by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

To hear the big media folks frame it, you'd think Steve was also requesting a mansion in St. Moritz as well. But, in fact, Steve Ybarra's got a pretty good eye for good tactics, and this is just that: a tactical request. Ybarra wants the campaigns to spend $20 million on registering Latino voters in the Southwest.  From the Comedy Central Blog:

Well, that's kind of, um, honorable. It's kinda not fair the way the article was written; it didn't mention his intentions until midway through and tricked me into thinking he was being greedy. ...

Still, it seems unlikely that Ybarra will get $20 million dollars out of the candidates, who need to spend that money ads calling each other names and accusing each other of being unAmerican.

Plus, I'm sure they can find ten or twenty superdelegates from below the border who will register and educate eligible Mexican-American voters for $2 million and a mattress to sleep on.

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by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I'm really just watching this in a big room on TV, so you're as equipped to deliver your thoughts as I am.  Although, The Nation's Mark Cooper and HuffPo's Max Follmer are sitting in front of me, and Todd from MyDD and John Amato of Crooks and Liars on either side, so it's a somewhat bigger living room than yours.  There are actually maybe 300 media folks in here.

Consider this an open thread and I'll check in where needed.  This won't be a full liveblog.

...We are getting a live feed of Wolf Blitzer warming up the audience.  He just said "I love politics."  I expected him to say "I don't understand it, but I love it..."

...Someone in the audience just asked Wolf "Where's Anderson." Har!

...the best part of this debate is going to be when the cast of "No Country For Old Men" storms the stage at the end.