Pete Buttigieg 2020 campaign megathread

[YE]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1184616229723672581?s=19

Remember when earlier this year, before the 1st debate, Kamala Harris came out in support of eliminating private insurance, caused some outrage, and backtracked? Apparently, M4A wasn't synonymous with eliminating private insurance even this entire year.

That leads to another point I've wanted to make for a while (not to you specifically but in general).

What is "private insurance" to begin with? Is getting supplement insurance to pay for plastic surgery count as "private"? The current Medicare system includes private Medicare Advantage plans. One could argue that the literal definition of Medicare for All would include said plans and that Bernie's plan is more like Medicaid for All in that sense.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Yes, I admit that this has been very frustrating to hear from Pete. One of the things that I liked about him earlier in the year was his ability to draw contrast between his plan and Bernie's plan without insulting Bernie's plan on merit. Now it seems like he's most interested in tearing down medicare for all as a concept altogether. And that upsets me. Pete has proposed some genuinely good plans on racial justice, healthcare access for rural America, labor rights, and more. But I fear what comes next once m4a isn't the hot button issue anymore. What does he turn his back on next?

I still have faith in him to continue pushing good solutions to other issues, but he's lost me on this side of things. And I'm sure it has something to do with the corporate influence, which I've always been wary of with him, but trusted that it was just his way of making up ground as a nationally unknown figure against some of the most well-known names in Democratic politics. But it looks like there's more to it there. There always is.

I'm disappointed in him, to say the least.

[libertpaulian]

Yes, I admit that this has been very frustrating to hear from Pete. One of the things that I liked about him earlier in the year was his ability to draw contrast between his plan and Bernie's plan without insulting Bernie's plan on merit. Now it seems like he's most interested in tearing down medicare for all as a concept altogether. And that upsets me. Pete has proposed some genuinely good plans on racial justice, healthcare access for rural America, labor rights, and more. But I fear what comes next once m4a isn't the hot button issue anymore. What does he turn his back on next?

I still have faith in him to continue pushing good solutions to other issues, but he's lost me on this side of things. And I'm sure it has something to do with the corporate influence, which I've always been wary of with him, but trusted that it was just his way of making up ground as a nationally unknown figure against some of the most well-known names in Democratic politics. But it looks like there's more to it there. There always is.

I'm disappointed in him, to say the least.

I don't understand why some people have to be so purist on everything.  If healthcare becomes universal one day, WHO CARES if it's not achieved via a pure M4A?!

[henster]

He also appeared to criticize decriminalizing border crossing in the last debate after raising his hand in support of it in the first debate. He's not as skilled of a politician as people think, remember this is a guy whose never won a statewide election in his career. We've never really seen anyone else pin him down on his mediocre Mayoral record, I don't think he'd fare well under closer examination like Kamala didn't.

[GeneralMacArthur]

He also appeared to criticize decriminalizing border crossing in the last debate after raising his hand in support of it in the first debate. He's not as skilled of a politician as people think, remember this is a guy whose never won a statewide election in his career. We've never really seen anyone else pin him down on his mediocre Mayoral record, I don't think he'd fare well under closer examination like Kamala didn't.

There wasn't a hand raise for decriminalized border crossings, was there?  The hand raise was for giving illegal immigrants free health care.

But either way, I'm not going to hold anyone to those stupid hand raises, which are designed purely as gotchas by the media.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Yes, I admit that this has been very frustrating to hear from Pete. One of the things that I liked about him earlier in the year was his ability to draw contrast between his plan and Bernie's plan without insulting Bernie's plan on merit. Now it seems like he's most interested in tearing down medicare for all as a concept altogether. And that upsets me. Pete has proposed some genuinely good plans on racial justice, healthcare access for rural America, labor rights, and more. But I fear what comes next once m4a isn't the hot button issue anymore. What does he turn his back on next?

I still have faith in him to continue pushing good solutions to other issues, but he's lost me on this side of things. And I'm sure it has something to do with the corporate influence, which I've always been wary of with him, but trusted that it was just his way of making up ground as a nationally unknown figure against some of the most well-known names in Democratic politics. But it looks like there's more to it there. There always is.

I'm disappointed in him, to say the least.

F***ing purity testers, my god.

You guys, Pete literally supports almost the exact same proposal that you want.  He wants everyone in America to have free health care.  There are two differences:

1) Pete wants to keep private insurance as well, and let people choose between FREE MEDICARE and keeping what they have now.  EVERYONE IN AMERICA WILL HAVE ACCESS TO FREE MEDICARE.  The only difference, on this point, between what Pete wants and what you want is that you want to FORCE people on it, while Pete wants to ALLOW people on it.  That is a question of the means to the end, but you both support the same end, which is M4A.

2) Pete wants to know how M4A will be paid for.  He isn't saying it's so expensive that we can never do it.  He's saying he doesn't want to go around promising things if we don't have a plan for them.  With his plan, he does have a way to pay for it (that actually works, unlike Warren/Sanders funding promises that are, as Biden pointed out, a pack of lies).  So he supports M4A, but he isn't going to support every single M4A plan under the sun -- only the ones he approves of, like his own.

Pete doesn't have an issue with M4A itself.  He has an issue with the idiotic M4A plan that Sanders has been trumpeting for years and that Warren has now latched onto.  The plan that bans all private insurance, forces everyone to lose their current health care and move to some unknown service they may or may not actually want, and spends $3 trillion a year without having any way to pay for it.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

I don't understand why some people have to be so purist on everything.  If healthcare becomes universal one day, WHO CARES if it's not achieved via a pure M4A?!

Because for a lot of people, time is of the essence and allowing insurance companies to continue to call the shots and dictate the talking points on this issue will quite literally have a human cost. I trust that Pete believes in M4A as an end goal, but this is a non-compromise issue. The way he has pivoted on this issue is disingenuous and makes me fear what else he'll moderate on if only to draw contrast with Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden. His framing of "I want to give you the choice" is not wrong, and I believe it will resonate with voters, but the core argument that the American people can't have universal health care because they haven't decided resoundingly enough that insurance companies are screwing enough people over is not good.

Edit: Also just want to point out that the "we can't promise things we won't deliver on" argument stems from the fact that moderate Democrats in Congress will stall any M4A proposal on principle. It is not Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders' fault that politicians won't vote for their proposal. Thus, there will almost certainly be compromise and anyone who doesn't realize that is misleading themselves. So of course the Bernie Bill won't be the one that reaches the President's desk. But anyone campaigning on the compromise version of their "true" position should maybe reevaluate why they're really running--to appease the political class or to actually help people. And I'm not saying that applies to Pete, but it certainly sounds like he's more worried about political ramifications than doing what's right. See: "Republicans will call us Socialists no matter what we propose."

[GeneralMacArthur]

I don't understand why some people have to be so purist on everything.  If healthcare becomes universal one day, WHO CARES if it's not achieved via a pure M4A?!

Because for a lot of people, time is of the essence and allowing insurance companies to continue to call the shots and dictate the talking points on this issue will quite literally have a human cost. I trust that Pete believes in M4A as an end goal, but this is a non-compromise issue. The way he has pivoted on this issue is disingenuous and makes me fear what else he'll moderate on if only to draw contrast with Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden. His framing of "I want to give you the choice" is not wrong, and I believe it will resonate with voters, but the core argument that the American people can't have universal health care because they haven't decided resoundingly enough that insurance companies are screwing enough people over is not good.

If time is of the essence, maybe you should support a plan that actually has a high chance of achieving what you want in any sort of reasonable time frame?

Single payer will not pass.  Republicans uniformly fiercely oppose it.  A majority of Democrats oppose it.  70% of America opposes it.  And you can't use the "they just haven't heard about it" talking point any more because we've been talking about this nonstop for the last two and a half years.  There is no actual plan to fund it.  There is no actual plan to reconcile all the economic challenges that passing it would pose -- what to do, for instance, with the 20% of workers laid off after their insurance companies are eradicated overnight by the federal government.

Joe Biden's public option plan is legislation that already passed the House of Representatives in 2009.  There is already a realistic, responsible, practical plan to bring it to reality.  The only challenge is a political one.  And we're in luck there too, because nearly 80% of Americans support a public option plan.  More specifically, they support "Medicare for all" when they think it means giving them access to a government health insurance program, and oppose it when they are forced onto that program at their own expense.  That is the key divide in this entire debate.  The entire Democratic Party is behind it and Republicans don't have a cohesive argument against it -- in fact, when I look at right wing media they often try to attack Bernie's plan for not being a public option, and attack other Democrats by tying their plans to Bernie's plan.

So you care about time?  The Biden plan is fully primed and ready to go.  All you gotta do is pull the trigger and that's a political fight we have a very good chance of winning.  M4A, on the other hand, isn't even properly defined, doesn't have proper legislation behind it, has huge questions that have gone totally f***ing un-answered, and has abysmal support, making it both a political and policy disaster.  If, god forbid, Sanders/Warren becomes president and pulls that trigger, it will get laughed out of Congress just like the Green New Deal was.

And let me remind you that, despite the Sanders/Warren talking point, Biden and Buttigieg's plans would both give affordable coverage to everyone and save hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives.  Biden's plan makes it free for everyone below a certain income threshold and then uses a progressive subsidy scale to keep it affordable as incomes increase.  Pete's plan is literally free for everyone.  The idea that single payer is the only way to get universal health care is a flat out lie, but it's a lie that Sanders+Warren have to stick to because their plan is impossible to defend on the merits.

[Heebie Jeebie]

Yes, I admit that this has been very frustrating to hear from Pete. One of the things that I liked about him earlier in the year was his ability to draw contrast between his plan and Bernie's plan without insulting Bernie's plan on merit. Now it seems like he's most interested in tearing down medicare for all as a concept altogether. And that upsets me. Pete has proposed some genuinely good plans on racial justice, healthcare access for rural America, labor rights, and more. But I fear what comes next once m4a isn't the hot button issue anymore. What does he turn his back on next?

I still have faith in him to continue pushing good solutions to other issues, but he's lost me on this side of things. And I'm sure it has something to do with the corporate influence, which I've always been wary of with him, but trusted that it was just his way of making up ground as a nationally unknown figure against some of the most well-known names in Democratic politics. But it looks like there's more to it there. There always is.

I'm disappointed in him, to say the least.

F***ing purity testers, my god.

You guys, Pete literally supports almost the exact same proposal that you want.  He wants everyone in America to have free health care.  There are two differences:

1) Pete wants to keep private insurance as well, and let people choose between FREE MEDICARE and keeping what they have now.  EVERYONE IN AMERICA WILL HAVE ACCESS TO FREE MEDICARE.  The only difference, on this point, between what Pete wants and what you want is that you want to FORCE people on it, while Pete wants to ALLOW people on it.  That is a question of the means to the end, but you both support the same end, which is M4A.

2) Pete wants to know how M4A will be paid for.  He isn't saying it's so expensive that we can never do it.  He's saying he doesn't want to go around promising things if we don't have a plan for them.  With his plan, he does have a way to pay for it (that actually works, unlike Warren/Sanders funding promises that are, as Biden pointed out, a pack of lies).  So he supports M4A, but he isn't going to support every single M4A plan under the sun -- only the ones he approves of, like his own.

Pete doesn't have an issue with M4A itself.  He has an issue with the idiotic M4A plan that Sanders has been trumpeting for years and that Warren has now latched onto.  The plan that bans all private insurance, forces everyone to lose their current health care and move to some unknown service they may or may not actually want, and spends $3 trillion a year without having any way to pay for it.

I'm having trouble understanding some of this.

Proposition 1: Buttigieg doesn't actually oppose MfA; he actually sees his plan as a way of more effectively transitioning the country to MfA.
Proposition 2:   Buttigieg thinks Warren and Sanders need to spell out all the details of paying for MfA at this very moment.
Proposition 3:  Buttigieg doesn't see the need to explain how to pay for MfA, which his plan is designed to get us to.

Isn't there some inconsistency here?

[Heebie Jeebie]

https://mobile.twitter.com/jbouie/status/1185188280591114240

[Comrade Funk]

https://twitter.com/alexi/status/1185199654943821825

[America Needs R'hllor]

"The snarling incarnation of anti-left rage"
Some people seem to be extremely bored with their lives- otherwise, I don't see any other reason to tear down people they slightly disagree with so viciously. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and his men are admitting to pressuring other countries to dig out dirt against political opponents and is currently in the process of the most disastrous foreign policy blunder since the Iraq War. But keep tearing at the terrifying, monstrous far-right Pete Buttigieg or the communist Bernie Sanders, there's definitely nothing better to do!

[GeneralMacArthur]

I don't even have an image in my head of what a "snarling incarnation of anti-left rage" version of Pete Buttigieg would actually be.  It's a description that's completely divorced from reality.

[Donerail]

Went to a Buttigieg event today and yeah, he doesn't come off as any more sincere in person. My condolences to anybody who believes a word this guy says.

[Heebie Jeebie]

Buttigieg reminds me of the 2004 version of John Edwards, only with an even thinner resume'. 

[Cinemark]

There is alot of room for a more moderate candidate in the dem primary. However after the last week, I really hope its Klobuchar instead of Buttigieg.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Yeah, still not feeling this hype. He came off as a condescending elitist snob at the debate and was praised for it by the media, but Castro was lambasted as being "too nasty" when he did it to Biden. He hasn't proposed any serious or game-changing policy proposals and he's super uninspiring. The hype is that he's a cute gay vet with a hubby.

His lack of black support is why his campaign is doomed.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Just saw a Pete ad on the Iowa State-Texas Tech football telecast.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Yeah, still not feeling this hype. He came off as a condescending white guy at the debate and was praised for it by the media, but Castro was lambasted as being "too nasty" when he did it to Biden. He hasn't proposed any serious or game-changing policy proposals and he's super uninspiring. The hype is that he's a cute gay vet with a hubby.

His lack of black support is why his campaign is doomed.

Attacking Buttigieg won't make Kamala Harris any less of a joke candidate.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Yeah, still not feeling this hype. He came off as a condescending white guy at the debate and was praised for it by the media, but Castro was lambasted as being "too nasty" when he did it to Biden. He hasn't proposed any serious or game-changing policy proposals and he's super uninspiring. The hype is that he's a cute gay vet with a hubby.

His lack of black support is why his campaign is doomed.

Attacking Buttigieg won't make Kamala Harris any less of a joke candidate.

Lol everyone here thinks bringing up Harris is some sort of a clever way to diminish my opinion rather than actually debating anything I said. I've conceded that Harris isn't going to be the nominee since June.  Find another way to gaslight. Warren has been my first choice for over a month now.

[libertpaulian]

There is alot of room for a more moderate candidate in the dem primary. However after the last week, I really hope its Klobuchar instead of Buttigieg.

I like Klobuchar, but I think she'd have even worse POC problems than Pete.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

There is alot of room for a more moderate candidate in the dem primary. However after the last week, I really hope its Klobuchar instead of Buttigieg.

I like Klobuchar, but I think she'd have even worse POC problems than Pete.

Ehhh, she'd have some problems with them, but at a minimum, I think she'd poll better with African-American voters if only because Buttigieg is gay and she's heterosexual.  I'm not saying Buttigieg being gay is the only reason he polls poorly with African-Americans, but anyone who says it isn't at least one of several significant reasons is just plain wrong.  

[John Dule]

Yeah, still not feeling this hype. He came off as a condescending white guy at the debate and was praised for it by the media, but Castro was lambasted as being "too nasty" when he did it to Biden. He hasn't proposed any serious or game-changing policy proposals and he's super uninspiring. The hype is that he's a cute gay vet with a hubby.

His lack of black support is why his campaign is doomed.

Attacking Buttigieg won't make Kamala Harris any less of a joke candidate.

Lol everyone here thinks bringing up Harris is some sort of a clever way to diminish my opinion rather than actually debating anything I said. I've conceded that Harris isn't going to be the nominee since June.  Find another way to gaslight. Warren has been my first choice for over a month now.

Damn... Harris loses her most loyal supporter.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Yeah, still not feeling this hype. He came off as a condescending white guy at the debate and was praised for it by the media, but Castro was lambasted as being "too nasty" when he did it to Biden. He hasn't proposed any serious or game-changing policy proposals and he's super uninspiring. The hype is that he's a cute gay vet with a hubby.

His lack of black support is why his campaign is doomed.

Attacking Buttigieg won't make Kamala Harris any less of a joke candidate.

Lol everyone here thinks bringing up Harris is some sort of a clever way to diminish my opinion rather than actually debating anything I said. I've conceded that Harris isn't going to be the nominee since June.  Find another way to gaslight. Warren has been my first choice for over a month now.

Damn... Harris loses her most loyal supporter.

She’s still my top three and I don’t see any problems with her record. It’s just hilarious how people think using her to avoid directly addressing my criticisms of other candidates is clever.

[NOVA Green]

Yeah, still not feeling this hype. He came off as a condescending elitist snob at the debate and was praised for it by the media, but Castro was lambasted as being "too nasty" when he did it to Biden. He hasn't proposed any serious or game-changing policy proposals and he's super uninspiring. The hype is that he's a cute gay vet with a hubby.

His lack of black support is why his campaign is doomed.

Ditto Warren....