Tag Archives: Elizabeth Warren

Winnowing Out???

Historically, the main role played by the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary is to narrow the field.  While, for different reasons, they are not necessarily representative of what it takes to win the nomination or the general election, they are both small enough that even candidates not well-known to the general public have a chance to make their case to the voters.  (Of course, for all of its flaws, the party-sponsored debates are eliminating some of that aspect of Iowa and New Hampshire.)  And candidates who fail to show any signs of life in these two states tend to lose their supporters (both financially and vote-wise) who begin to look for somebody who has a chance at making it to the convention.

This year seems like it might be a bit different than in the past.  In part due to the chaos that was Iowa, nobody dropped out after Iowa.  Last night, when it was clear that the results were not going to be there for them, Senator Michael Bennet and Andrew Yang announced that they had reached the end of the road.  And Governor Deval Patrick is apparently taking time to consider if he still has a path forward.  Bu that seems to be the extent of the winnowing that we will see for now.

With the possible exception of Representative Tulsi Gabbard, the remaining candidates each seem to think that they have a path forward that, at least, justifies staying in the race a little bit longer.  Both Vice-President Joe Biden and Tom Steyer have invested heavily in South Carolina.  Biden still leads the polls in South Carolina and Steyer is either second or third depending upon which poll you credit.  If they can hold onto that support, South Carolina would breathe new life into their campaign.  As the last remaining person of color in the race, Governor Deval Patrick apparently hopes that he can become the second choice of South Carolina voters in Biden’s support collapses. Continue Reading...

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Health & Age in the 2020 Election

For a long time, there has been an expectation that Presidential candidates will release their health information.  Being president is a highly stressful job, and a president who is not fully competent has the tools to do a lot of damage to the country and the world.  As such, there is an expectation among voters that candidates will release health information.  Of course, as with every other expectation, President Trump made a farce of this expectation by releasing medical summaries that were not particularly credible to any neutral observer, but there was so much that was wrong with the Trump campaign in 2016 and the mainstream media tries to avoid the appearance of taking a side that the lack of a real report on Trump’s physical and mental health was only a semi-big deal even on MSNBC.

This week, we had a bit of a health scare with Senator Bernie Sanders.  From every report, Senator Sanders is recovering from his surgery and should be able to resume his campaign.  However, this medical emergency does bring back into sharp focus an underlying issue in the nomination process.  President Trump and the top three candidates for the Democratic nomination (according to the polls) are all in their seventies.  And that means that issues of age and health will be in the background of this campaign.  Unfortunately, a healthy discussion of health is not likely.  But there are several things that should be on the table.

First, heart disease is a serious problem in this country impacting people of all ages.  A heart attack or a stroke can occur at any age.  I have known people who have died from a heart attack in their forties and fifties, and I have known people who have survived a heart attack in their seventies and eighties and have returned to a mostly fully functional life.  While people have become more health conscious in the past several decades, there are a lot of dietary and other factors that contribute to heart disease being one of the top causes of death in the U.S. Continue Reading...

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Vice-Presidential Selection: The Democrats

One of the advantages that the “incumbent” party has under the norms of American politics is getting to have your convention second.  (Depending upon how you count, this tradition has been followed either since 1936 or since 1956 — before 1936 Democrats tended to, but did not always go second).  When, as in this year, there is only a three-day gap between the two  conventions and the nominee of the out-party waits until the last second to announce his pick, that gives the nominee of the incumbent party a chance to finalize her pick without much media attention.

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