The second round of Democratic presidential debates begins tomorrow night. CNN will host two nights, with 10 candidates randomly drawn for each night. The lineups are more interesting than the last time around, at least to me, so it should make for some interesting television to watch. Added to the excitement is the prospect for many of the candidates on stage that this may be the last time they get to appear at such an event. With little to lose, the minor candidates may be making a lot more noise, in other words.

The mechanics of the lineups were handled better this time around, as the D.N.C. learned from their first attempt at balancing the field between two nights. There were actually three random draws -- one for the top four candidates, one for the middle six candidates, and one for the other 10 who qualified. This avoided the frontloading that happened last time, when there were only two draws. The first night will have Elizabeth Warren facing off with Bernie Sanders, and the second will be a rematch between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. While most people are focusing on the second head-to-head matchup, I'm much more interested in the first one.

There's a hard, cold fact that many progressives haven't yet fully faced, and that is if they want to maximize their chances of seeing the Democrats nominate a progressive presidential candidate, at some point during the race either Warren or Sanders is going to have to voluntarily drop out and throw their support behind the other. Otherwise they'll spend the entire primary season splitting the progressive vote, thus giving Joe Biden (or some other candidate, conceivably) a clearer path to victory. Just look at how the GOP couldn't coalesce around an "anti-Trump" candidate in 2016, if you need proof of how this works.

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We're going to wait until the talking points to fully delve into the catchy hashtag #MoscowMitch, because we feel the point being made is an important one that may just get a whole lot more attention over the next month or so (if the Democrats are capable of following through, that is -- always an open question). Suffice it to say for now that Mitch McConnell is taking an absolutely indefensible stand by essentially aiding and abetting America's enemies.

The big story of the week this week, however, was Robert Mueller's testimony before two different House committees. Our reactions to this spectacle weren't exactly what everyone else in the media focused on, but then that's not saying very much since everyone else was grading Mueller on whether his televised testimony was sufficiently entertaining enough to get high viewer ratings. We sincerely wish we were making that up, but we are not.

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Due to a sudden and unexpected wedding, there will be no column today, sorry. One of my oldest and best friends decided to tie the knot unexpectedly, so my presence was required elsewhere. Congratulations to the happy couple! My apologies for the interruption in service, and fresh columns will resume tomorrow.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

While plenty of others have plenty of other things to say today about Robert Mueller's testimony in front of two House committees, what struck me the most was a rather large unanswered question. Indeed, it was hard to actually avoid thinking about the concept, because in the first hearing most of the Democrats finished their five minutes with some form of the following declaration: "No one is above the law," sometimes adding: "...not even a president" and sometimes just leaving it implied. But does this phrase have any real-world meaning or is it just so much sanctimonious nonsense?

There are two reasons I ask this rather fundamental question, one technical and one purely political. First, the technical legal problem, which was touched upon by one of the Democratic questioners in the second hearing, but was largely left unanswered by Mueller (and then the questioner either moved on or ran out of time). Since the Justice Department believes that no sitting president can be indicted, does that mean that all crimes with a statute of limitations shorter than the president's term in office can be freely committed if the president is not impeached?

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It's one of those rare weeks where things may actually get done in Congress, as they all prepare to flee Washington for their usual monthlong August vacation. While Bob Mueller's made-for-TV testimony tomorrow is currently dominating the news, behind the scenes a rather momentous deal was just cut between Nancy Pelosi and the White House. A budget deal has been reached which will last until well after the 2020 election cycle is done. This two-year agreement will avoid defaulting on the national debt by raising the debt ceiling until 2021, and will also provide the framework not only for this year's budget bills but also for next year's as well. This will hopefully avoid most of the usual histrionics surrounding the budget, because nobody really wants a fiscal cliff or a government shutdown during an election year.

Being a compromise between Democrats and Republicans, there is something in the new budget for just about everyone to hate. Such is the way of sausage-making, I suppose. On the left, there is a whole lot more money for the Pentagon, but the days of Democrats making a big deal over the increasing size of the military budget are mostly over, so this will likely not be all that contentious in the end. The bigger problem, for progressives, is that Nancy Pelosi entered into an agreement over all the budget bills that Congress will have to individually pass to keep the government funded. These are must-pass bills, since without them the government shuts down. As such, they are sometimes used to push agenda items that the other side doesn't like. The leverage of having to pass the budget bills means certain demands can be made and then hashed out between the parties. But not this time, as Pelosi has agreed to not propose any "poison pill" amendments to any of the budget bills. It is unclear whether this agreement is actually written into this week's deal or just a handshake agreement between her and the White House, but if she sticks to it, it will mean she has given away any leverage progressives might have used to advance their agenda for the next two years. Some on the left are already howling about this rather large restriction.

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I realize that we are still in the midst of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race, but today I'd like to leap forward to present a very simple (and, to me, obvious) strategy for whomever secures the Democratic nomination and has to take on Donald Trump in next year's general election. Because I think I've come up with an all-encompassing campaign slogan that will stand the test of both time and Trump. It cuts to the very heart of the argument that a Democrat -- any Democrat, in fact -- would be miles better than what we've got now. Picture the presidential nominee repeating at every rally next summer the following line: "Do we really want this for the next four years?!?"

Its generic nature is its strength. You can either spell out in great detail what "this" refers to, or you can just let it hang and allow the voters to fill in that blank. Either way, it asks voters a very basic question -- do they want to spend the next four years the way we've all spent the past two and a half?

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Obviously, Donald Trump dominated the news this week, by going full-on racist. The Republican Party's reliance on "dog whistles" on racial issues is now no longer necessary, since the leader of the party has given everyone a green light to just go right ahead and publicly scream racist invective as loudly as possible. That was such a big story that it swamped all the other political news.

We're going to address the new love both Trump and the Republican Party have for blatant racism in the talking points this week, in an extended screed on exactly where Trump is leading his party and the country. We felt such a disgusting turn of events deserved being addressed in longer fashion than just a few paragraphs. But before we get to that, though, we've got the other news of the week to cover and some awards to hand out.

It's actually been two weeks since we last wrote one of these columns, as we were away at Netroots Nation last week. While there, we were amused to see Donald Trump being forced to give up his plans for adding a citizenship question to the Census, while ranting and raving about Democrats and trying to spin his backing down as some sort of political victory. Good times!

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The draw for the second round of Democratic debates is happening soon (by the time you read this it may have already happened, in fact). CNN has hyped this event almost as much as the debates themselves, and it certainly will (quite literally) set the stage for both nights of debate, as the 20 candidates who have qualified are somehow quasi-randomly divided up. The lineups will be important for all the candidates' chances of standing out from the crowd, but it is important even in this fairly early stage of the nomination race to keep our focus on the main goal: beating Donald Trump next November. And that -- as over 16 failed Republican candidates can attest to -- will be no easy feat. How do you beat Trump on the playing field he has chosen to run his campaign from?

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Attending the breakout sessions on marijuana legal reform at Netroots Nation has only gotten better and better over the years. Each year's panel is unique, of course, but I'm speaking of a larger picture here, because over the past decade or so the question of legalizing marijuana for recreational adult use has gone from a literal pipe dream to an aspiration to a solid plan to (in state after state) a triumphant reality. And now there is an aura of inevitability about legalization for the entire country -- an concept which would have seemed wildly unrealistic just ten or twelve years ago. We're winning this battle, and we're going to win this whole war in the very near future. This lends a spirit of optimism to the discussion that just wasn't present a decade ago.

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As I continue to recover from my Netroots Nation trip, I thought I'd ease back into writing columns with another look at the Democratic horserace. Enough time has now passed from the first debate round that the polling has caught up to people's reactions, and the candidates have all just announced their second-quarter fundraising totals, so it seems like a good time to check in once again.

Campaign News

Astonishingly, since the last time we wrote a full rundown of the field (over a month ago), we've had some more movement into the race and the movement out of the race has also now begun.

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