Monday, January 06, 2020

Could Amy Klobuchar be just the candidate for bringing (sort of) together the diverse alternatives?

Democratic candidate Amy Klobuchar looks fairly moderate. I haven't seen a lot of media coverage. This Chicago Tribune columnist thinks she would be a good nominee for the Democratic Party. Joe Biden is 78. Age might be a factor with voters.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg is promising, but this columnist pulls up a poll saying that only 26% of Americans think the voting public is ready for an openly gay president. It is interesting to note, however, that the results might be different if people were ask, "would you vote for a gay candidate if the only other choice on the ballot was Donald Trump?" I think a lot more than 26% would say yes, but only 26% feel that their fellow voters would be ready for this.

As for the candidates like Sanders, I personally feel people like what they promise, but people would balk at the changes if it meant things like higher taxes; carbon taxes, for instance. It's really hard to get even most left leaning people away from over dependency on their gas guzzling automobiles.

Amy Klobutcher may be the best choice to put a Democrat back in the White House and to bring along the other talent and ideas that we need ranging from Bernie Sanders to Mayor Pete to Andrew Yang to Elizabeth Warren and so forth.

So many voters are upper middle class, like top 20 or 30%. That needs to be taken into account when discussing things like Medicare. For too many voters, they may currently have something they think is better than Medicare. Some generous employer provided plan, for instance. Not a bare bones employer plan of course. This comfortable group of voters is still fairly numerous.

In the long run, healthier and wealthier people do need to pay more into the insurance pool so others, like folks with preexisting conditions, can be subsidized. This is a hard sell to voters, however.

As for taxing the 1%, I am for raising taxes, but I would mostly want to tax their personal money, rather than tax their businesses out of business. See if we can curb the money they spend on yachts and vacation homes rather than take away the building and machinery they use to provide their business. For instance don't tax the building out from under the restaurant that uses its building. Trying to differentiate these things is what rational tax policy should do.

As a gay person, myself, I am quite pleased with the progress that Pete Buttigieg has made even though it's easy to think, "this is too good to be true."

As for the more radical candidates, like Sanders and Warren, I keep thinking that we, the American people, have met the enemy and the enemy is us. Would people really support the taxes and changes proposed by these candidates? It's hard to even convince folks to drive less even though people are very concerned about global warming. Also remember that somewhere around 30% of the "people" still think Trump is a good president.

It does seem like a moderate candidate could begin the process of bringing this divided country back together. Maybe "together" isn't the best word our opinions are diverse and if everyone thought alike it would be boring. At least she might be able to bring back more semblance of civility.

I tend to support the moderate points of view, but one hazard of moderate thinking is complacency. A lot of people are pretty comfortable and yuppie like. Sometimes it does take radicalism to shake things up, but shaking things up can be painful. Are you ready to loose your home, your car, or whatever? Possibly your safety?

A wise phrase goes, "Be careful what you ask for because you might get it."

I tend to be moderate liberal, but plan to vote for whoever the Democrats nominate for president. Hopefully better thinking, from a wide range of people, can enter government along with the Democrats; whoever the candidate at the top of the ticket is.

1 comment:

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