Biden Rises from the Dead

Left for dead a week ago Joe Biden swept from victory to victory on Super Tuesday. His coalition was built on very strong support from African-Americans and suburban white women. That coalition proved durable throughout the south, Texas, Minnesota and yes, Elizabeth Warren's Massachusetts. To be sure Bernie Sanders was correct in the notion that he would bring new voters into the process, but those new voters turned out in size to vote against him. He reminds me of an old business acquaintance of mine who created a massive a disparate coalition around him, unfortunately he got people who never agreed on anything to turn against him.

Yes, Sanders did well in California and Colorado where there were a large proportion of Hispanic voters, but not as well as the earlier polls predicted. Biden will have his work cut out for him to bring this large voting bloc into the fold. His problem will be, as my very lovely and very brilliant wife informed me, is that throughout Latin America there seems to be a proclivity for populists on the Left (Chavez) and populists on the Right (Peron). Sanders seems to be benefiting from this historical connection.

On the other hand there is much that voters don't know about Sanders and when they find out they will be far from pleased. For example Sanders views Medicare for All as a compromise from the complete nationalization of the entire healthcare industry, doctors included. He is also against private charity because he believes that the government should fulfill all of society's responsibilities to the poor. I wonder how all the Sanders supporters who work in nonprofits will feel about that.

The primary season is not over, but if Tuesday's results hold Biden should be able to do very well in Florida and Arizona and beat Sanders in Michigan, a state he won against Hillary in 2016. Thus the way is open for him to go into the Democratic convention in Milwaukee with a clear majority.

Quick Question for Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren continues to refuse to say how much more middle class families would have to pay for her Medicare for All plan. She only says that the all-in costs won’t increase for those families compared to today’s insurance costs. However neither her primary opponents nor members of the press have yet to ask her to define the income levels for whom she perceives to be middle class. My guess is that it is lower than what most people think. Which means all-in costs will go up for those families above her definition of middle class.

Therefore her primary opponents and the press should press her on this point. Just do it!

The Democratic Debates: From Circular Firing Squad to Mutual Suicide Pact

I originally thought that the Democratic debates we witnessed last week would turn out to be a circular firing squad where each candidate would be in the attack mode; instead it turned out to be a mutual suicide pact. All you have to do is look at how most of the candidates took positions way out of the mainstream.

Although Medicare for All has the sound of a winning issue, in fact it is a loser once people realize that it would be the end of private health insurance for 150 million Americans and that a majority of all of the hospitals in the U.S. would go bankrupt because of the inadequacy of Medicare’s reimbursement rates. In a way the Democrats are sounding like Republicans in the sense that they want to “repeal and replace Obamacare.”

With respect to immigration the entire field came out for healthcare for unauthorized immigrants and most supported decriminalizing illegal entry in the first place. In other words they would exempt from deportation ANY unauthorized immigrant who hasn’t committed a serious crime.  Although all of the candidates talked a big game on immigration when asked what would be the first thing they would do upon election, not one of the 20 mentioned solving the immigration issue. I would caution that if the Left doesn’t solve the immigration issue, the Right certainly will and the result would not be pretty.

Then, of a sudden, Kamala Harris brought up Joe Biden’s opposition to forced school busing for the purposes of racial balance in the 1970s. Biden showed his age and hemmed and hawed without really responding. What he should have done was to give full-throated support for his position at the time. Although Harris may have benefitted from busing as a school girl, it was widely unpopular in both the White and Black communities and it ultimately fell of its own weight. Later Elizabeth Warren said she would support busing today. She will soon regret that statement. If you want to date the Los Angeles Unified School District’s slow descent into hell you can do no worse than 1977 when a massive school busing plan was introduced. All I can say Trump’s ad makers will a field day with all of the material that came out of the debates.

As to the candidates, Joe Biden showed his age and if he doesn’t quickly rebound he is a goner. Bernie Sanders is the same crotchety old man he was in 2016, only more so. He has passed his sell by date. Elizabeth Warren, in the height of conceit, has a plan for everything. It is one thing to be bold, but quite another to think that she can reorder a complex society of 330 million people. She wants to be the boss of everything. If Warren were an elementary school teacher, she would be a 5^th grader’s worst nightmare.

Both Kamala Harris and Cory Booker had their moments, but so far both appear to be more show horse than work horse. Nevertheless both of them may have the legs to go the distance. In contrast Amy Klobuchar is more of a work horse and perhaps that is why she is lagging in the polls. Pete Buttigieg is a bright guy, but running the U.S. is a huge leap from South Bend, Indiana. I think he is running for president because he doesn’t see a path to governor or senator in his conservative home state of Indiana. Beto O’Roarke looks like a one trick pony who should be running again for the Senate in Texas.

Given Trump’s unpopularity the Democrats are supposed to win in 2020, but as we witnessed in 2016 they have the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Simply put, Trump can’t win, but whomever is the Democratic nominee can certainly lose.