So Hillary won a big victory tonight in SC. Things look good for her on Tuesday, and if she wins all the big states by large margins, it would be hard to see how the primary is still a truly valid contest. Bernie may stay in all the way, or drop out next week, but either way it wont really matter.
The Hillary/Bernie war here has been very strange for me personally. I am a liberal, even voted for Walter Mondale and voted for Jesse Jackson in the 88 primary. But for me the most important factor is making sure that there is a D in the White House and not an R. Those die-hards that back in 2008 were saying they wouldn’t vote for Obama if Clinton were to lose the nomination (remember the PUMAs?) and the ones today who state they can’t vote for Hillary in the general, only Bernie, don’t make any sense to me. I would take a moderate D over the most liberal R on the planet given what that means for taxes, deficit, safety net, foreign policy, and appointments to SCOTUS. We’ve dealt with a crappy conservative SCOTUS for 25 years, and to let the chance to take it back for a generation slip away out of spite that Hilary is not liberal enough is just petty.
I think Bernie is great. I would be happy to vote for him in a general election if he were the nominee. But he is not going to be. I do think that his programs are not fully thought through. For example, making college free for all is really not necessary. I’m a well off doctor and will put my 3 kids through private universities without any financial aid, and if they go to UCLA or Berkeley that will be even cheaper. Aid should go to those who need it. I also think his Medicare for all plan is not fully thought through. To do that, we will have to create real winners and losers, and some people (particularly upper income groups in the top 2 or 3 deciles) will pay much more in taxes than they currently do in health insurance. Take a mid-level worker in the clerical department at a city. The city provides health insurance for them costing the city 6k per year in pre-tax dollars. Now if we go to a Medicare system for all, what would happen? This person, who makes 40k per year in salary could now get that 6k in additional income from the city, but the feds are not going to turn around and tax that 6k, that would be upping the federal tax rate by 15% in absolute terms, a huge tax increase. What would happen is that most of the taxes that would fund universal medicare would come from the wealthy, and that would be very difficult to pass through Congress. The political pushback would be very strong.
I like Hillary’s approach is better. Create a public option that people can choose to select that piggybacks on the Medicare structure for cost control purposes. That would be much more feasible and much less disruptive to the health care system. The ACA has been an earthquake in the healthcare landscape, incremental change at this point makes much more sense to me.
I know that the Bernie crowd wants dramatic things to be done, and not merely push the ball down the field another 10 yards, but I am okay with that because it is realistic and achievable. Obama’s gradualism has summed into one of the most successful liberal Presidencies of the last 100 years.
Hillary does raise suspicions of those who emphasize her Iraq War vote, or want to hang the perceived sins of Bill’s two terms on her (crime bill, welfare reform etc). She has been a more hawkish voice apparently in the Obama administration in the cases of Libya and Syria, but she has never advocated getting the US into another full scale war. She is deeply aware that the Dems have no appetite for foreign military adventures and I trust her to not indulge in those.
Tonight’s win was impressive. Tuesday could clarify the picture and bring the race to an effective end. I look forward to Hillary being the first woman President. It’s about time.