If you watched the first Democratic presidential debates last night, you probably noticed that the excitement on the stage increased dramatically when the topic turned to health care reform. Cara Voght’s “We Just Got a Ton of Clarity on Where the Democrats Stand on Medicare for All” rolled it out at Mother Jones: “Twenty minutes into the first night of the first 2020 Democratic debate, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt asked a straightforwards yes or no question of the field: “Who here would abolish their private health insurance in favor of a government run plan?”…Elizabeth Warren’s hand shot up immediately from the center of the stage. It was a hand many progressives had been waiting to see. The Massachusetts senator has defined her run for the White House with a bevy of detailed plans, but her stance on health care had been a bit more elusive. “There are a lot of different ways to get there,” she told the New York Times without specifically naming the single-payer plan pushed by her 2020 rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders. “‘Medicare for All’ has a lot of different paths.”…But she couldn’t have been clearer when she explained her answer from the debate stage on Wednesday night. “I’m with Bernie on Medicare for All,” she said. She added that the profit-driven private health care industry had left families rising premiums “rising premiums, rising copays, and fighting with insurance companies…Medicare for All solves that problem,” she explained from the stage.”
Voght continues, “But Warren and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio—the only other candidate to raise his hand in response to Holt’s question—were in the minority. Most of the rest of the candidates appeared to coalesce around Medicare for America instead, a universal health care plan authored by Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). It would offer a comprehensive federal insurance option to uninsured Americans, while allowing those who have employer-provided insurance to keep it if they choose. Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke voiced support for it, noting that it would allow anyone who needs insurance to easily obtain it. “But if you’re a member of a union, and you negotiated for a health care plan that you like because it works for you and your family, you’re able to keep it,” O’Rourke said.” All the candidates on stage appeared ready and eager to flesh out their views on the topic, and there were no gaffes.
Who got to talk the most? Erin Doherty has a chart for that at FiveThirtyEight:
Number of words spoken by each candidate during night one of the first Democratic debate
CANDIDATE
WORDS SPOKEN
Cory Booker
2181
Beto O’Rourke
1932
Elizabeth Warren
1637
Chuck Todd (moderator)
1633
Amy Klobuchar
1614
Julián Castro
1588
Tim Ryan
1383
Tulsi Gabbard
1243
Rachel Maddow (moderator)
1163
John Delaney
1060
Lester Holt (moderator)
1001
Bill de Blasio
881
Jay Inslee
875
Savannah Guthrie (moderator)
748
Jose Diaz-Balart (moderator)
377
One comment on “Political Strategy Notes: First Democratic Presidential Debate Edition”
Victor on
Warren is so far the only candidate that can unite the different factions of the party.
Her stances on the economy, healthcare, immigration, climate change and cultural issues manage to be principled while flexible.
She still has some way to go in explaining her narrative and strategy for change, specially in the context of a stable economy, but she has credibility with both progressives and more moderate liberals.
News that Elon Musk has told Tesla investors he plans to cut back on his destructive service to Donald Trump and pay more attention to his troubled company felt like a victory to many Democrats. But at New York I warned that it might not matter as much as we had hoped:
This has been one of Washington’s favorite games lately: When will Elon leave? The planted axiom is that Elon Musk’s bizarre and wildly destructive adventures as head of the shambolically established Department of Government Efficiency can’t last long, for multiple reasons.
First, his far-flung corporate empire could use more of his attention, and his extracurricular activities haven’t exactly helped his bottom line (notably at Tesla, where public reaction to DOGE’s antics severely damaged the once-cool brand). Second, it’s assumed that infinitely large egos like Musk’s and Donald Trump’s (not to mention the other highly self-regarding MAGA veterans in the Trump Cabinet) cannot perpetually coexist in the same public and private space for very long, particularly since there are elements of the Trump 2.0 agenda, like his trade war, that may not enchant the chief bankroller of the 47th president’s 2024 campaign. Third, the incredible yet deliberately induced chaos that has been DOGE’s signature contribution to public administration must soon give way to some sort of sustainable operating model for delivering benefits and services. And fourth, Musk’s own lagging popularity (punctuated by the defeat of a Republican judicial candidate in Wisconsin whom Musk had bankrolled and personally campaigned for) isn’t helping the Boss’s own gradually eroding job-approval numbers.
But assuming Musk’s days at the helm of DOGE are numbered (his original appointment as a “special government employee” expires next month, and the entire DOGE operation is supposed to wrap up in July of next year), can his minions sojourn on without him?
They probably can. DOGE employees are now routinely “embedded” in federal agencies, typically at the very peak of the administrative pyramid and with top-shelf access to the all-important data. They are typically working hand-in-glove with Trump political appointees who share their deep hostility to agency missions and to career civil servants. In many parts of the federal bureaucracy, the mid-level managers that might push back against DOGE demolition efforts are already gone or are so terrified of losing their jobs that they do exactly what DOGE staffers tell them to do. They no longer need much adult supervision.
Perhaps just as importantly, there is a powerful permanent institution in the Trump administration that shares DOGE’s hatred of the “deep state” and is much better equipped to manage a gradual transition from slash-and-burn cuts in spending and personnel to a regularized if downsized bureaucracy devoted to the administration’s policy goals. That would be the Office of Management and Budget and its director, Project 2025 co-author and Christian nationalist zealot Russell Vought.
Vought formed an alliance with Musk shortly after the 2024 election, when DOGE was just an evil glimmer in the Tech Bro’s eye, based on their shared vision of a vast purge of the bureaucracy to root out non-MAGA influences and blow up programs and policies that did not serve the reactionary cultural and economic agenda of Trump 2.0. And the deeply experienced OMB director has almost certainly played a key role behind the scenes in coordinating DOGE’s raids on federal agencies with OMB’s plans and harmonizing both with what the administration is demanding from its congressional allies. Vought is the “glue guy,” to use a sports metaphor, who keeps the team together. And his authority will likely expand if Musk leaves Washington, as Bloomberg’s Max Chafkin explained earlier this week:
“A Trump administration official, who requested anonymity to share internal discussions, says Vought is widely perceived as preparing to pick up wherever Musk leaves off. Where Musk has shown a zeal for smash and grab, Vought has the institutional knowledge—and perhaps the patience—to make the DOGE cuts stick. Vought, this person says, ‘is waiting in the wings.’”
Unlike Musk, Vought knows the federal government’s many nooks and crannies like the back of his hand and is perfectly positioned to deploy Musk’s orphaned raiders in a much more coordinated campaign to take DOGE and its hollowed-out agency hosts to the next level (or, in the eyes of their victims, the next level of hell). They don’t need their turbulent creator around with his attention-grabbing habits and over-the-top cartoon-villain malevolence. Vought’s dull knife will cut even deeper than Musk’s chain saw, and a lot less noisily.
Warren is so far the only candidate that can unite the different factions of the party.
Her stances on the economy, healthcare, immigration, climate change and cultural issues manage to be principled while flexible.
She still has some way to go in explaining her narrative and strategy for change, specially in the context of a stable economy, but she has credibility with both progressives and more moderate liberals.