The biggest takeaway from Super Tuesday is that Democrats are wanting to focus the 2020 election on how to beat President Donald Trump, and not each other.
During months of months of tedious and fractious debates — the first required two forums to accommodate 20 candidates was in late June of last year — voters had a right to worry that Republicans were enjoying the dissent among Democrats just a wee too much.
That’s fair. Democrats were no better when the Republicans’ unwieldy 2016 campaign fielded 17 candidates in its early days.
But Democrats seemed to have learned from the 2016 race that the sooner party members can coalesce around a candidate, the better their chances of unifying the party and finding consensus among outliers.
Republicans then were unable to winnow the field beyond five — Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump — where the moderates split the majority vote among themselves, allowing the dark horse, Trump, to emerge.
Ever since, President Trump has turned the Republican Party into his image, and not the other way around. That’s partly because Trump’s political affiliations have included stints with the Reform and Democratic parties as recently as 2009.
As such, ideologies have never much impressed the president, and Republican candidates have since hewed to a single individual rather than a party platform.
No matter the issue, Kansas Republicans vying for outgoing U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts’s seat maintain their fealty to the president is the answer.
To a one, Congressman Roger Marshall, Susan Wagle, president of the U.S. Senate, and Kris Kobach, former secretary of state, say their goal is to “stand with President Trump.”
WITH NO such placeholder, Democrats are free to run on the more inclusive message of reducing healthcare costs, fighting global warming and creating a more equitable society.
Poll after poll shows that the rising cost of healthcare continues to plague American households and that the Republican goal of further dismembering the Affordable Care Act has them worried. The result of less coverage means families are carrying more of the responsibility of paying for their healthcare. Today, most U.S. households devote 30% of their paychecks to their health insurance premiums.
Candidate Bernie Sanders’s goal is to eliminate private health insurance altogether in exchange for a universal plan that would make healthcare a federal responsibility, such as that with Medicare.
Critics attack the plan primarily because it would replace every other option, including that provided by private employers, which many enjoy.
Joe Biden’s take on healthcare is that the ACA needs to be protected and expanded, as well as include a public option for those without health insurance. For states that haven’t expanded Medicaid — hello, Kansas! — Biden’s plan also includes health coverage for the indigent and disabled.
The divide between the two viewpoints is great.
Voter exit polls on Tuesday, however, showed many Democrats were willing to bridge it by shelving, temporarily, singular issues.
