Beto O’Rourke 2020 campaign megathread

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Beto is a bad candidate but I think the Sanders base is intact & unless Beto gets a big chunk of Biden & Harris voters, I don't think he will be much of a threat. I don't think Sanders' young base will like Wall Street Beto.

Harris, Warren & others should be scared though. Beto raised tons of money & you need money to be competitive. Harris is a Senator while Beto is an unqualified House rep. who has never represented his state. Never has someone so less unqualified been a Presidnet & a member of the Dem party in the last century. So Harris probably should feel bad about Beto stealing her thunder.

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Beto does seem like a moderate & a flip flopped with his stance on healthcare. During his Senate race he pledged to support the Sanders bill & now he wants to preserve the same system with a Medicare buy-in which is not going to solve the problems.

Maybe he wants to be the moderate hero with Warren & Sanders in the race. He seemed like a little boy who was so happy at the thought of being President in the announcement video.

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https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1106543029371002880

Inexcusable.

So regarding ACA tweet- Did beto want everyone to die and not have healthcare... or Was he against it (at that specific time) because he was in favor of a different legislative proposal being considered than went further and included a Public Option? ...

Regarding Social Security age eligibility & means testing... Means testing social security sounds bad ... but its saying that wealthy people (or as Romney would say "people of means") should not get Social Security.  If you are trying to formulate a plan to preserve SS for future generations.... Really wealthy people do not need Social Security & will never notice if the receive it or not. (so whats wrong with means testing social security)  And people are living and working much longer than when SS was created... so it is not unreasonable to adhere to the notion that to save the program we may have to gradually raise the age a year or two in the future (which is still at a later time percentage wise... considering the increased life expectancy... than when the program was put in place).

Seems to me like a selectively worded tweet to mislead, especially the ACA part!

So you are advocating eliminating SS for 65, 66 year olds? That is a far right conservative fringe political stance.

At a time when Income Inequality is @ the worst state since the gilded age, at a time when 20% of seniors can't afford prescription drugs, at a time when almost 40-50% of people can't afford a medical emergency or a some big expense, at a time when a 65 year old has no job prospect which gives a decent living, you want to gradually eliminate SS for 65 year olds.

You advocate for a regressive taxation code with the cap on payroll taxes where a billionaire pays less in % taxes than a nurse to pay for SS instead of lifting the cap.

It is okay to hold moderate/conservative views on many areas though.

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No1 cares if Brown endorses or not. Brown is drawing 0% in the polls, he has little support. Even if he had 20% support, that base & support is not transferrable. Support can't be transferred by Obama Sanders or Warren.

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Real question, when are we actually going to see Beto’s policies? Because right now the only indication are his blue dog endorsements (plus half of his support on here is from #bothsides moderate heroes, Republicans, and libertarians). I want to like Beto, but I really need to know what he’s running as first.

So when Beto initially said he wasn’t supporting Medicare for All as a presidential candidate I was miffed and briefly stopped supporting him because I thought he had nothing in place and would try to negotiate something with obstructionist Republicans. I walked it back when he came out in favor of Medicare for America which was written by Reps. DeLauro and Schakowsky. Medicare for America would move everyone from the ACA Exchange to Medicare, folks (like myself) who are about to age out of their parent’s insurance can join as well as others not insured, and all children born after its enaction would be born into the program. The main difference between this and Bernie’s plan is that people can retain their employer insurance if they so choose. This is much more realistic and puts us on a path to single payer.

The purists will hate it but it is ambitious and will get us to universal coverage. Eliminating all private insurance is unrealistic.

https://slate.com/business/2019/03/beto-orourke-health-plan-medicare-for-all-america.html

I need to find the link but while 81% of Dems would support Medicare for All, 91% support Medicare for America. Bernie supporters who think he can snap his fingers and make all his dreams the law of the land will resist this but Beto’s plan is progressive and attainable.

It is a crap policy vs Single Payer. It is a buy-in which will have little effect on millions of uninsured & underinsured & would continue to encourage a system with huge per capita spending with poor results.

And it will never lead to Universal healthcare which neoliberals don't want anyways. They just should be open & accept it.

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So Beto has like 100K less donors like half the number that Sanders. He has more nunber of donors who has maxed out & most of his donors have on an average less to give vs Individual limit.

I don't think how this is bad for Sanders. He has double the number of donors (almost) than Beto & has raised equal odd amount but his supporters have much more money to give & will donate again & again & again.

Sanders had 8.5M odd individual contributions from 2.5M individual donors in 2016. Beto is polling less than half of Sanders & has shown no noticeable bump in the polls YET.

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Bernie Sanders beat Beto O'Rourke in a key fundraising measure


The monster $6.1 million haul that Beto O'Rourke touted in the first day of his presidential campaign included nearly $300,0000 that he can't use for the Democratic nomination fight. Julian Castro, already at the back of the fundraising pack, didn't actually raise a full $1.1 million for the primary. And Amy Klobuchar has more than $572,000 sitting in her campaign's bank account that she only can tap if she wins her party's nod. Lumping in an extra $300,000 into his first-day haul allowed O'Rourke, for instance, to claim a larger first day windfall than rival Sanders, who reported raising $5.9 million in the first 24 hours of his presidential bid. But Sanders, who raised only primary money, has more cash available for the fight at hand, the new figures show.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/17/politics/beto-orourke-bernie-sanders-q1-white-house-fundraising/index.html

Beto actually raised 0.3M for the general & 5.8M for the primary vs 6.1M that Bernie raised with double the number of donors. He put that 0.3M with his primary figure to boast that he raised more money than Bernie.

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https://theintercept.com/2019/04/17/democratic-candidates-lobbyist-donations/

Beto, Harris, Booker & others are all raising money from lobbyists despite their pledge. Ofcourse this is not the first time Beto has broken a pledge.

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Well Beto just called Medicare for all as a system where 180M will lose their insurance & spread other lies & falsehoods. He is running to be more moderate than Joe Biden. He is @ 1.8% in RCP. If he has a bad debate, then he will struggle to get 2% in 3-4 polls which are needed to qualify for the 3rd debate.

With MJ Hegar running for Senate, I think Beto is essentially auditioning for a Cabinet Secretary role in a Biden administration because his career in Texas is done.