When I watch the Democratic Party’s presidential debates, I do it through the lens of electability. I don’t mean that I evaluate the individual candidates in terms of how electable I believe they are relative to each other, but more that I look at the presentation as a whole. How does the party come off? Is what they’re selling going to play in the Philadelphia suburbs? Is it going to play in the more rural parts of Pennsylvania where Donald Trump rolled up an insurmountable lead on Hillary Clinton?
In suburban Chester County, Pennsylvania, where I live, the single biggest employer is Vanguard, a major financial services company. The third biggest employer is the international medical device-maker Siemens. Pharmaceutical companies Johnson & Johnson and Endo are also in the top 50, along with three different hospital systems and a couple of other health care companies.
It’s a problem that the financial services, pharmaceutical, and health care industries come under such strong attack in these debates because many see it as a personal insult and others simply see it as a threat to their livelihood. I know this firsthand because I live with the people who work in these industries and I hear how they respond. It’s these people who were nodding along with the centrists in Tuesday’s debate as they engaged in a cage match with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Suburban Democrats in this area are still tax averse, which means they are receptive to the message that the more liberal candidates are engaged in fairy tale promises on how they’ll finance their proposals. And, while the suburbs are now incredibly diverse, they were still established in a time of white flight from the city and have a legacy of being among the most persistently Republican-controlled counties in the country. It’s fair to say that the white population here has become tolerant and accepting of non-white immigrants, but the changes are certainly causing some anxiety and discomfort for a lot of people. The president’s racism is a huge loser overall here, but when he trashes a city like Baltimore it also resonates with a lot of folks who are terrified of the violence in Philadelphia. The Democrats’ positions on decriminalizing the border and offering reparations for slavery are probably huge losers in the suburbs, too.
As for the rural areas of the state, these policies are positively toxic. The offer of free college and college loan forgiveness are so out of touch that former Senator Rick Santorum was positively gleeful during the post-debate coverage on CNN, and I had to reluctantly agree with him.
Even before watching the debate, I wrote for my subscribers that “Trump is Losing the Suburbs but the Democrats Might Hand Them Back”.
The Democrats are doing their damnedest to lose suburban support with some of their more extreme health care and immigration rhetoric, and some nominees would add to that the demonization of anyone who works in the insurance, pharmaceutical or financial services industries. Trump may very well do even better in rural areas than he did in 2016 when his shocking victory was almost entirely explained by his unanticipated strength there. To offset that, the Democrats need to more than match him in the suburbs, and they seem to be hellbent on playing with fire with that crucial slice of the electorate.
Remember, too, that the Democrat can run up much bigger numbers in places like Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco without it helping in the Electoral College at all. The battle will be won or lost outside of Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Columbus, Cleveland, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Tampa, and Orlando.
Trump knows what he needs to do to win again even while getting crushed in the popular vote. But he can’t do it alone. His strategy is losing him too much suburban support. The Democrats should not do things that hand that support right back to him.
That fear did not dissipate after what I witnessed Tuesday night.
I thought the best moment of the debate came when Elizabeth Warren grew exasperated at criticism from her right and stated, “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for the president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for. I don’t get it.”
Overall, I think she manages to do a much better job than Bernie Sanders in presenting her ideas in ways that are broadly palatable in both the suburbs and in more rural areas. But even she engaged in some rhetoric that is going to greatly assist Donald Trump in making a second run at Pennsylvania.
I continue to believe that Trump has lost Pennsylvania and probably any realistic chance of being reelected. But the Democrats are making me very nervous because their message isn’t tailored to winning here, at all. Joe Biden, who is almost an honorary senator in Pennsylvania, is pretty much bullet-proof in the Keystone State, so these alternative candidates need to show they won’t put a sure thing at risk by pandering to voters who won’t decide the election while Trump stays laser-focused on just the voters who will.
His message is designed to polarize the electorate racially and drive his numbers in all-white counties through the roof, while bludgeoning the Democrats in the suburbs for their “socialism” and disrespect. It worked once before and it probably won’t work again. But it could.
I don’t know why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president and then risks an easy win. All the Democrats need to do is occupy the center because Trump has abandoned it. And, yet, they seem to prefer to want to make this a white-knuckle affair.
I personally agree with much of the more troublesome rhetoric and political positions on the merits, but it’s not suited for the politics of the moment.
Bernie & Elizabeth’s version of M4A:
1. Could easily cause us to lose the election by forfeiting crucial votes in the suburbs
2. Has almost no chance of passing the Senate–even if we get to 50 senators and eliminate the filibuster, we would still need the vote of the most conservative Democratic senator(s). Don’t people remember what happened with the public option in 2008?
3. Would, if it did miraculously manage to pass, cause enough anger among the losers (and legislation of the size will have lots of losers), that it will put the democratic party back into the wilderness for another decade.
What’s not to like? No wonder Santorum was gleeful.
The health care debate drives me crazy. It is even worse than you describe. If it does miraculously pass, implementation would be a disaster. Healthcare is very, very hard. In Canada we have taken 80 years to gradually build an infrastructure that delivers universal insurance to every resident. It takes an extensive bureaucracy in every province and a great deal of institutional expertise. Despite the fact that we all know we get excellent affordable health care, there are always issues in every election, federal and provincial. Healthcare is very, very hard.
Bernie thinks he can build a healthcare system from scratch? That is a joke. It cannot be done. If the Democratic Party actually tried to do this, it would be the biggest administrative and political fuckup in the history of the Republic. A guaranteed disaster of epic proportions. In health care! Democrats would never win another election.
The Healthcare system in the US requires massive reform but it has to improve the existing infrastructure.
Martin, I’ve always found you insightful. One thing I haven’t seen in your recent analysis is how you win the Democratic primary by taking a more centrist approach. I agree that the messages may not fit the political moment overall, given the importance of the areas of the country you cite, but I think they do fit the moment within the Democratic party. Isn’t this just classic “run left in the primary, run center in the general”?
There is a ton of room to run on the left without trashing the voters you’ll need to win in the general. There is plenty to criticize about Trump’s immigration policies without taking positions that are incredibly unpopular with the voters you’ll need. There are many priorities we have that can appeal to working class non-college voters of all races, so why pledge all the available money for retroactive college debt forgiveness that is about the most out-of-touch policy with that contingent yet devised? There are countless urban policies that can be promoted that don’t involve giving $500 billion in reparations payments.
Even if you’re interested in reparations, you can’t speak about it in a way that doesn’t cause the voters you’ll need to run fleeing with their hair on fire.
This is an election, not a policy debate. Policy debates only matter when you win.
I’ll remind you that the most liberal candidate almost never wins the nomination. Obama mostly qualified because he didn’t have to cast a vote for or against the Iraq War, and before that McGovern was the last example. Winning the primary doesn’t require you to be the farthest to the left because the party as a whole isn’t all that liberal.
Also, see who is presently leading in the polls.
“Obama mostly qualified because he didn’t have to cast a vote for or against the Iraq War, and before that McGovern was the last example.”
And Obama wasn’t the most liberal candidate running in 2008!
Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel ran their vanity campaigns. Chris Dodd ran a liberal, longtime senator running because his biological clock was ticking race.
Of the candidates who gained any traction, John Edwards had the liberal/populist “Two Americas” lane. Every candidate had a detailed health care proposal. Obama’s was arguably the least progressive.
Obama did what Lincoln did—aim to position himself at the center of a governing, center-left majority…wherever that center was. Also like Lincoln, Obama was skilled at using aspirational language to keep open the possibility of, say, universal health care, while cutting the deals that seemed necessary to move closer to that goal. (See Eric Foner’s superb “The Fiery Trial” for more on Lincoln and slavery.)
P. S. Harris seems to have the best chance of the newcomers of filling that center-left lane (imho). Among other things, she seems to have successfully (so far) positioned herself as everyone’s second choice (which is how Lincoln won the nomination in 1860).
5
In my mind we face several intractable issues that need to be addressed. I suppose my list is not your list but nonetheless here they are:
1. Climate change. That young lady from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, tells the science like this. We have ten years to fix it or our planet may be destroyed. This is not particularly popular.
2. Immigration reform. Needless to say Trump has his solution, a high wall and barbed wire mixed with all the hate you can muster. It seems very popular among some. But a more sane solution needs to be sought.
3. M4A. This may just be a multi-year project but the current ACA is simply not working. It does not even cover all health care and is too expensive for those who must purchase it and who run afoul of the “deductible rules”. It does have Medicaid which will continue on under M4A. It is a pity we do not have it already as we already pay for every damn nickel of the over three trillion a year and yet somebody still wants to ask how are we gonna pay for it. The real question is how are we gonna whack it up fairly.
4. Economic inequality and inadequate wages. This is an old issue by now. But much needs to be done here. It might even help if we reigned in some of our corporate masters and how they compensate themselves.
5. Voting rights or the lack thereof.
What’s the point of winning an election by running to a center that has been pulled right for decades? What’s the point of more of the same? A winner that runs to the center isn’t going to suddenly see the light and lead for the radical change this country needs. Four years later, there is a higher risk of Americans lashing out to an even worse place than we are now.
I’m glad the Democratic Party is moving left. It has needed to for a long time and it’s damn well worth the risk! You sure didn’t see Republicans worrying about whether their big swing right over the past many decades would cause them problems. They changed the reality on the ground by owning it and bringing along Democrats in the process.
Well this was helpful and on Fox and Friends
https://crooksandliars.com/2019/07/ohn-delaney-trashes-elizabeth-warren-fox
Josh Marshall and Martin are seeing the political dynamic very similarly:
“I hope I am wrong. But I suspect the political calculus is wrong. I greatly fear that Warren, by binding herself to Sanders-style Medicare for All with a prohibition on private insurance, is creating for herself a major electoral albatross should she be the nominee – one that is simply unnecessary.”
Even as I can understand the analysis, I hope they are wrong. Not doing the changes this country needs – structure/radical change – is more risky.
“Not doing the changes this country needs – structure/radical change – is more risky.”
Okay. Then, in your view, what’s more risky on Jan. 20, 2021—Pres. Trump taking the oath of office or Pres. Biden? (Or Buttigieg, or Bullock, etc.)
For my part, I’ll take Biden but let’s talk tomorrow, after his next move.
Again, you see some connection between running on structure/radical change and enacting it that doesn’t actually exist to any significant degree.
Except no candidate who does _not_ run on structural/radical change will even make the attempt. And if we’ve learned nothing else from Trump, I hope it’s that you never know how much you can get away with until you take the shot.
Alternately, we could learn from Trump the value of choosing a few issues (e.g., protecting Social Security & Medicare, infrastructure investment, trade) to “occupy the center” in order to win the election and gain power. Then, once in office, enact as bold an agenda as you can with the power you have.
Because frankly, that seems to be one of the central “lessons” from Trump’s 2016 campaign.
It seems to me that there is a small bit of utility to running on enacting some law or program so that when you win you can claim some kind of mandate to get it done. But, it’s really not much of an advantage when our country is this polarized because the Republicans simply have no fear that they will be punished for saying no to everything. They know for certain they will be rewarded financially by opposing.
So, for example, if Warren or Sanders win, their M4A plans will be no less dead on arrival for having run on them. So, without any discernible benefit, all there is downside, which is why I think it’s political malpractice even though I support a universal system on the Canadian model.
I think it is too early to run away. If it is DOA, so be it, so long as the dem candidate wins. M4A has strong support at this point in time and could help ensure turnout. And certain modifications can be made to the initial plan. For example, why not require corporations to pay what they are now based on compensation and with no change in federal taxes at all? At some point the success of the plan needs to be evaluated. I understand Harris has made some changes to her plan. We need to hear it all and the polling of it all.
Raise your hand if you love your health insurance company? That’s a question that should be turned back on the moderators and audience. Nobody loves Aetna, or United Healthcare, or Cigna. People have to put up with them because there is no alternative right now. The 180 million people who will have their private health insurance “taken away” from them have had to deal with this for decades, employers change insurance plans all the time. Each time you have different out of pockets, copays, and likely new providers because of in-network and out-of-network changes employees don’t control. Giving a vivid description of what a replacement would look like is better than what most HR departments do for employees.
Thanks for your comment, but I kinda feel like we had this exact discussion a decade ago with the ACA.
One thing that became apparent then was that those 180 million people may not love their insurance companies, but they love having insurance. In addition, partly because many/most of those 180 million people have lived experience of a change in their health insurance being a change for the worse, lots of those 180 million people instinctively fear the prospect of a change in their health insurance.
It’s not irrational on their part. It’s based on years, even decades, of experience.
That doesn’t mean universal health care is a bad idea. Nor does it mean that it’s not worth fighting for. It does mean that part of the fight is overcoming those very real fears.
Almost sounds like we should tell them to get off that merry go round for a change. First this and then that.
I agree that it’s all about the messaging, and I don’t think either Sanders or Warren have painted the picture vividly enough. Part of me wonders if the fear factor is overplayed, and it seems a bit condescending, but I don’t have data to back it up. Polling on this question is stilted, in my opinion.
I love my health insurance plan – it’s Kaiser. I’ve had it since 1970. In those days, it was hard to find a co-worker who would have a single good thing to say about Kaiser (couldn’t choose your doctor, waiting rooms filled with poor people, etc.) – everything implied in the scare phrase ‘socialized medicine’. Now Kaiser is arguably the most well-liked system in the country – where you’re lucky enough to be able to get it. But building a system that works very well for all, provides top-quality care, uses best practices and most up-to-date treatments at a mass level is not easy. Any proposal that assumes instant gratification – excellent care at fair prices for all – and that doesn’t very clearly state the path to get there is simply a con job on the left.
Kaiser is interesting, and different from most insurers. First, they are not-for-profit, and second, they own their hospitals and doctors. It’s a model someone should explore as a middle ground as part of their plan.
This morning, I was in a meeting of 10 Medicare recipients. As I looked around the room, I realized that everyone of us also carried private commercial insurance called a Medicare supplement. So, Sanders and Warren, let’s not try to convince the public that Medicare for all is some sort of panacea. I still have to pay extra (part B) to cover doctor’s office visits because regular Medicare (part A) won’t, though it will pay for a hospital. I spend another $200 a month to buy commercial insurance for still more things Medicare doesn’t cover.
So, yes, I like my Medicare, but it’s not as great as Sanders and Warren would have you believe. Maybe tinkering with the ACA is a better option, and more salable to the electorate.
4.5
Warren “won” the debate but lost her place as my 2nd favorite candidate support. I don’t think her campaign is going to win the center or create the wave necessary to win back the Senate.
I continue to support Buttigieg. I thought he had a better debate performance than the first one. He has pretty radical ideas but packages them to the everyday American. He also has shown through both debates to have the kind of temperament that I think is the most Presidential.
I continue to worry that Biden lacks the energy for this race, but I don’t disagree with his win the suburbs strategy.
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Having some sort of health insurance sure beats having it ripped away. We won 2018 on health care. Contrasting even radical plans with losing all health insurance is still a winner. The Republicans better hope that John Roberts votes with the for profit health insurance industry, otherwise losing health insurance goes from an abstract to a very real possibility for millions of people. Otherwise it brings the issue roaring back into the public eye right as most people tune into the presidential election.
I’m so much more worried about who will count the votes than I am about how people will vote that I can’t focus even for a minute on any of this horserace stuff. It feels like kabuki.
I am trying to watch the debate but this is all about get the other guy. Gillibrand and Harris are making liberal use of trying to beat up on Biden. The M4A debate was a gigantic joke. I liked Castro the best on that subject and on immigration.
I take your point, Martin, and I agree that to sell a Democratic “vision” to your PA voters (and the more or less comfortable middle class in general), you’re going to have to give them something besides “I’m going after the industry that puts food on YOUR table.” I think Warren is KIND of squaring that circle by pointing out that her stuff is basically paid for by miniscule taxes on the rich (which in the aggregate would add up to real money). The issue of positioning a candidate’s programs is a problem, though, that’s inherent in the primary process, isn’t it? “Run to the left in the primary; run to the right in the general” is the way to win, isn’t it?
There is a larger question here, maybe, about how we effectively transform extractive industries like medtech and big finance (as they’re currently constituted, they extract value from consumers, return as little as possible, and throw the rest upward to the CEO’s pocket) without throwing people out of work. Did any of the candidates address that? (If they did, I missed it.)
The Democrats are still augmenting their history of over-reacting or under-reacting to their shocks and predicaments since the 1960s. Now they changed rules of primary debates daringly, but the opposition is already gloating about unintended consequences:
The Hidden Reason the Primary Debates Seem Extra Crazy This Year
As the candidates try to comply with the tough rules, they only reveal weak impulses for leadership (among other stereotypical flaws). Even if we know that charisma is deceiving, great many romantic voters won’t be attracted without it.
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