Thank you for continuing to share these messages with your friends. If you are not already on our mailing list, please click here to be added to our list. You can also follow me on Facebook where you can read and share these messages. The more people we can reach, the more we contribute to this growing movement. We share these posts on our blog, A Path Forward to November 3, 2020, every two weeks, which means there will be a total of 100 missives before the Presidential election of 2020, in which our country will select a whole new course.
We learned an extremely painful lesson in November of 2016 and took great advantage of that lesson to take back the House in November 2018. What comes next is no mystery, no enigma, and no puzzle. There won’t even be a tingle of spines unless we make it so. On November 3, 2020, (less than one year from now) we will win the most important election of our history by doing what we already know how to do one more time.
For that result to happen like it should and like it must, we must stay on the path. Keep the independents we won back in 2018. Register voters. Fight voter suppression. Persuade more independents. Support strong candidates. We have a huge pent up demand for a President who will immediately tend to payment of our overdue obligations to the environment and to health care in America. In selecting a candidate, let’s remember that every conceivable Democratic nominee would do exactly that.
So, let’s use our terms carefully. There are no “moderates” in the Democratic field. Except for the self-identified Socialist Bernie Sanders, all of the top ten candidates are liberals by the usual definition. The use of the word “progressive” to describe some and not others is an appropriate extra smooch from advocates that is mostly related (but not entirely) to the candidates’ policy positions. All of the major candidates would protect the Dream Act, reform student debt, reverse Trump’s LGBQT discrimination, advance universal background checks, restore global alliances and make a massive commitment on climate change.
Thus, the “lanes” that candidates are said to occupy can be misleading. Earlier in the campaign season, there were huge blocs of Sanders voters for whom Biden was the second choice, and huge blocs of Biden voters for whom Sanders was the second choice. There is not much difference in the Senate voting records of Booker, Klobuchar, Warren, Sanders and Harris. There are policy disputes among our candidates that we should understand and sort out, but let’s not overstate them. Clearly the top two are specific ways to tax the wealthy and the major disputes over Medicare for All.
As we go down the path, let’s keep our heads up. As many as 57% of voters have indicated that they have no plans to vote for Trump. Unbelievably, there are Democrats and independents who can’t stop themselves from predicting Trump will win. Are we so wounded that we can’t even recognize the advantaged position we assumed last November? Last week we took back both the Virginia House and Senate. We won the governorship in Kentucky, a state that Donald Trump carried by 30 points three years ago. These are not random happenings or liberal fantasies. They are what is taking place in our country, today. Our candidates are polling well in head to head match-ups with Trump. We hold the majority position on most of the issues confronting America, and we are running against an incompetent and venal man.
As we go forward with our heads up, let’s make the correct and critical choice regarding the central element of our strategy to take back the presidency, the Senate, and thus save our country. Trump’s unpopularity gives us a huge head start. Are we going to re-visit and re-invest in what we know how to do, and which just won the suburbs and took back the House? It is pretty simple. There are several other states to put in play, but if we win two of these six Trump will have virtually no path: Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona. We won all of these in 2008 and all but North Carolina in 2012.
This month’s polls show we’re starting in good shape. That’s where Medicare for All comes in. We decrease our chances with working people in Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania or with seniors in Arizona and Florida or with independents in all these states by telling them we plan to carry out an enormous expansion of the federal government. Are we going to advocate this approach when respect for government is at the lowest? When independents and some Democrats say they aren’t interested, are we going to tell them they don’t understand what they need? If our candidates demur and instead favor huge expansion of health care coverage, are we going to accuse them of using Republican talking points?
Committing to Medicare for All is especially bizarre because it is entirely divorced from what would happen in the United States Senate if we do exceedingly well in 2020 and end up with 52 or 53 Democratic Senators. Even if a Medicare for All proponent were President, there is no chance that the Senate would pass such a bill. Further, our own Senate candidates in battleground states do not support it, instead opting for mammoth steps toward universal coverage.
Whether or not we argue for Medicare for All in 2020, in 2021 the Senate would end up with the same very significant expansion of the Affordable Care Act that Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar espouse. Knowing this in advance, are we really going to jettison our health care political advantage for a campaign around doubling our taxes and outlawing private insurance? Are we going to depend on our lecturing skills to convince the voters that it will all balance out once health care costs are reduced? Are we thinking the other side will come to the table with a nice articulated pro and con issue brief rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars taking advantage of an issue we would have created for them?
It is time to stop this. In even considering running a Medicare for All dominated election, we are putting a beleaguered country at risk. Let’s remember this as we contemplate this risk. We are deciding on a president who would betray the Kurds, or not, who would deport Dreamers, or not. After November 3, 2020, we will have a president who will nominate someone to the Supreme Court who will or will not respect the settled law on Roe v. Wade. We will select a woman or man who launches a national effort to curb climate change or denies that it exists. Donald Trump will be president, or not.
There’s an argument that whatever independent voters we would jettison in advocating Medicare for All would be offset by new voters we would attract. The problem is, the scale of the latter is not close to matching the scale of the former, especially in battleground states. Sure, we would take this risk in a heartbeat if it was the only way to do what is right and just on a fundamental issue, but in this case the same health care reform steps will emerge in Congress in 2021.
There is a better way. We can have a ticket that nicely covers our plentiful common interests. We can move dramatically toward universal health coverage after the election without subjecting ourselves to self-inflicted wounds during the election. Let’s enmesh ourselves further in the race for the presidency by doing these three things:
| 1) Register Voters in Florida | |
 | Barack Obama won Florida by 2.8% in 2008 and .9% in 2012. Donald Trump and Russian operatives won by 1.2% over Hilary Clinton in 2016. We can take back this state. Former Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum lost his race for the governorship by half a percent. 700,000 more Floridians have registered to vote since this. Gillum’s new Bring it Home Florida has pledged to register a million more and to re-engage those already registered, which has not always been accomplished by the Florida Democratic Party. Gillum’s organization is a good place to follow Florida. Donating is a good way to boost our chances to win the state in 2020. |
2) Commit Today to Fight Gerrymandering | |
 | Several national organizations did great work to help flip both houses of the Virginia State Legislature. Notable among these was the Sister District project. Former Attorney General Eric Holder’s PAC is aptly named the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. He wants to flip state legislatures because of the way Republican controlled legislatures abused the redistricting process after the 2010 census. In addition to donating to candidates, this PAC litigates and helps build the “political infrastructure” to prepare for the redistricting that will take place after the 2020 elections. Now is the time to connect with this important effort. There’s a way to get on the e-mailing list even if you aren’t donating. |
3) Evaluating Candidates Not in the November 20 Debates | |
 | The November debate is going to look a lot like the October debate. Missing will be Beto O’Rourke who dropped out and Julian Castro who didn’t reach the polling threshold. Eventually the field is going to narrow. If you are still shopping, this is a good time to think also about Steve Bullock and Michael Bennet. Neither of these men has been advantaged by late starts. If one was in the thinking mode, one could also look at Michael Bloomberg, though there is a down market for billionaire candidates, or Deval Patrick, who would need to decide to run with lightning speed. There isn’t a website for Michelle Obama… |
So, now it is less than a year until the election. As reviewed above, it is time to resolve our Medicare for All dispute in favor of not overreaching. Our energy level has not waned. Given the events of the last few weeks, our motivation could not be higher.
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
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