Your Mileage May Vary: Dem Debate I

The CNN questioners, especially Jake Tapper, my current favorite for most annoying non-Fox News personality, seemed determined that Sanders and Warren get almost all the questions.  Both made effective opening statements, but IMHO, went rapidly downhill from there.  I was deeply annoyed by their seemingly fanatical devotion to Medicare only.  I'm on Medicare (as well as private insurance) and it is mostly great, but Medicare, like any medical insurance system, limits treatments.  That will not change.

Forcing everyone into Medicare is deeply unpopular and the notion that it won't cost anybody but maybe a few rich people is ridiculous.  Warren was my favorite candidate at the start of the debate but she lost a lot of credibility for me with her devotion to Medicare only and the Green New Deal.

I imagine Warren had prepared this zinger in advance: “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.”

Let me answer that: because the country can afford a Senator or two living in Fantasyland, but Presidents need to be able to tell reality from fantasy.  The NYT had a headline

Winners for me were Bullock, the previously invisible governor of Montana, Klobuchar, Mayor Pete, and three others guys whose names I don't quite recall (Delaney, Hickenlooper and Ryan - but why did Ryan refuse to salute the flag during the Star Spangled Banner).

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