening, or just being condescending and rude to intimidate challenger Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Rude, condescending, and just weird, Biden interrupted Ryan 82 times, while Ryan remained respectful and polite; it was a stark contrast. Joe’s OPD came shining through. Obnoxious Personality Disorder is not an official personality disorder, but it should be, especially after last night’s debate.

Biden’s smirks, laughs, eye rolls, huffing and puffing, only made him look like a petulant child, instead of the “statesman” he prefers to be called. Even veteran FOX journalist Chris Wallace said after the debate that in his years of watching debates, since the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, he had never seen anyone behave so disrespectfully or contemptuously as Biden.

After the bounce that the GOP got from the Romney-Obama Presidential debate, the expectations placed on Biden were high; he had to bring home a win for Obama-Biden.

But that did not happen. Even the CNN and Associated Press polls called the debate for Ryan last evening.

While moderator Martha Raddatz offered solid questions, she did not maintain control of Biden. She even interrupted Ryan many times, often just as he was making a point.

Ryan handled pointed questions on foreign policy, surprising many, and handed Biden his tush on taxes and the economy with numbers and facts.

Libya

The debate opened with Raddatz asking Biden if the terrorist attack on Libya and the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was a huge blunder. “It was a pre-planned assault by heavily armed men. Wasn’t this a massive intelligence failure Vice President Biden?” Raddatz asked about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, where Stevens was brutally murdered.

Biden dodged the question and launched into his own speech about how great the President is.

But Ryan answered the question and said that  Stevens had been denied sufficient security by Obama administration officials. “It took the President two weeks to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack,” Ryan said.

“With all due respect, that’s a bunch of malarkey. Not a single thing he said is accurate,” Biden snarled.

Raddatz told Biden to “be specific.”

Biden retorted that Ryan cut the embassy security budget, and then launched again into how great Obama has been on security.

Economy

Biden said that the economic recovery America is enjoying would proceed if Republicans “get out of the way.” Ryan deftly pointed out that the Democrats had complete control of Congress and the White House when Obama and Biden took over in 2009-10. “He had his chances. He made his choices,” Ryan said, and “this is where we are at.”

Obamacare

The debate moved to Obamacare allowing to Ryan bring up the unelected panel which would make important health decisions and ultimately what the future of health care would look like. Biden laughed again, and said that Sarah Palin had already argued the death panels with him in the last debate.

Foot-in-mouth-syndrome

Out of the blue, Biden brought up Romney’s campaign comment when he said that 47 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax, see themselves as victims, and take no responsibility for their own lives.

“It’s about time they take responsibility” instead of signing pledges to avoid raising taxes, Biden said about Romney, Ryan and the Republicans. And somewhere during the debate, Biden brought up Grover Norquist and his “no-tax” pledge.

“This is a man who gave 30 percent of his income to charity, more than the two of us combined,” Ryan retorted. “Mitt Romney’s a good man. He cares about 100 percent of Americans in this country. And with respect to that quote, I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don’t come out of your mouth the right way.”

Ryan finally succeeded in wiping the smirk off Biden’s face, but only temporarily.

Medicare

Ryan said Obama’s health care plan will take $716 billion from Medicare, as well as create a new board that could have the power to deny care to the elderly patients who need it.

Democrats “haven’t put a credible solution on the table,” Ryan said. “They’ll tell you about vouchers. They’ll say all these things to try to scare people.”

In a throw-granny-off-the-cliff moment, Biden retorted that Ryan had authored two proposals in which seniors would be given government payments that might not cover all of their care. And he said that the Romney-Ryan plan would never achieve the savings they claimed.

It was clear that without a strong record to run on, both Obama and Biden are on the  attack, and Ryan let them know that he knows their plan. Quoting Barack Obama from 2008 when he was on the campaign trail, Ryan said that their strategy is obvious: “If you don’t have a good record to run on, you paint your opponent as someone to run from.”

It’s exactly what Obama and Biden are doing, and why they steer clear from their four years in charge, and spend much more of their time on-the-attack. This debate was more evidence of the strategy. Thankfully, it’s over.

Politico has the debate transcript.