Seriously, this video is both embarrassing and kind of worrying.
Also, sleepily explaining that “I don’t think anybody has the position I have” before saying his plan will still allow for “$1,000 co-pays” (did he mean deductibles?) in a country where a substantial percentage of the population can’t even cover a $400 emergency expense is on the out-of-touch-o-meter. Joe, there’s a reason nobody else is staking out that ground… it’s garbage.
It’s like she’s looking for reasons not to vote for anyone. This is the kind of “purity über alles” attitude that will not get a Democrat elected in 2020.
The NYT article, headline aside, is actually about Warren’s rather laudable efforts to help downticket candidates, with a goal of taking back the Senate. I suspect this tweeter didn’t actually read the article.
Biden can go fuck himself. Clinton tried this last time when going up against Sanders in the 2016 primary. It was an ugly smear then, and it’s uglier and stupider now. Especially interwoven as it is with slightly-audible dogwhistles to the right wing about rationing and timeliness of care in “socialist” medicine.
Good. The rest of the low-polling candidates with fundraising struggles (or who are burning their personal cash) need to follow her lead and get out of the bloody way. Unless the candidate is forcing everyone to focus on serious, reality-based issues (e.g. Inslee on climate change, but not Yang’s techno-utopianism) we don’t have the time and resources to waste on them. The final four are going to be Biden, Harris, Sanders, and Warren anyhow. Let’s move things along and give them some room to work.
The idea that the nomination shortlist should be locked down 14 months before the election is part of what’s wrong with presidential politics today.
In summer 1975 the Democrats polling at the top were George Wallace, Hubert Humphrey, and Scoop Jackson, with Jimmy Carter below 1%. Likewise Clinton was under 2% in summer 1991, though he managed to climb up to over 8% (fourth place behind Cuomo, Jerry Brown, and Douglas Wilder) by the end of the year.
I like my nominees chosen by voters at the primaries, not by media moguls or popularity contests, and I see no earthly reason why Harris is a more serious candidate than, say, Cory Booker, other than one soundbite at one debate.
You may not be aware, but 2020 won’t be a normal general election. There’s a greater urgency here that makes business as usual a luxury the Dem establishment can’t afford. There’s no reason that things can’t be moved along here by candidates who understand that urgency.
That’s the larger issue. 6-8 week campaigns are, along with single-payer universal health insurance, apparently one of those things that every other civilised country besides the U.S. gets, but not us.
Instead we have this farce of candidates for the presidency consistently polling at 3% or less wasting time and energy more than a year before the general election, munching fried foods at a state fair in Iowa (which doesn’t have a standard primary vote but rather a “charming” old timey caucus).
on the out-of-touch-o-meter. Joe, there’s a reason nobody else is staking out that ground… it’s garbage.
