11

Ok, these aren’t scientific polls by any stretch but they do target what I would call Hillary Clinton Nation with some great precision and they are very revealing-if for no other reason, they are so unequivocal.

As a charter member of Democratic Twitter, I knew that Kamala Harris is a favorite but what’s stunning about the two polls I did the last few days is how overwhelming her victories were. First of all-yes, it’s very early and I’ve been dismissive of all the 2020 talk until now-and still am; we may well need to impeach Trump before 2020 and if nothing else the elected Dems should be thinking about investigations not 2020-I hope they are.

After the bombshell that Trump directed Cohen to lie about the Moscow Tower meeting the I word has enjoyed a resurgence among many Congressional Dems.

Ted Lieu is on the Judiciary Committee, of course, who is the committee that would begin an inquiry, meanwhile Joaquin Castro serves with Adam Schiff on the House Intelligence Committee-he questioned Michael Cohen when he testified along with Schiff.

Here is Eric Holder, Obama’s former AG and a possible 2020 candidate:

Adam Schiff himself didn’t use the ‘I’ word but he did state that this is a whole new level.

Indeed, as John Podhoretz put it yesterday morning on MorningJoe:

Of course, as Schiff says, we have to see if this allegation is true and yesterday evening Mueller’s office took the unprecedented step of denying a story.

Still, I think Fourier is way too quick to call it ‘fake news’-I mean it’s one thing to suggest part of this story may not be accurate it’s another to start validating ‘President Trump’ as his co-conspirators like Alan Dershowitz and Fox are already doing.

“Alan Dershowitz: BuzzFeed report (and Mueller rebuke) a vivid example of “Get Trump” media mindset.”

This doesn’t even pass the laugh test-if Hillary Clinton had been the subject of this story Ron Fourier would not be calling it ‘fake news’ even if particular details of the story were shown to be false. We know the MSM had much more permissive the for anti Hillary stories-remember the Holy Zeal to insist something nefarious happened at the Clinton Foundation?

And Ben Smith and Buzzfeed quite reasonable are asking the SCO to explain what specifically in their piece was false:

Unlike the MSM who always bends over backwards into a pretzel to give ‘President Trump’-the world’s biggest and most shameless liar-the benefit of the doubt, I don’t think you should be so quick to presume the story is wrong at least in substance-I mean the idea that Trump asked someone to lie is really  supposed to be hard to believe? What have I missed the last four years-since he begun to stink up our politics in 2015?

It’s interesting how Buzzfeed is yet again the outlet on the hot seat over a Michael Cohen allegation.

Yes and having said that, it’s not at all unlikely that both of these stories are true in their essentials. Why would Mueller deny it if it’s largely accurate? Remember he likes to be 50 steps ahead of us at all times, maybe Buzzfeed and the two ‘high ranking federal law enforcement officials’ they insist they spoke to got to close to something.

I also think that wether or not this specific story is true in its particulars or not, Senator Chris Murphy is right:

I will reiterate what I said in previous chapters-the Democrats-Pelosi, Nadler, Schiff, Cummings, Waters-should at least be seriously discussing the possibility of opening impeachment hearings. If this really isn’t even part of their internal conversations at this point, something’s wrong. As Cummings himself said on 60 Minutes last week, they don’t need to hit the ground running on investigations they need to hit it flying as it’s much less than two years in truth-Congress only works about 138 days per year.

He’s right and this holds for impeachment-it’s a process not a destination and it doesn’t happen overnight. Until now I’ve agreed with the Dem leadership that you wait for Mueller but I think what recent events-both what we keep learning as well as how badly Trump continues to ratchet things up-the shutdown done for purely political motives-denying nearly a million workers their checks and millions more their tax refund, in addition to all the other government services Americans depend on-to say nothing of his outrageously blowing Pelosi’s cover-not just for the military plane but a commercial flight-makes the case for impeachment more urgent every day that passes.

Again, as noted in (Chapter A)-Bob Bauer makes this point-maladministration is a legitimate reason for impeachment. While I think the legitimacy crisis-the idea that Trump ‘won’ his office through nefarious and possibly illegal means-is the number one reason impeachment should be considered, the case that he’s a clear and present danger becomes more relevant and compelling with each passing day.

The case for opening an impeachment inquiry right now is getting stronger by the day:

“I ran into a senior Democrat in the US House of Representatives while traveling Thursday night. After introducing myself and telling this member about my work as a political analyst and historian, this person asked me the question that seems to be on almost everyone’s mind: Is it time to impeach President Donald Trump?

The answer to that question is changing by the minute.”

I’m happy to hear a senior Democrat is asking this question-I’d be very concerned if they weren’t.

“There are many good reasons for House Democrats to start this process now. The most important is that Congress needs to provide some kind of public accounting for what this President might or might not have done. Because the Republican Congress dropped the ball in conducting serious public hearings into the election, the potential obstruction, and all of the other accusations swirling around this administration, most of the investigative legwork has been completed by news reporters and Robert Mueller’s legal team. The result is that much of the information-gathering has been done in secret.”

The simple need for public accounting has been largely overlooked. Chris Matthews made the point recently that in 1974 the public was very disappointed- and strongly disapproved-of Ford’s pardon but they also really wanted a public accounting-they wanted all the information public-very similar to what happened in 2009 when Obama and the Dem leadership chose not only to eschew prosecuting any Bush-Cheney criminals but even holding any investigations and public hearings. I’ve spoken in other chapters about the Democratic fallacy that somehow this enables ‘the country to heal and move forward not backward’-in truth the public only becomes more cynical.

This is why the Dems must not fail on the job again-we see how disappointed the public was in the Democrats in 2010-despite the record progressive legislation passed, people were turned off by Obama’s willingness not to fight back in certain ways. I’ve been clear in this book-there’s a time for New Testament turn the other cheek kind of Justice-this isn’t one of those times, it’s a time for Old Testament fire and brimstone and an eye for an eye Justice. It’s not just about 2016, it’s 1968, 1972, 1980, 1988, 1992-as noted in Chapter A, William Barr at the Bush Sr DOJ used his power to speed up the Whitewater inquiry in the hope it could be weaponized in the 1992 election-it’s 2000: the Brooks Brothers Riots and Bush v. Gore; it’s 50 years of GOP Nixonian-and dirty tricks personified by Roger Stone. This is not the time for turn the other cheek and look the other way.

“It is now time for Congress, the institution that will ultimately determine whether the President has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, to launch its own proceedings. Congress cannot rely on the Department of Justice to handle this job alone. The House can either first turn to relevant committees to conduct hearings of their own before turning the matter over to Judiciary. Or, as occurred under Peter Rodino in 1974, the House Judiciary Committee could conduct an investigation of its own by assembling a first-rate team of lawyers and calling witnesses. The Judiciary Committee can then make a determination as to whether the weight of evidence moves them to vote for articles of impeachment.”

Congress cannot rely on the Department of Justice to handle this job alone.

I hope the Congressional Democrats understand this-they can-and should-do their own discovery rather than simply wait for Mueller.

And I really hope they understand this: 

“Political considerations should not dictate what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decides to do. There are moments in American political history when congressional leaders have the obligation to do the right thing regardless of the potential political costs. Given the body of very serious charges that are now facing this President, it would be almost reckless for the House to refrain from investigating.”

“The cumulative allegations now range from the President being an agent of — or beholden to — a foreign government after working with it to win election, to his making foreign policy decisions based on his family’s personal financial interests.”

“While House Republicans did not handle the Bill Clinton investigation well in 1998, and they allowed their partisan interests to overwhelm sound deliberations; House Democrats offer a different historical model from 1974, when the House Judiciary Committee recommended the impeachment of Richard Nixon. In that case, they conducted their hearing and their vote in a sound manner, gradually achieving bipartisan support, and produced an outcome — voting in favor of several articles of impeachment — that few historians look back on as a mistake.”

This is what’s amazing about the current Dem leadership-they analogize Clinton and Newt Gingrich when the clear analogy is the great work the Watergate Democrats did on Nixon. The notion that the Democrats don’t embrace their own worthy Watergate history is as curious as the phenomenon we saw for many years-including Obama-of distancing themselves from FDR.

(Add footnote that when I ran I ran on a New New Deal or New Deal 2.0)

Ironically beginning with Jimmy Carter it was leading Republicans-Reagan and Newt Gingrich-in his Contract With America-who embraced FDR-at least as a model of success though their goal was to dismantle what he achieved.

Trump isn’t Bill Clinton-he’s Richard Nixon. Ironically both the GOP and Democrats act like he is Clinton-the GOP for its part ironically now see Clinton as a model of how to successfully survive impeachment-no matter how hard they tried to destroy him, he survived. However, as I argue elsewhere, I don’t think-alas-Clinton totally transcended the GOP fishing expedition. He survived but Gore lost in 2000-he would have won if he’d embraced Bill but the Lewinsky scandal made Gore reluctant-and you can make a good case that while the GOP wasn’t able to use their scandal machine to take down Clinton the full volume and weight of it would ultimately take down his wife in 2016.

“None of the usual objections to an impeachment process currently hold. The standard argument that an impeachment proceeding would “distract” the President from the serious business of governing isn’t really relevant right now, because the federal government is not up and running. It is impossible to predict the political consequences of an impeachment process, but after President Nixon resigned, Democrats won huge majorities in the 1974 midterms and the presidency in 1976.”

But the clear and present danger aspect of impeachment is becoming more and more compelling. I’ve argued against the horrible argument that you don’t impeach unless Mitch McConnell will convict. But there is so much that this terrible idea doesn’t factor in as Yuri Applebaum documents:

The first is that once an impeachment inquiry begins, the president loses control of the public conversation. Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton each discovered this, much to their chagrin. Johnson, the irascible Tennessee Democrat who succeeded to the presidency in 1865 upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, quickly found himself at odds with the Republican Congress. He shattered precedents by delivering a series of inflammatory addresses that dominated the headlines and forced his opponents into a reactive posture. The launching of impeachment inquiries changed that. Day after day, Congress held hearings. Day after day, newspapers splashed the proceedings across their front pages. Instead of focusing on Johnson’s fearmongering, the press turned its attention to the president’s missteps, to the infighting within his administration, and to all the things that congressional investigators believed he had done wrong.

It isn’t just the coverage that changes. When presidents face the prospect of impeachment, they tend to discover a previously unsuspected capacity for restraint and compromise, at least in public. They know that their words can be used against them, so they fume in private. Johnson’s calls for the hanging of his political opponents yielded quickly to promises to defer to their judgment on the key questions of the day. Nixon raged to his aides, but tried to show a different face to the country. “Dignity, command, faith, head high, no fear, build a new spirit,” he told himself. Clinton sent bare-knuckled proxies to the television-news shows, but he and his staff chose their own words carefully.Trump is easily the most pugilistic president since Johnson; he’s never going to behave with decorous restraint. But if impeachment proceedings begin, his staff will surely redouble its efforts to curtail his tweeting, his lawyers will counsel silence, and his allies on Capitol Hill will beg for whatever civility he can muster. His ability to sidestep scandal by changing the subject—perhaps his greatest political skill—will diminish.As Trump fights for his political survival, that struggle will overwhelm other concerns. This is the second benefit of impeachment: It paralyzes a wayward president’s ability to advance the undemocratic elements of his agenda. Some of Trump’s policies are popular, and others are widely reviled. Some of his challenges to settled orthodoxies were long overdue, and others have proved ill-advised. These are ordinary features of our politics and are best dealt with through ordinary electoral processes. It is, rather, the extraordinary elements of Trump’s presidency that merit the use of impeachment to forestall their success: his subversion of the rule of law, attacks on constitutional liberties, and advancement of his own interests at the public’s expense.

The Mueller probe as well as hearings convened by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have already hobbled the Trump administration to some degree. It will face even more scrutiny from a Democratic House. White House aides will have to hire personal lawyers; senior officials will spend their afternoons preparing testimony. But impeachment would raise the scrutiny to an entirely different level.Applebaum argues that the Democrats need to begin the impeachment process now. He points out that an impeachment inquiry takes many months-and he argues persuausively against the apparent hope that Mueller will do their job for them.”

The presumption that impeachment will ‘backfire’ misses the point that politics is not static-impeachment proceedings will move public opinion against Trump. Indeed, in previous chapters I’ve agreed that Trump’s numbers-of about 42-43 percent public support is probably too high to impeach him but that I suspect that half of his support is soft and will leave him as public investigations move forward. His absurdly misconceived shutdown of the government has already cost him significantly in the polls-even with some of his apparent base-and impeachment hearings will simply accelerate this process he himself has already started.

Again impeachment is a process not a destination-it’s called an inquiry. To open one is not a rush to judgment it’s to ask the question.

So that’s what House Dem senior leadership should be worried about not 2020-politics should not guide the decision, though the Watergate precedent suggests that it would offer the Dems great upside.

But I did do a few polls late this week just for fun. What had led to it was some arguments folks on Twitter were having over Kirsten Gillibrand. Some-including Caroline Orr on Twitter had agreed with Gillibrand’s answer to those who ask about Al Franken-that those critical of her are basically either sexists or wealthy donors. I disputed this dismissal of legitimate criticism. To be sure, it was tough being on the other side of an issue from Caroline Orr-who is usually right about everything and who I have a lot of respect for-but I was simply calling it as I see it.

Then I thought with all the Gillibrand talk let’s do a poll and see how she-and other prospective Dems do. I didn’t think she’d do so well as a lot of Dems cooled on her after she forced Franken to walk the plank-and rather absurdly demanded Bill Clinton somehow retroactively resign 20 years later; in Chapter A I noted the many who like to say Clinton should have resigned over having an affair with an intern but aren’t saying Trump should resign today-they continue to call him ‘Mr. President.’

The day after Franken resigned I’ve never seen my mentions so trashed and about 90% of the tweets were from women and 90% were anti Gillibrand. Anyway, I did a Twitter poll with her, Biden, Warren, and Kamala Harris and the results were very interesting.

Gillibrand did awfully-I thought she’d have a tough time but it was even worse than I’d thought. And Kamala Harris-I thought she’d do well but she simply ran away with it. Democratic Twitter loves them some Kamala-and really doesn’t feel Gillibrand at all. 

They’re meh on Biden and Warren-they got some support but nothing earth shattering-like Senator Harris got. Wow. But, unfortunately Twitter only gives you four choices and I wondered if there were other candidates who could give Kamala a better run for a money.

So I did a sequel. In this poll I included-along with Bernie and Beto-Corey Booker. My thought process was that Booker might offer Harris some competition for the African American vote-as they are both AA.

This proved to not be the case, to say the least:

Her victory here was even more decisive and overwhelming-while in the first group she got 55% of the vote-more than Warren and Biden combined-in this pairing, she got almost 80%. I didn’t expect Bernie to do well of course-my Dem friends and followers-many of them women and people of color-don’t love them some Bernie Sanders.

Indeed, the results are so overwhelming and unequivocal, it makes me think that a survey of my own friends and followers sometime could be interesting-gender, race, sexual orientation. No question many of them are women and POC. and LGBT.

But Booker was shut out-got zero votes-or not enough to clear the 1 percent hurdle! Democratic Twitter is also not so enamored of Beto and I knew this group doesn’t feel the Bern-maybe heartburn… But they aren’t remotely interested in Booker.

Ok, I’m not saying these are polls that would pass muster with Nate Silver or Harry Enten but it if nothing else offer  a fascinating look at my own friends and followers. But who are my friends and followers? A large number of very strong Hillary supporters-they are #StillWithHer. The Hillary Clinton base-what Mr. Weeks called the Hillary Clinton ecosphere (Chapter A) shouldn’t be sneezed at-though of course the MSM does.

With all this talk about Beto, Bernie, Biden, or Warren, it’s ignored that she got by far the most votes in 2016 both in the primary and the general and still has a larger base of voters than any other candidate.

Many still want her in 2020 and they are right on its merits-though it’s not going to happen, alas.

This brings us to Kamala Harris. I had suspected but these results confirmed to a much greater extent than even I imagined that she is seen as Hillary’s clear heir apparent.

Yes it’s early but this is a very strong preference. In November, Harry Enten and Chris Cillizza correctly noted that Harris is the new Democratic forerunner:

“If there’s one lesson Democrats should learn from the 2018 election, it’s this: Their base wants to make history.”

“Democratic voters helped elect a historic number of women to Congress. They elected the first Muslim-American women — one in Minnesota and another in Michigan. They voted in the first Native-American women — in New Mexico and Kansas.”

“Everywhere you looked on the map last Tuesday night, Democratic voters were backing women — and oftentimes women of color.”

“Which brings us to the 2020 Democratic presidential race. And specifically to California Sen. Kamala Harris.”

“Harris is in her first term as a senator from the country’s largest state. When she won in 2016, she made history as the first African-American woman and the first Indian-American woman to represent California in the Senate.”

“Starting to get a sense for where we’re headed here? We’ve always ranked Harris highly in these rankings — due to the importance of California within the broader Democratic Party and the number of major donors in the state who would gladly help fund Harris’ national ambitions.”

A woman of color and a tough prosecutor-former California AG. Indeed, as I argued in (Chapter B) what really catapulted her into the a favorite of DemocraticNation was her strong performances on the Senate Judiciary Committee questioning Jeff Sessions. That’s where she’s at her best. Alas, Lindsay Graham runs that Committee which is why I’ve argued that maybe she should give-weekly, biweekly, or monthly-updates on all that her GOP colleagues are not doing about investigating Russia and holding Trump accountable.

She also should perhaps practice the I word for when she does announce. The idea that she’s the heir apparent to Hillary Clinton has long been felt among us Clinton lovers but it’s an idea that has long occurred to Hillary Clinton herself-she invited her to a the Hamptons in 2017.

So this primary is going to be fascinating-there are so many candidates!-and I think it’s quite possible that the actual nominee could be someone we don’t know yet but having said that Kamala Harris clearly already has some very strong and deep support. I certainly wouldn’t bet against her in 2020.

UPDATE: This morning Kamala Harris officially announced her campaign.

UPDATE 2.0: Peter Daou’s own informal survey discovered the same dynamic my informal polls did-the early sentiment among the Hillary base has Kamala by a mile.

UPDATE 3.0:

 

UPDATE 4.0:

Another friend and fellow Dem did a Twitter poll and had quite similar results

Yesterday Kamala Harris had huge crowds-bigger even than Obama 2008. 

In yet another great sign for her-Ted Lieu-who I’m a huge fan of in his own right has endorsed her.

Nate Silver talks about the idea that the party decides. The Democratic party may be deciding a lot quicker than the conventional wisdom in the MSM would ever guess. The MSM wisdom still focuses on Biden, Bernie and Beto.

On the other hand I think the Democratic leaders are worrying way too much about Howard Schultz who isn’t running as a Democrat but as Chris Cillizza. There’s no obvious constituency for what Schultz is selling-declaring that both parties are equally to blame and that it’s time to start a Holy War on public debt and cut entitlements.

As Nate Silver notes the threat to the Democrats are from the Left-Nader or Jill Stein-not this particular brand of ‘sensible centrism’ who’s only actual constituency is Cillizza and Chuck Todd and friends.

Figured I end here-on a LOL, that’s so  funny because it’s true.

UPDATE:  Now Schultz is directly attacking Kamala Harris for coming out for Medicare for All. So the choice is between a Democratic woman of color who supports Medicare for All and a  ‘centrist’ billionaire white male who wants to cut Medicare. Again, Dems should stop worrying about Schultz. Their panic reveals that some of the old guard still thinks these are very popular ideas-they are only among Chuck Todd and Chris Cillizza.

I tend to think Silver is right-assuming he does go all the way-big assumption, and he’s already getting major pushback-he probably takes about equally from both candidates.

In that sense the Democrats may be worrying too much-on the other hand it doesn’t hurt for him to be seen as a Trump enabler and that has merit as if he really thought the top priority were beating Trump-and not cutting Medicare-he wouldn’t talking about running.

UPDATE 2.0: It’s hard to be as unpopular as Shultz is-those who know who he is really don’t like him.

https://twitter.com/BretStephensNYT/status/1091516313397313538

Sorry Bret Stephens, it’s not a question of DS, it’s just that nobody likes him.

UPDATE 3.0: One of the most major Democratic donors out there-philanthropist Susie Tompkins Buell-speaks for many of us in Hillary Clinton Nation:

UPDATE 4.0:

A little more advice to the 2020 candidates:

And that brings us to Amy Kloubachar who had a pretty successful rollout but made a cardinal mistake in seeming to throw snark Hillary’s way:

Not smart when you realize the biggest base in the party remains the Clinton supporters.

https://twitter.com/MrDane1982/status/1095049932996784130

 Mr. Weeks is most certainly not alone. Is Kloubachar running against Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?

One last thought 2020: I’m not a huge fan of Warren-compared to Kamala but Warren was smart to go after Trump in her speech over the weekend. She pointed out-quite factually-that Trump may not be ‘President’ in the 2020 election ‘or even a free man.’
Yet the way the media has responded is-as usual-very curious. They seem to think this presents a ‘problem for the Democrats’ do they want to ‘unify or divide?’ The total fear and disdain Trump inspires is pretty unifying in its own right…  But despite this MSM narrative that the one thing voters won’t forgive is criticizing ‘President Trump’ I believe this is something the base wants to see-candidates willing to take the battle to Donald Trump-rather than say ‘I love him but he shouldn’t be President’ a la Cory Booker.
UPDATE 5.0: A more scientific, established poll shows Kamala has seen a big rise since she announced. 
UPDATE 6.0:
Now let’s talk about something you might call the Kloubachar Paradox. She had a very interesting Town Hall last night.

She also just said no to single payer. 

This is gutsy by Kloubachar but  it carries risks:

Call it the Kloubachar Paradox-her position might be the best to win a general but lose the primary-Jeb Bush tried something like that…

TBH I have mixed feelings about pushing so hard to the Left.

To be sure, this is part of a debate. There is a narrative that ‘you have to do more than simply run against Trump’-Cory Booker has been pushing that idea very hard. My gut reaction to this is-why? I mean if Trump is a clear and present threat, a racist, xenophobic, authoritarian who didn’t even win his own office legitimately-who speaks to Putin about what to do on foreign policy-why do you need to make it about yourself?

I know the conventional answer is that the Democrats ran against Trump in 2016 and ‘lost.’ Sorry but in view of the Comey letter and Russian interference this ‘loss’ gets an asterisk.

This is an inference that hasn’t been proved-even if you ‘lose’-or even lose-an election doesn’t necessarily mean that the reason you lost was because of A. It could be B, C, , X, Y, or Z. The Left presumes the reason Hillary lost was because she didn’t come out unequivocally for free college, single payer, and breaking up the banks. That’s one possible logical inference-but there are any number of others-she didn’t go to Wisconsin or the Comey letter is the actual reason she ‘lost’-no Comey letter, no ‘President Trump.’

What’s notable is going as far Left as humanly possible isn’t what won the Democrats a historical landslide in the 2018 elections.

Regarding ‘Medicare for All’ it’s not at all clear that this is a general election winner even if it’s a Democratic primary winner. I still think that the best position for now at least is Medicare for All(WhoWant it). 

There’s not a huge difference between implementing single payer vs. the public option. You can tomorrow add a new insurance payer called expanded Medicare or Medicare for All. the only difference is that this is the only step for the PU but for SP you have to next get rid of all other insurers in the country.

Is it easier to implement-and sell politically-the public option that simply gives Medicare to the 29 million Americans currently without insurance or single payer which also calls for the other 180 million Americans-to come up with a round number-who are currently who at least believe they’re pretty happy with their current plan to lose it?

Remember all the furor over ‘if you like your plan you can keep your plan?’ Obama got roasted simply because a small subset of people didn’t get to ‘keep their plan’-to be sure in that case these were often bargain basement plans that didn’t come close to adequate coverage. But single payer would require those with plans that are sufficient and that Americans are very happy with going away. If you like your plan you still can’t keep your plan. 

But again, this is the Kloubachar Paradox-even if, single payer is arguably problematic in a general election it may be that you can’t win a Dem primary in 2020 without being for it.

Which is why the best political strategy is for a pragmatic candidate to not wear her pragmatism on her sleeve. Remember that  CENTER and LEFT are relative terms. Relative to the Democratic primary 2020 it might be that Kloubachar has put herself on the RIGHT and with  Warren and Bernie occupying the LEFT and FAR LEFT respectively, the true Centrist position in 2020 is: Kamala Harris.

Harris has come out for Medicare for All. Of course, this is a signifier-is she for single payer? Yes she has again clearly stated. 

Presumably, at some point she’ll come out with her own specific plan, even if she has already endorsed Sanders’s. She hasn’t gone into too much in the way of specifics, though she has talked and written about how her mother’s illness and death shaped her views on the problems of the current system. But having taken and now reiterated the single-payer position, she won’t have much ability to move toward something different, especially with many Democratic primary voters seeing single payer as a litmus test.”

Her wiggle room at this point is perhaps that she hasn’t gotten specific just yet. And it may be that single payer for Democrats in 2020 is that dismantling Obamacare was for the GOPers in 2016-once they got into office they weren’t actually able to do it.

It might be that the Democrats will flesh out a lot more of how they want to proceed towards achieving Universal Heatlhcare when they actually have a governing majority.  So the truly pragmatic position in the 2020 Democratic primary might be to be for single payer but don’t get bogged down in specifics-the reality of governing for the Democrats might end up being Sherrod Brown’s proposal to expand Medicare to all those 55 or over. 

Like Kloubachar Brown doesn’t sugarcoat it-he doesn’t support Berniecare period.

But again, the pragmatic position may be support ‘single payer’ but avoid getting into specifics. Then pass Sherrodcare when actually in office-as the votes won’t be there for single payer just yet. The fervent opposition to the PO by the SPers makes no sense as it’s quite possible that if the PO works out it could be the gateway to SP. One way to achieve SP is to insist on both steps up front-cover the 29 million AND force the other 180 million of their plans NOW. Or it could mean cover the 29 million now and over time faze the other 180 million off their plans-preferably voluntarily.

While judging by her policy positions Kloubachar is the ‘pragmatist’ in the race as for as strategy she’s not pragmatic at all-she simply tells you what she believes-she’s an unpragmatic pragmatist…

I just hope Democrats learned the real lesson of 2016-to achieve any of your ambitious policy goals and visions you have to actually win the election.

Now this move by Kamala I really like.

I’m really glad to see her repudiate ‘democratic socialism.’

Don’t get me wrong, I actually agree with Alexandria Occasio-Cortez on many issues-though I see the Green New Deal as more an aspirational affirmation of first principle than sober policy goals– but I’m not a fan of this term

FN: For the record, Ryan Cooper is a fan of this term.

I’m cool with social democrat but democratic socialist is a bridge too far. Social democrat has a fine historical tradition but democratic socialist makes ‘socialist’ rather than ‘democrat’ primary.

FN: Ryan Cooper.

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