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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Election Year Open Thread: Preparing for the Nevada Caucus

Election Year Open Thread: Preparing for the Nevada Caucus

by Anne Laurie|  February 14, 202010:34 pm| 63 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Open Threads, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome

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Caveats:
1. GOP pollster (who said Laxalt would be gov) polling Dem electorate.
2. Small sample (413)
3. Caucuses notoriously hard to poll and with Iowa Effect, early voting and Bernie/Pete/Warren with best orgs, hard to tell.
4. Full impact (if any) of Culinary not in here.

— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) February 14, 2020

Per the AP, “Go West: 2020 Democrats seek their fortunes in Nevada“:

As the Democratic presidential race hurtles toward Nevada, candidates in the still-crowded field are jumping into their first test in a racially diverse state with solid union muscle and shaky plans for a presidential caucus.

Nevada has no obvious front-runner, though Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders heads into the contest on strong footing. The state has received only a sliver of the attention of the first two states on the primary calendar, Iowa and New Hampshire. Looking at the jumbled field, the state’s most powerful union decided to take a pass on endorsing a candidate, rather than make a divisive choice or risk picking a loser. Most of the state’s most prominent officials have stayed neutral.

The open race has every Democrat spending much of the next week searching for fortunes in the state’s working-class neighborhoods, union halls, casino convention halls and stuccoed suburbs. For Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, it’s a chance to prove their staying power after strong finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. For former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, it could be a life preserver to rescue their bids after disappointing starts. For Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, it’s a chance to prove her third-place finish in New Hampshire wasn’t a fluke.

Candidates are making a get-out-the-vote push Saturday morning as early voting starts, and they plan to attend a Saturday night fundraising gala for the Las Vegas-based Clark County Democratic Party. Several candidates are making the hourlong flight up to Reno, a city newly flush with tech money and California transplants, and are due back in Las Vegas on Wednesday for the ninth Democratic debate….

The party has been fortified and professionalized over the years by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The organizing force of the party and its allies is still referred to as the “Reid Machine,” and many of his former staffers hold key roles on the presidential campaigns.

The 80-year-old former senator, who retired in 2016 and has been battling cancer, has repeatedly said he won’t endorse before Nevada’s caucuses. His decision not to back a candidate in the still-volatile field has been echoed by many of Nevada’s top elected officials, including the governor, two Democratic senators and two of three Democratic members of the House…

While billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer fared poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire, he could be a contender in Nevada, where he’s blanketed the state with ads and billboards. Steyer’s past political activism established some connections for him in the state, but it’s unclear whether his smaller campaign staff can convert the name recognition into votes…

(Still not helping, Steyer. Go away already, and improve the signal-to-noise ratio.)

.@lasvegasweekly endorses Joe/Amy

"Sanders is the only clear non-starter. It’s impossible not to regard the VT senator in a Trumplike mold..the left wing version of Trump: isolated, angry, unable to work with others..simply guarantees a Trump 2nd term."https://t.co/FsMESmvYYX

— Lindy Li (@lindyli) February 13, 2020

More (potential) spoilers:

MORE NEWS: A new center-right organization that opposes President Donald Trump is launching a voter mobilization effort encouraging disaffected moderates in Nevada to switch their party registrations and participate in the Democratic presidential caucus. https://t.co/H8MkxCafn5

— Megan Messerly (@meganmesserly) February 13, 2020

… While Trump has encouraged Republicans to cross over and vote in the Democratic primary in order to select the “weakest” candidate to oppose him in the general election, this new organization, Center Action Now, is trying to get center-right voters to elect a Democratic presidential nominee they could support in the general election over Trump, according to Tim Miller, one of the groups’ directors and a former Jeb Bush staffer. The organization — which was established as a nonprofit on Feb. 3 — launched its voter engagement effort ahead of the New Hampshire primary and is now turning its focus to Nevada.

Miller said Center Action Now’s goal is to “expand voter engagement among disenfranchised moderate, former Republican voters who don’t feel like they have a home in the political process.”…

The organization, which was first reported on by Quartz on Tuesday, plans to identify Republicans and right-leaning nonpartisan voters in Nevada in coordination with other groups and organizations that maintain lists of such voters. Center Action Now is also launching a digital ad program in the state focused on building up its list of moderate voters and getting people to re-register to vote as Democrats by directing them to iwillvote.com, a voter registration website paid for by the Democratic National Committee…

In an effort to identify the types of voters it’s looking for, the organization has run digital ads targeting both Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Trump. One Facebook ad, which ran ahead of the New Hampshire primary, shows a picture of the two politicians side by side and encourages people to “sign our pledge for sanity.”…

Miller declined to provide any details about who is funding the group, its budget or the size of its staff. As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, the organization is not required to disclose its donors. According to Facebook, the group spent $13,280 on ads the day before and the day of the New Hampshire primary. The Nevada campaign, Miller said, will begin “imminently.”

He also said that a “much higher percentage” of the group’s financial resources will be directed toward voter contact through phones, text and mail over digital ads…

“A big part of this is going to be telling people they can do this,” Miller said. “My anecdotal feeling is that a lot of voters who are inclined to support a Democrat in the general election don’t realize that they can participate, or how to or what a caucus is, or what to do when they get there.”

And given how well the Iowa caucuses went — not to mention the last cycle in Nevada — that’s not hardly gonna reduce next Saturday’s fustercluck. But I’m sure Miller has the very best intentions!

re-allocation, as well as Bernie's inability to expand his coalition, is probably going to hurt Bernie's chances at winning NV. https://t.co/yDwMMUd6GV

— snow??anomics?? (@snowmanomics) February 12, 2020

Especially since those reallocation efforts are off to such a *fantastic* start…

Update: We have updated this story on the attacks faced by @Culinary226 to clarify that one of those comments appears to have come from a Trump supporter. The rest of the attacks noted in the story appear to come from self-identified Sanders supporters. https://t.co/JvxqcVPNgo

— Megan Messerly (@meganmesserly) February 14, 2020

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Reader Interactions

63Comments

  1. 1.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 14, 2020 at 10:43 pm

    Extry! Extry! Dog Bites Man, and Anne Laurie Bigfoots Cole!

    and please don’t take this post dow

    ETA:

    “Sanders is the only clear non-starter. It’s impossible not to regard the VT senator in a Trumplike mold..the left wing version of Trump: isolated, angry, unable to work with others..simply guarantees a Trump 2nd term.

    as both a Bernie-hater and something of a crotchety old fart, let me say: This is unfair. The relevant Bernie-to-trump comparison is dumbed-down, manichean politics and magic-beans solutions to complex problems. Bernie’s inability to work with people would be a problem, but far from his biggest one.

    and the whole thing about a second trump term: Yeah.

  2. 2.

    laura

    February 14, 2020 at 11:00 pm

    Caucus – because voting is to expansive and egalitarian and objective what with all the voter rights and ballots and such like… why make a fuss about a fundamental right?
    Also, heart shaped pizza’s 1 – 3 were perfect, but 4 pulled a floppy and left some toppings on the stone and the burn off set off the fire alarms in 2 rooms, so we’ve got doors and windows open to freshen/destenchen and so I had to YouTube the burning house of love by X from back in the day.

  3. 3.

    Mai naem mobile

    February 14, 2020 at 11:06 pm

    Fuck these people. These Bush people did fucking zero to stop the crazy RW nutjob swing of their party and now they’re trying to fuck with the Dems?.GF yourselves. Dubbya had no problem advocating McGropey McRapey to the USSC. They want to compromise so much but they aren’t going to do anything to appoint a moderate to the USSC. Dubbya is responsible for Alito for crying out loud.

  4. 4.

    Litany

    February 14, 2020 at 11:08 pm

    I’m amazed at how pessimistic people seem to be about Bernie’s chances in a general. People keep bemoaning how Bernie hasn’t been vetted while constantly pushing the same three or four stories about him that stretch all the way back to the 70s for ammunition. Meanwhile, the establishment is in full DEFCON-5 warning liberals about this guy; Chris Matthews whimpers about being executed in central park while Chuck Todd compares the very online supporters of a Jewish man who lost family in the Shoah to Nazi brownshirts. The truth is that outside of a small bubble of #neverbernie types Sanders still remains the one if not the most popular senator in the country and has the lowest unfavorability rates of anyone left in the primary; I’m forced to conclude that establishment figures fear Bernie not because he would lose but because in winning he would demonstrate just how hollow and empty their promises of “electability” really are. I understand if you have policy differences with the guy or even think that temperamentally he’s not suited for the office, but the people telling you that he can’t win somehow have already demonstrated how poorly they understand the dynamics of this primary. I still see smug gotchas about Bernie’s “hard ceiling” from the same class of media figures that promised he would drop out before Iowa because Beto(!) would catch fire with the youngz.

  5. 5.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    February 14, 2020 at 11:10 pm

    Wilmer does well in caucuses.

    Still, you don’t win a nomination with 25% of the vote.

    New Florida primary poll came out today, he’s at …. checks notes…. 10%.  At 10% he won’t qualify for any of Florida’s 248 delegates.

    At the convention, I could see Bloomberg, Biden, Pete pooling their majority delegates behind Warren or Klobuchar.

  6. 6.

    guachi

    February 14, 2020 at 11:17 pm

    If it finishes like this, only Sanders and Biden get delegates, unless someone crosses the 15% mark in a district.

  7. 7.

    Mike in NC

    February 14, 2020 at 11:19 pm

    Wish we could visit Nevada just to buy legal weed.

  8. 8.

    Jinchi

    February 14, 2020 at 11:23 pm

    @lasvegasweekly endorses Joe/Amy

    So newspapers are only doing endorsements in pairs now?

  9. 9.

    Fair Economist

    February 14, 2020 at 11:26 pm

    @guachi: It’s a caucus. Like Iowa, supporters of below-threshold candidates can realign, and usually do.

  10. 10.

    Kent

    February 14, 2020 at 11:28 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bernie isn’t Trump.  He’s the annoying old gray-haired man on the barstool in your university-town bar who keeps leaning closer and closer and ranting about the Tri-lateral commission while you keep scooting further and further away, looking for escape.

  11. 11.

    Kent

    February 14, 2020 at 11:33 pm

    @guachi:If it finishes like this, only Sanders and Biden get delegates, unless someone crosses the 15% mark in a district.

    No, because the Warren, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Steyer supporters will all redistribute to other candidates and they will likely mostly coalesce around one of the younger moderates, not Bernie or Biden.  They could actually leap ahead into first or second place in many precincts.

  12. 12.

    Juice Box

    February 14, 2020 at 11:34 pm

    @Litany: Yes, I think you’re right. Trump will probably treat Bernie with a great deal of respect due to his seniority. He certainly wouldn’t think that Sanders’ recent heart attack was nearly as debilitating as HRC’s pneumonia. I doubt he’d even remind people that Sanders was once a member of a Communist party.

    Why is there no sarcasm font?

  13. 13.

    hilts

    February 14, 2020 at 11:34 pm

    The Las Vegas Sun has bailed out the NY Times with its dual endorsement editorial.  As wrongheaded as the NY Times dual endorsement editorial may have been at least Warren and Klobuchar represented different factions of the Democratic Party, whereas Klobuchar and Biden represent the same damn faction.  This editorial is a steaming pile of excrement and the Las Vegas Sun is simply the village idiot of American newspapers.

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    February 14, 2020 at 11:36 pm

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Actually post-Super Tuesday, and well before the convention, I can see several combinations of non-BS candidates lining up their endorsements and organizations to rally behind the ‘moderate’ and seal the deal.

    I think I know who is going to pull the four together to talk about it, and I think I know whose money will help everyone see the light, and I think I know which (of two) candidates will emerge as the non-BS Dem candidate.

    But then again, as I have often lectured my TCNJ bro and dad, when what I *want* to happen is what I start predicting *will* happen…probably best to double-check those predictions.

    Still…

  15. 15.

    guachi

    February 14, 2020 at 11:38 pm

    @Kent: I didn’t realize all (or at least the NV) caucus allowed realignment like Iowa did.

  16. 16.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 14, 2020 at 11:39 pm

    meanwhile…

    OutFrontCNN @ OutFrontCNN
    “We really have to look at the bigger picture here of what’s been going on for a long time… It’s time for Bill Barr to resign as attorney general,” says former Deputy AG Donald Ayer, who was senior to Bill Barr in the George H.W. Bush administration.

  17. 17.

    Kent

    February 14, 2020 at 11:47 pm

    @guachi: They have to or 50% or more of the delegates would be unassigned.  That’s how caucuses work.

    Primaries are different because the totals are state-wide not precinct by precinct.

  18. 18.

    trollhattan

    February 14, 2020 at 11:48 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    Me to. No, wait [checks map] don’t need to drive two hours. Still, Lk Tahoe….

  19. 19.

    Mnemosyne

    February 14, 2020 at 11:50 pm

    I guess we’ll get to see if the Culinary Union employees were reassured to hear that Bernie’s been lying to them about M4A for the last four years. ?‍♀️

  20. 20.

    debbie

    February 14, 2020 at 11:51 pm

    @Juice Box:

    And he’d be far too respectful to bring up his emails. //

  21. 21.

    rikyrah

    February 14, 2020 at 11:54 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    you do realize that they never would have done the M4A mea culpa if the Culinary Union hadn’t of made it plain what Bernie ‘s unicorn dream would cost them.?

  22. 22.

    Mai naem mobile

    February 15, 2020 at 12:00 am

    @Litany: I admit I just don’t like Bernie. Similarly I also don’t particularly care for Chris Coons , DiFi. Don’t get me wrong I’ll vote for him. Read the piece by McKay Coppins in the Atlantic. When I go.on twitter I feel like there is visible jump in bots pretending to hate the Dem candidates/policy positions etc.  That is what Bernie is going to be facing not just his adoring fans. The people around him don’t help. Rashida Tlaib telling people to boo Hilz was just amateur hour.  Some of the stuff Sirota, Weaver and Nina Turner have done is the same. They need to stop acting like 2016 Omarosa and Lewandowskis because 2016 Hilz is going to be a cakewalk compared to Trumpov and Putinistan Army . The honeymoon in Russia and soshulist stuff is going to be used to turn him card carrying communist. who fought on the Russian side of the Cold War.

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    February 15, 2020 at 12:06 am

    @rikyrah:

    Oh, I know. Sadly for the Sanders campaign, the actions of their Twitter followers probably means they’ve lost those union members’ support despite their backpedaling on M4A. Too bad, so sad.

  24. 24.

    debbie

    February 15, 2020 at 12:07 am

    @rikyrah:

    Wait, what? BS pandering???

  25. 25.

    FlipYrWhig

    February 15, 2020 at 12:11 am

    Is Sanders just going to keep getting 25% everywhere?  I can totally picture it:  he goes from getting 25% and coming in 1st in these early contests to getting the same 25% and getting blown out in the later ones as others drop out.  It feels like he’s the first choice of about 25% and the fallback choice of, like, nobody.

  26. 26.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    February 15, 2020 at 12:41 am

    I only know this guy from seeing him on TV now and then, but this is a surprise

    Robert Costa @ costareports
    News: @cornellbelcher, a veteran strategist and one of President Obama’s former pollsters, has decided to advise the Bloomberg campaign. He just confirmed it in a brief phone interview.

  27. 27.

    Schmendrick

    February 15, 2020 at 1:00 am

    I will be voting early in the hybrid primary/caucus tomorrow, because next Saturday I will be a volunteer working at the caucus. My ballot tomorrow will have a first, second and third choice (and I believe I can provide a fourth and fifth choice as well.) Then, next Saturday, if my first choice is not viable on the first ballot, my ballot will go to my second choice candidate if they were viable on the first round. If not, then the third, and so forth. It is sort of like if I where there moving to join a viable candidate, with at least two possible differences: (1) my choice to change will not be affected by any real-time judgments about the other caucus-goers; and (2) I am unsure if my first choice becomes viable after people at the caucus realign, whether my original preference will be honored or not. I will try to report back a week from tomorrow on my caucus volunteering experience.

  28. 28.

    Eljai

    February 15, 2020 at 1:11 am

    @Schmendrick: Please do report back if you can!  It seems like the part about being to vote early before the actual caucus is unique to Nevada.  I’d be interested in hearing about your experience.

  29. 29.

    Jesse

    February 15, 2020 at 1:11 am

    What blows me away is that, among the various details in these stories, we don’t see pushback against the suggestion—by the president of the US!—for members of his party to undermine the primaries/caucuses of another party. That, alone, just knocks me over. I don’t understand why there’s not more pushback against that suggestion. (Yes, I know that that’s possible in some primaries. What I find gobsmacking is that the president would encourage undermining the process.)

  30. 30.

    Kent

    February 15, 2020 at 2:17 am

    Where did everyone go?

    Apparently the big meltdown in Bernie land is all over the Culinary Union in Nevada dissing Sander’s M4A proposal and the union leaders are now getting an epic tidal wave of filth and threats from supposed Bernie supporters.  LGM covers the details:  http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/02/solidarity-2

    No doubt some of the worst of this abuse is actually coming from bots and Russian trolls and whatnot.  But I actually find it kind of amusing because this is the bed that Sanders created for himself and the roadmap for anyone who wants to undermine his campaign.  No one would actually believe an epic nasty flaming firestorm like this from supporters of Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg for the simple reason that they are mostly running positive campaigns and keeping their worst folks on a very tight leash.  A whole bunch of Warren supporters on an epic online doxing war against some union leaders for telling the truth to their people on some flier?   Please.  No one would believe it for a second and Warren would be on it instantly.

    But Sanders has been giving the worst of his folks absolute free rein to attack folks online with impunity for four years now.  And he is either unwilling or unable to dial it back (maybe both).  So the playbook is sitting there plain as day for anyone who wants to torpedo his campaign.   When the campaign gets to Oregon start a flame war against loggers and ranchers.  When it gets to Florida, start one against snowbirds.  Or perhaps Venezuelan expats who are suspicious of “socialism”  It is almost too easy.

    Unless I miss my guess we are going to see epic flaming of every on-the-bubble potential Sanders constituency in every state from here on out.  For being disloyal to the socialist savior from Burlington.  It is the playbook I would use.

  31. 31.

    smike

    February 15, 2020 at 2:34 am

    @Kent: That scenario is easy to believe. I only hope that, remembering what happened last time, people remember that they need to vote against tRump at all cost to personal dignity imagined. They can bitch and moan all they want about their hobbled purity ponies, but I’m voting D no matter what. Actually, I’ve been doing that for many years and will never vote for a republican unless he/she (“he” in this coming bout) is on the D ticket.

  32. 32.

    Martin

    February 15, 2020 at 2:34 am

    @Kent:

    “It is easier to run a revolution than a government.”

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    February 15, 2020 at 2:38 am

    @Kent

    Just for the record, expats (Venezuelan or other) don’t vote, as they are not citizens.

  34. 34.

    Kent

    February 15, 2020 at 3:00 am

    @NotMax: Just for the record, expats (Venezuelan or other) don’t vote, as they are not citizens.

    Well, that’s not my main point, it was just a random example off the top of my head.  But in point of fact, there are over 100,000 Floridians who are Venezuelan-Americans 0.5% of the total population of Florida.  They are not all recent ex-pat refugees fleeing Maduro but citizens, or second and third generation immigrants.  And, just like older Cuban-Americans, they are not particularly enamored with socialism.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_Americans

    So yes, I think a fake troll-storm against a few choice Venezuelan politicians or well known community representatives who express real reservations about Sanders could indeed alienate a bunch of them.  Say some popular Venezuelan-American mayor of some Florida city comes out for Klobuchar because of some socialist tilt in the Sanders platform and the Sanders flame trolls go ape shit in a public online hissy-fit.  You don’t think other Venezuelan-Americans would not take notice?  And then the Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans and other Florida Latinos?   I expect they would, especially if it is broadcast 24/7 in some local media shitstorm by bored reporters who are tired of watching candidates recycle stump speeches.

    You live with your reputation.  Remember when some fraudsters tried to accuse Warren of having an affair with some ex-Marine fitness instructor?  It was comedy gold, even for Warren herself because no one believed it.  By failing to rein in his trolls for the past 4 years, Sanders has made anything they do, or anything anyone else does in their name, believable.   And even if the whole thing is originally ginned up by  Russian trolls.  There will still be hundreds of real life Sanders dude-bros who pile on with glee.  Because that is who they are and what they have trained themselves to do.  Remember all the snake emoji bullshit?

    Sooner or later it is going to bite him in the ass, and deservedly so.

  35. 35.

    Kraux Pas

    February 15, 2020 at 3:47 am

    @Kent: Apparently the big meltdown in Bernie land is all over the Culinary Union in Nevada dissing Sander’s M4A proposal

    Well, I’ve been on team public option* despite being a Warren supporter and I would never try to justify the harassing behavior you described from Bernie’s supporters (though I think their worst folk have found ways to amplify their voice and their detractors help amplify it too).

    However, I also have an amazing union-negotiated healthcare plan. This doesn’t lead me to wholly reject medicare for all because I remember what life was like before I had that plan. Plus it isn’t a great state of affairs being shackled to a job over health insurance.

    *My preference for a public option was shaken, but not defeated recently listening to Don Berwick, former head of Medicare and Medicaid. He argued that private insurers would find a way to offload their sickest patients on the government while making money off the healthy.

  36. 36.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    February 15, 2020 at 4:03 am

    @Kraux Pas:

    He argued that private insurers would find a way to offload their sickest patients on the government while making money off the healthy.

    I think Mayhew’s made the same point, gotta pay for the hookers and blow somehow.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne

    February 15, 2020 at 4:10 am

    @Kraux Pas:

    As I understand it, the union doesn’t just have better insurance or better coverage. They’ve built their own clinics and hospital to take care of their members directly. They would have to dismantle all of that infrastructure, fire their medical staff, and wait for M4A to build new clinics to meet the demand that wasn’t being met before the union decided to cut out the middleman and provide healthcare directly to their members.

    That’s a lot bigger and more complicated than them having a better insurance policy.

  38. 38.

    Jay

    February 15, 2020 at 4:18 am

    Btw, bigger issues due jour,

    If you were hoping for another unqualified sycophant running things in our federal government, you’re in luck! Chad Mizelle, the new (acting) general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security graduated law school a few years ago and was given his job because he’s buddies with Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s favorite Nazis. His agenda at DHS will likely be the further whitening of America.

    Another garbage person running a garbage agency for this garbage government.

    https://www.wonkette.com/unqualified-nazi-is-new-top-lawyer-at-dhs

  39. 39.

    eclare

    February 15, 2020 at 4:26 am

    • @Jay: Gawd that is disgusting.
  40. 40.

    Kraux Pas

    February 15, 2020 at 4:31 am

    @Mnemosyne: They’d have to dismantle their clinics and the government would have to build new clinics? It seems like there’s an opportunity available that would make that transition a little smoother and I can’t quite put my finger on it.

  41. 41.

    Eljai

    February 15, 2020 at 4:34 am

    @Kraux Pas: I remember Bill Moyers interviewing a woman back before the ACA passed and she voiced the same concern that the public option would result in insurance companies offloading the sickest patients to the government plan.  Of course that’s a moot point since the public option was stricken from the final bill.  I wish I could remember her name now.  I still like the public option as a first step. It’s seems like that’s the most logical step for moving forward.

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    February 15, 2020 at 4:39 am

    @Kraux Pas:

    Strangely, Warren has a provision for exactly that kind of transfer in her transition plan. Sanders, not so much.

  43. 43.

    Kraux Pas

    February 15, 2020 at 4:45 am

    @Eljai: Yeah, I still like the public option too. It’s a good transitional step that would allow the government to scale up its investment in healthcare in a more orderly way.

    And the fact that a major problem with the idea has been identified shouldn’t be a deal breaker. In fact, since the problem was identified, we should be able to account for it.

    People’s potential misbehavior should never be a reason to not implement an otherwise good policy. Do the policy and prevent, disincentivize, or punish the misbehavior.

  44. 44.

    Kraux Pas

    February 15, 2020 at 4:47 am

    @Mnemosyne: And this is why Warren as at the top of my list and Sanders approaches the bottom.

  45. 45.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    February 15, 2020 at 4:48 am

    @Kent: The fish rots from the head down.

  46. 46.

    Jay

    February 15, 2020 at 5:14 am

    @Eljai:

    sadly, only 24 of the top 25 “western” economies have ever figured out how to make single payer work in some form.

    it’s way too difficult.

  47. 47.

    Jay

    February 15, 2020 at 5:18 am

    Elizabeth Warren is who you vote for if you like Bernie Sanders’s policy but actually want it enacted.— Kaitlin Byrd: Apocalypse Diarist/Writer (@GothamGirlBlue) February 12, 2020

    Not that I am picking a favorite.

  48. 48.

    Jay

    February 15, 2020 at 5:20 am

    I am the only candidate to propose an independent DOJ task force to investigate crimes by Trump administration officials. Every Democratic candidate must commit to it—so Trump officials know they will be held accountable by career prosecutors once he is out of office.— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 12, 2020

    Yah know,……..

  49. 49.

    Jay

    February 15, 2020 at 5:32 am

    Respite that should be front paged, “ in these time”,

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9chinVB4QYE

    The Dodo

  50. 50.

    Chyron HR

    February 15, 2020 at 5:54 am

    @Litany:

    Feel free to take a sabbatical from posting here (or anywhere) until you’re mentally capable of forwarding any argument that doesn’t hinge on screeching “DA ESTABBISHMENT!  DA STABBGIGSHGBENT!!!”

  51. 51.

    Jay

    February 15, 2020 at 5:55 am

    Population of African elephants around 1800 – c. 20 m1900 – 10 m. 1979 – 1.3 m2007 – 500k2016 – 352k pic.twitter.com/V3zUvj0s5L— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) February 15, 2020

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    February 15, 2020 at 6:44 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I can imagine a Variety headline for that quote:

    Bill Barr’s Boss Bails

  53. 53.

    LC

    February 15, 2020 at 7:24 am

    @Litany: @Litany: 

    Sanders still remains the one if not the most popular senator in the country and has the lowest unfavorability rates of anyone left in the primary;

    No. He is middle of the pack. Net -2 or 3 according to RCP averages. Klobuchar and Buttigieg are both net positive.

    These are national, not just Dems.

  54. 54.

    LC

    February 15, 2020 at 7:44 am

    @Jay:

    sadly, only 24 of the top 25 “western” economies have ever figured out how to make single payer work in some form

    I am at a loss as to where you get these numbers.  Most “western” economies don’t have single payer.

  55. 55.

    Biff Baxter

    February 15, 2020 at 7:46 am

    @LC: That poll that always cites the most popular Senators  is among their constituents and the top 4, all grouped within 1-2 points of each other, are the Senators from Vermont and Wyoming. The two least populous states that also maintain populations that are 90+% white. John Barrasso might as well be the GOP nominee.

  56. 56.

    LC

    February 15, 2020 at 8:17 am

    @Biff Baxter: oh, I know where the “most popular senator” nonsense comes from.

    It is the talk about best favorables that irks me. As far as I can tell it is just random wishful thinking.

  57. 57.

    MomSense

    February 15, 2020 at 8:55 am

    @Eljai:

    I’m not sure I remember correctly but I think the gist of the problem was that the version of the public option that passed did not tie reimbursement rates to Medicare for starters which would have made it very difficult to keep costs down.

  58. 58.

    JMG

    February 15, 2020 at 9:04 am

    Bernie Sanders is a 78 year old man who had a heart attack four months ago. He seems to have recovered, but come on. Mike Bloomberg’s 78th birthday was this week. Sanders-Trump or Bloomberg-Trump would be like Jerry’s father and George’s father campaigning for condo board President on Seinfeld.

  59. 59.

    Martin

    February 15, 2020 at 9:39 am

    @MomSense: The real problem is that a ‘market’ isn’t just customer choice, but also supplier choice – that is, the company decides what set of customers they want to serve (within reason).

    Normally, they’d choose upmarket (Saks) or downmarket (Dollar General) or geography, etc. They can do some weird things (restaurant with a tie policy). And some really weird things (college admission).

    So a market pretty much requires that insurers be able to do this once you regulate prices. So if you are morally opposed to omitting people from the market (blocking those with pre-existing conditions) and morally opposed to market pricing (charge them near-infinite dollars) then you simply don’t have a market and you can’t expect any market dynamics to work. You’ve guaranteed it to fail. Instead you have a utility. That’s what a utility is. And the rules for utilities are VERY different. The VA is a utility – one run entirely by the government. Medicare is a quasi-utility, it looks like a utility on the government side, but not on the provider side. It’s been an uneasy peace that so far has worked out, but is definitely fraying.

    Bernie supports M4A because he doesn’t believe in markets in general. That’s why his college for all plan is utterly incomplete – he just waves away the access problem, pretends it doesn’t exist. Warren supports M4A because she does believe in markets, and recognizes that capitalism simply doesn’t work for this situation. So rather than continue to sully capitalisms reputation by forcing it to fail at healthcare, simply excuse it from this situation where it is ill suited and let it succeed at the things it is well suited to.

    And that’s fine. I have a cordless drill that I really, really like. I use it all the time. I rave about it to others. And yet, despite how much I like it, I still pull out a hammer to pound in nails. I could use my drill for that, but it’ll be bad at it and make me not like my drill as much. Using a hammer doesn’t mean that I hate the drill and never want to see it again. It’s not a religion, it’s a tool. Neither is capitalism, it’s also a tool. Warren gets that. That’s also why I don’t think Bloomberg would be a disaster. A guy who tries to regulate soda and guns and carbon emissions doesn’t think capitalism is a religion either.

  60. 60.

    Uncle Cosmo

    February 15, 2020 at 12:12 pm

    @Litany: I’m amazed at how pessimistic people seem to be about Bernie’s chances in a general.

    IOW, your political acumen is roughly equivalent to that of the average flatworm.

    What amazes me is how few comprehend that the people who should be leading the campaign to keep the Wilmer “I” Institute** away from the nomination are precisely those who hope for a rebirth of democratic soshulism (or social democracy – you pays your taxes, you takes your choice). Because 4 years of BS (how à propos the initials!) will inevitably & inexorably discredit the whole concept of their collective ;^D hearts’ desire for at least a generation, if not forevermore.

    Why? Should that shouty, grouchy, works-not-at-all-with-others old man and his arrogant, obnoxious, incompetent factotums enter the White House, we may confidently (if disconsolately) expect two years of flailing about, with no meaningful legislation passed & every executive order stomped on by the Federalist judiciary; followed by TeaParty 2.0 & massive revulsion leading to major reversion in the composition of Congress in 2022; followed by two years of gridlock. And in 2024 voters will flock to a less-overt-but-more-competent fascist GOP nominee who at least looks like he (it’s gonna be “he,” it’s the Gee-Oh-Pee, hon) can get shit done. Finis democratiae.

    (When I was in college, we lefties were jung & easily freudened but most of all “are-we-there-yet” impatient. [“What do we want?” {insert demand du jour} “When do we want it?” “NOW!!”] But at least we were trying to stop a senseless, bloody war from killing more mostly blameless people. We weren’t demanding the fucking millennium with a wave of the wand.)

    ———-

    ** NB A lame pun on the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins, one of the top of its type in the hole whirled. I enjoyed making it, you don’t have to enjoy reading it. :^p

  61. 61.

    Schmendrick

    February 15, 2020 at 12:17 pm

    @Martin: This analysis seems exactly right to me.  Usually when a complex situation is described in brief terms the result is oversimplification which obscures the big picture, but I think you have laid out a good overview of the situation.  Thanks.

    On a separate note.  I will be heading out to early vote/caucus shortly.  I will report on what I see.  For what it’s worth I have received about 6 Bernie flyers; and  maybe two for Tom Steyer in the past few weeks.  And although my phone has a Maryland area code, apparently they know I live here because I have gotten a lot of texts from various campaigns — I think the most from the Warren campaign (who will be my first choice on my ranked choice ballot.)

  62. 62.

    Kent

    February 15, 2020 at 1:24 pm

    @JMG:Bernie Sanders is a 78 year old man who had a heart attack four months ago. He seems to have recovered, but come on. Mike Bloomberg’s 78th birthday was this week. Sanders-Trump or Bloomberg-Trump would be like Jerry’s father and George’s father campaigning for condo board President on Seinfeld.

    No, they are actually older than that.  Barney Martin (Morty Seinfeld) was ages 67 – 75 during the run of Seinfeld.

  63. 63.

    Peale

    February 15, 2020 at 11:25 pm

    @LC: ok. 24 out of 25 countries can discus their healthcare options and keep healthcare costs from spiraling out of control without teetering on civil war. I do think we’re going to end up being the only  empire that splits up over medical bills. Though it’s possible that’s what did in the Song and the Sassanians.

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