Election 2020

[Lord Jim]

Well I have to say that from my perspective so far, I've found the roll out of Democratic Presidential wannabes to be pretty depressing. They seem to be stumbling over themselves and each other to try and get to the furthest left pole position, apologizing for any responsible, centrist positions or actions they've ever taken... (Responsible centrism apparently being a poison pill with Democratic base voters...)

I watched Kamala Harris' second (or was it third?) campaign kickoff yesterday...Kamala is clearly the current mainstream media "It Candidate"; I believe there are already something like nine candidates with hats fully in the ring or partially in the ring with exploratory committees, and she seems to be getting more cable news coverage than all the others combined...(Her Oakland rally yesterday was covered live by all three cable news networks, including FOX)

I will say this for Kamala; she's a very engaging public speaker. I give her high marks for style; she has neither the dour stridency of a Warren or a Sanders, nor the flat, insincere sounding delivery of a Gillibrand...

She definitely came across as an un-scarry, optimistic, up-beat, "happy warrior" type which can have a lot of voter appeal...

Substance however, was another matter...

On that score her speech was for the most part classic liberal-left boiler plate, a big heaping helping of "all butter, no spinach"....

A big ol' goodie basket of expensive promises from the multi-trillion dollar "medicare for all" (the phrase that has replaced "single payer" as the latest euphemism du jour for socialized medicine) to universal free pre-school to new climate change programs, to what she promised would be the biggest tax cut ever for middle class earners and additional cash payment for lower class workers ...

I'm sure I've left some out and that as the campaign progresses, she'll be adding more...

And how does Kamala Claus propose to pay for this endless bounty of who-can-argue-with-it goodness? Why by raising the the corporate tax rate from 21% back to 35% of course...

Laying aside the huge negative impact that would have on economic growth (We didn't get as much economic kick out of it as we should have; there should have been limits put on how much of the tax savings could be used for stock buy backs, but the positive economic impact has nevertheless been considerable. Sufficiently so that we have been seeing wages rising organically due to demand for workers for the first time in decades.) the money one would theoretically get back from that move would not come remotely close to paying for the tens of trillions of dollars in expenditures Harris is proposing...

If you think that math would add up, I've got a wall I'd like to sell you...

(In fact that's not a bad analogy, because a politician telling you that they can deliver what Harris is promising to deliver, and pay for it the way she claims she can, is being every bit as dishonest as a politician who promises to build a wall along the US southern border with Mexico paying for it...)

I'm starting to think I'm going to have to take a long hard look at Howard Schultz...the billionaire former Starbucks CEO who is seriously contemplating an independent run...

All things being equal, I would be very reluctant to support any Presidential candidate with zero political experience, even an intelligent, serious minded, knowledgeable one...

But if the choice winds up being between Donald Trump and some economic growth killing Free Stuff For Everybody lefty on the Democratic side, all things will be far from equal...(At least so far Harris doesn't seem to have the typical left-wing hostility to defense and national security. One thing I didn't hear yesterday was any call from her to slash defense spending; the same cannot be said for some of the other Democratic wannabes. )

I tried yesterday to find out where Schultz is on foreign policy, defense, and national security issues and I could not find one single word on any of them. All I know about him so far is some vague stuff he's said about the Dems heading too far to the left, and running as a "Centrist Independent" (That and the fact that apparently Steve Schmidt has gone to work for him, which is a definite plus as far as I'm concerned, but I need to see a lot more meat on the policy bones before I'd give him serious consideration.)

Of course my greatest hope remains that I have a whole new equation to look at in 2020 because Il Boobce is not the Republican nominee...

(And maybe not Pence either; if Trump is either forced out or things get bad enough for him that he decides that running again would bring certain and humiliating defeat, it is far from a sure thing that Pence would be the nominee...)

[Big RR]

It's pretty early to make any sense of positions; by the time the primaries/caucuses roll around, the candidates usually move more toward the center. right now, I think they are just trying to fire up the portions of their base that are paying attention this early.

[RayThom]

And don't forget the Independent hopefuls.

As LJ mentioned above, the world's most committed "Starbuckeroo", Howard "Mr Coffee" Shultz, is throwing his Ethiopian blend beans into the grinder and running as an Independent. Also, John Kasich, is talking up a run as an Independent. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of these men?

If an Indie gets on the ballot -- which I feel is a real possibility -- would it be enough to siphon off enough Repug votes from Lord Dampnut to prevent from clinching a second term?

I suppose I'll just settle back and wait for the "debates" and watch the magic to happen. 2020 is going to be interesting.

[Burning Petard]

The system is definitely rigged against independents. Remember, the final event is for electoral votes. And the first event is just to get on the ballot. In most states the system is set up to make it almost impossible to get on the ballot without support from some kind of party organization. The actual electors, even more so a creature of party organization.

snailgate

[BoSoxGal]

[Sue U]

I will say this for Kamala; she's a very engaging public speaker. I give her high marks for style; she has neither the dour stridency of a Warren or a Sanders, nor the flat, insincere sounding delivery of a Gillibrand...

She definitely came across as an un-scarry, optimistic, up-beat, "happy warrior" type which can have a lot of voter appeal...

Please don't start on whether a candidate is "likeable." But she is an excellent speaker and certainly knows her way around an argument.

A big ol' gooddie basket of expensive promises from the multi-trillion dollar "medicare for all" (the phrase that has replaced "single payer" as the latest euphemism du jour for socialized medicine) to universal free pre-school to new climate change programs, to what she promised would be the biggest tax cut ever for middle class earners and additional cash payment for lower class workers ...

I have pointed out here -- repeatedly, and for years -- that there is more than enough money already in the healthcare system to provide Medicare-for-all at substantially lower costs than the ridiculous private profit-driven health insurance system we have now. Every other industrialized democracy in the world provides universal healthcare; it is absurd that we don't do it here. By trying to raise "socialized medicine" as some sort of boogeyman you're just parroting the old AMA line of the 1950s; nobody is scared of the red Medicare menace anymore. If the last 100 years has shown us anything, it's that healthcare is simply not a sector of the economy where capitalism even works. People who are all wound up about what Medicare-for-all would cost have not even considered what we're paying for healthcare already; if your healthcare premiums were collected by the government instead of your employer (the world's stupidest system) you wouldn't know the difference -- except that there would be more money in your paycheck.

As for governmental response to climate change, the cost is virtually irrelevant if you expect to leave Tati and The Little Prince with a world they can actually live in. This is a genuine existential threat.

[BoSoxGal]

I’m happy to say that LJ is behind the times on the Medicare for all issue, as the majority of self-declared Republicans (51%) now endorse the concept - as last summer’s polls showed. Considering the Democrats support it by overwhelming majority (84.5%) and independents also support it by a majority, it’s a matter of time, I think. Big Pharma and Big Managed Care have gotten way too greedy and the people will no longer tolerate it.

[Big RR]

I didn't want to discuss healthcare because I didn't want to derail the thread, but I agree with Sue and BSG.

But I also do think that candidates (especially those characterized as being on the left) often back away from their positions when actually running for major national office which requires a broad based vote, which leaves us with ridiculous statements like calling the Clintons "liberals". Personally, I think Trump's campaign showed this doesn't have to be the case, but I doubt it will change in the coming election.

[Sue U]

The GOP will try to demonize any Democratic Party candidate as a crazy/scary "liberal"/"leftist"/"socialist" who will raise your taxes to 70% to pay for gay Muslim abortions for Messican rapists. That's just what they do; their entire modus operandi is generating fear in their "base" while doing the bidding of their super-rich and corporate sponsors. Fer chrissakes, they called Obama a terrist-loving Marxist, and his policy agenda was about as "leftist" as Eisenhower's.

Democrats have a positive message to deliver and should be hitting it hard and sticking to it: Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and higher education access/funding/debt relief. That will win the election.

[Econoline]

I'm starting to think I'm going to have to take a long hard look at Howard Schultz...the billionaire former Starbucks CEO who is seriously contemplating an independent run...

Yeah, right, just what we need: another inexperienced plutocrat who will "run government like a business"...how's that been working out so far?

[Bicycle Bill]

I'm starting to think I'm going to have to take a long hard look at Howard Schultz...the billionaire former Starbucks CEO who is seriously contemplating an independent run...

Yeah, right, just what we need: another inexperienced plutocrat who will "run government like a business"...how's that been working out so far?

In the last hundred and some years, going all the way back to the days of Teddy Roosevelt and the "Bull Moose" Party, there have been 'independent candidates for president.  I even supported a couple of them over the past forty years.  But the truth is, not a single one of them has ever had a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected against the well-oiled machine that is our current two-party system.  All Schultz will do is split even further the "anybody but Trump" vote — which already has something like two dozen Democratic wannabes starting to scrap among one another.

What these Democrats and potential Independents should do is get together in a conference room ... just themselves, without their campaign managers or their strategists or anybody else.  They need to recognize, first and foremost, the fact that if Trump is still in office by Independence Day, as the incumbent he will be the de facto Republican nominee.  Then they need to accept the fact that Trump still has almost 40% of the people in this country buying the brand of bullshit he is peddling, and these brainwashed idiots will continue to support him no matter what.  So they need to come to an agreement that the most important thing is wresting the White House from Trump's clutches, and they next need to realize that the best way to do that is to present a single candidate who can pull 50% of more of the voters behind him or her ... and accept that the infighting and sniping between each other during the 'primary' season is a counterproductive waste of time, energy, and resources — resources that will be needed in the assault against the national embarrassment that is Trumpism.  They need to present a united front against a single opponent.  They need to come to an agreement on ONE candidate, and each and every one of them must then throw their support behind that person.  And they need to do it sooner rather than later.

They underestimated the strength and power of Trump's base once already.  They cannot allow themselves to do it again.

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

I think the single most important thing they need to do is to make certain that they present some sort of platform that is broader than "I'm not Trump". We need a reason to vote for the candidate, not just against Trump. Likewise, they need someone to manage the campaign who can work within the electoral college--it won't be enough to just win the popular vote (Hillary did that), they need to get the electoral votes, The third thing they need to do is to get a candidate who can generate some enthusiasm; this did not appear to be an arrow in Hillary's quiver (and I do think she had a lot of other skills which could have made her an effective president), but we need that to bring people to the polls--I don't think the dislike of Trump will be enough.

Personally, I think that healthcare may be a viable issue to move to the forefront, as the public appears to be united behind it in principle, and a good reform with a guarantee of some insurance would be broadly received. Couple that with a comprehensive investment in jobs and training that can be sold to the un/underemployed who bought Trump's BS and really push these as issues would appear to be a viable campaign.

[BoSoxGal]

Howard Schultz was on Morning Joe today; he’s a clueless twat. I really hope he doesn’t run.

[RayThom]

Howard Schultz was on Morning Joe today; he’s a clueless twat. I really hope he doesn’t run.

I appreciate Howard's morality and ethics but if we've learned one hard, and frightening, lesson from the 2016 election it's that business people need to run businesses and politicians need to run governments.

[BoSoxGal]

I thought he was vacuous; he didn’t answer any of the questions with the substance I’d expect from someone seriously considering a run and getting educated on the electoral math. Then he declared Reagan the best GOP president and FDR the best Democrat president, which seems oxymoronic. And he hammered the whole ‘don’t bash billionaires, I’m from the projects, I’m the American Dream’ and lied about Medicare for All being unaffordable (the nonpartisan stats clearly prove it would cost tens of billions less than the current private system) and hammered as unaffordable all the other progressive programs Democrats have been talking about since Bernie that are standard in European countries and somehow affordable there. He’s a blinkered billionaire with no comprehension of regular people’s lives, determined to protect his vast fortune, and totally out of touch with the concept of how the growing income inequality in this country is damaging our democracy, limiting opportunity and becoming deeply immoral. I thought he was a decent guy when I saw him talk about the race incident that caused him to call for employee re-education recently, but after today I find him a lot less likable.

[Burning Petard]

But would you want a health system run the way your local state motor vehicle office is run--it's S O C I A L I S M !

I am so weary of this dog whistle. Actually, the Delaware State motor vehicle office near Delaware City (where I have registered a private sale for a car, purchased vanity plates for a new car, renewed my driver's permit, all in the last year) is run BETTER than the office for my primary care physician. The current system (at least as I have been exposed to it in Delaware) contains plenty of for-profit choke points that do nothing but add fees for services that provide better health outcomes for no one.

snailgate.

[Lord Jim]

Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and higher education access/funding/debt relief.

Might as well throw in Abolish ICE and Repeal The 2nd Amendment while you're at it...

And a free trip to Disneyland...

I’m happy to say that LJ is behind the times on the Medicare for all issue, as the majority of self-declared Republicans (51%) now endorse the concept - as last summer’s polls showed. Considering the Democrats support it by overwhelming majority (84.5%) and independents also support it by a majority

Well, all of the available drill-down polling suggests that the large margins that are seen in polls supporting "Medicare for all" are only there because most of the people answering the question are thinking of it in terms of making Medicare available for other people who want it , not wanting to have themselves forced into such a system...

Here's just the most recent poll conducted in the past few days showing this quite clearly:

Poll: Just 13 percent want 'Medicare for all' if it means end of private insurance


A new poll finds that about only one in 10 registered voters want the equivalent of Medicare for all if it means abolishing private health insurance plans.

In a Hill-HarrisX survey released Thursday, 13 percent of respondents said they would prefer a health care system that covers all citizens and doesn't allow for private plans, an approach that is sometimes referred to as "single-payer."

The most popular option, at 32 percent, consisted of a universal, government-operated system that also would allow people to buy private, supplemental insurance.

Twenty-six percent of respondents said they wanted a government insurance plan offered to all citizens, but one that doesn't compel people with private plans to use it, a system sometimes called a "public option."

A small minority of 15 percent of voters said they wanted the government to completely remove itself from paying for health care, while another 14 percent said they want to keep the existing health care system intact.

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-america ... thcare-for

And the reason for this is pretty obvious. Though one who follows just the reports in the liberal mainstream media could be forgiven for concluding that most people are completely dissatisfied with their existing health coverage, the reality is exactly the opposite:

Well-Being
December 7, 2018

Most Americans Still Rate Their Healthcare Quite Positively

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the incoming Congress prepares to debate further changes to the U.S. healthcare system, solid majorities of Americans rate the coverage (69%) and quality (80%) of the healthcare they personally receive as "excellent" or "good." By contrast, Americans are much less positive about healthcare in the U.S. in general, with a bare majority rating the quality of U.S. healthcare positively (55%) and about a third giving positive reviews to U.S. healthcare coverage (34%).

At least three in four Americans have consistently rated the quality of their healthcare positively, ranging from 76% to 83%, over the past 18 years. Smaller majorities have described their coverage as excellent or good since 2001, ranging from 63% to 72%.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/245195/ame ... ively.aspx

I'll say this for Kamala Harris...at least she's being honest about it...

She made quite clear (at least in that town hall she had on CNN right after she announced) that she is indeed talking about a system that would eliminate the private insurance that polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans like for themselves...

None of this Barack Obama-like "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan; full stop" BS for her...

I would have thought it unimaginable that the Democrats could figure out a way to hand Donald Trump and the Congressional Republicans the popular advantage on the healthcare issue, but if they choose to embrace the 13% support position, they will have done exactly that...

I have every confidence that if (God forbid) Donald Trump is the Republican nominee in 2020 that the Democrats are perfectly capable of nominating a candidate who can lose to him...

Afterall, they have a proven track record in this regard...

[Burning Petard]

LJ, I do not see the connect: "private insurance that polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans like for themselves..." and the approval statistic you highlighted in the post above. My health care comes from a primary care physician and a dentist and an eye doctor located in Newark Delaware where I see each of them on a face to face basis regularly. My private insurance comes from a corporate entity that I have only contacted by phone and email and I have no idea where they are physically located. I do read in the business news they are nicely profitable.

snailgate.

[Lord Jim]

SG, look at the first poll I cited:

Poll: Just 13 percent want 'Medicare for all' if it means end of private insurance


A new poll finds that about only one in 10 registered voters want the equivalent of Medicare for all if it means abolishing private health insurance plans...

ETA:

It would make a lot more political sense for the Democrats to run on a proposal for a "public option" medical insurance plan that would make Medicare available to those who wanted to choose it...That would have pretty substantial public support...

There's a word for running on a plan that has 13% public support with an issue that consistently ranks at the top of voter concerns, and that word isn't "smart"....

[Burning Petard]

Well, according to the polls cited by LJ, there is no "mandate" for anything. The largest support for an option offered in this poll was less than one-third.
That tells me that (if the poll is truly representative of general opinion) the topic needs great deal more attention from politicians and opinion leaders to provoke some kind of movement to a majority concensus.

snailgate.