Tomor­row night, most of the cred­i­ble declared Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates for Pres­i­dent (with the notable excep­tion of Lar­ry Lessig, who is being exclud­ed) will be gath­ered togeth­er onstage in Las Vegas for the first Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate of the 2016 cycle. CNN is the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s media part­ner for this event, and will be tele­vis­ing the debate begin­ning at 5:30 PM Pacific.

Tomor­row night’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic debate promis­es to be very dif­fer­ent from the clown shows that the Repub­li­cans orga­nized with Fox and CNN back in the sum­mer. Unlike the Repub­li­cans, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates have a range of seri­ous, sub­stan­tive pro­pos­als to improve Amer­i­ca’s qual­i­ty of life.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates have laid out plans for reduc­ing gun vio­lence, hold­ing police account­able, mak­ing it eas­i­er for vot­ers to par­tic­i­pate in elec­tions, expand­ing Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare, pro­vid­ing paid fam­i­ly and vaca­tion leave to Amer­i­can work­ers, increas­ing the min­i­mum wage, ensur­ing new Amer­i­cans can become cit­i­zens, and com­bat­ing the cli­mate cri­sis. The Repub­li­can can­di­dates have not.

While CNN’s hosts can be expect­ed to ask sil­ly, shal­low ques­tions, this debate is among the Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates for Pres­i­dent. They col­lec­tive­ly have the pow­er to decide what kind of con­ver­sa­tion they want to have. We hope they will show that they’re the true adults in the race by keep­ing the focus where it belongs: on the seri­ous issues the mass media and Repub­li­cans are large­ly ignoring.

Most of the par­tic­i­pants in tomor­row night’s debate are blips in the polling that’s been con­duct­ed so far. Part­ly that’s because the mass media has focused almost exclu­sive­ly on Hillary Clin­ton (and to a less­er extent, because he’s made his cam­paign impos­si­ble to ignore) Bernie Sanders. As a con­se­quence, not many Amer­i­cans have had the chance to hear from Mar­tin O’Mal­ley, James Webb, or Lin­coln Chafee. Tomor­row night, vot­ers who tune in will get that chance.

Sad­ly, Lar­ry Lessig is being exclud­ed from the debate, and we think that’s just wrong. We hope he is includ­ed in the next one, and we will hap­pi­ly rew­teet his com­men­tary on the debate if he par­tic­i­pates from a dis­tance on Twitter.

If you’d like to watch the debate in the com­pa­ny of oth­er pro­gres­sives, you have options. Here is a list of some of the debate watch par­ties we know about in the Puget Sound area. These are not spon­sored by any of the cam­paigns. You should plan to arrive no lat­er than 5:15 PM, so you don’t miss the begin­ning of the debate.

32nd LD Pres­i­den­tial Debate Watch Party 
Jer­sey’s in Shoreline
1306 N 175th St, Shoreline
Join with friends and neigh­bors to watch the first Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­den­tial Debate at Jer­seys in Shore­line ‑an all ages event!

Capi­tol Hill Pres­i­den­tial Debate Watch Party
Comet Tavern
922 E Pike St, Seat­tle, WA 98122
The Comet Tav­ern (where Bernie stopped on his Seat­tle trip and gave a mem­o­rable speech!) will be host­ing a Demo­c­ra­t­ic debate view­ing par­ty! We offer a giant screen TV, two big screen TV’s, full sound, full bar and rad food selection.

YDWA Pres­i­den­tial Debate Watch Party
Admis­sion required; tick­ets will be sold at the door
West of Lenin The­ater, Fremont
203 N 36th St, Seat­tle, WA 98103
Don’t miss the great­est Pres­i­den­tial Watch Par­ty of the year! YDWA is rent­ing out a the­ater to watch the Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates go head-to-head in the first debate of the 2016 campaign.

Pierce Coun­ty Democ­rats Pres­i­den­tial Watch Party
Taco­ma Fire­fight­ers Hall
1109 S 50th Street, Taco­ma WA, 98408
Com­pli­men­ta­ry food and bev­er­age! Please con­sid­er join­ing Rick Tal­bert and the Pierce Coun­ty Democ­rats at the Fire­fight­ers Hall in Taco­ma on Tues­day for a debate watch par­ty. This event is not affil­i­at­ed with any pres­i­den­tial can­di­date and all are welcome.

We will have live cov­er­age of tomor­row’s debate begin­ning at 5:30 PM.