Totally agree with Trolly. I'm imagining two possible messages:

Option 1: "We want to defend coverage for pre-existing conditions. We want to make sure that there's no lifetime cap on coverage. We want to make sure that insurance plans have to cover essential health care. And if you can't afford premiums, we want to help you pay for them."

Option 2: "We want to take away your existing employer-provided health care and replace it with a government-sponsored plan."

The attacks on option 2 are obvious, and we've already seen how successful option 1 is. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Being the president is slightly more complicated than writing down a list of ideas. Execution risk if this guy were president would be off the charts.

and its not right now?

and it wouldn't be with someone like Schultz?

and that wouldn't happen with any other contender in the Democratic Party?

This is the exact type of candidate that is needed in the national discussion because it will force the favorites to address these topics if he is relevant. He is obviously drawing dead at being elected, but there is a lot of value in him becoming popular enough to take part in the main debates and push these ideas to be covered by the media.

No. Sure a lot of what politicians do is raise money and not govern, but do you think there's nothing to having some experience in government? You think there's nothing to knowing many people in government already and understanding their jobs and what they need and when and why? Do you think that years or decades of drafting, arguing for, voting on laws leaves people with no valuable knowledge or insights? Do you think representing constituents for years or decades and learning their problems with government and laws isn't helpful? The government is a huge organization with hundreds of departments and agencies and having a lot of experience there surely is important, if not a prerequisite, to leading it.

lol

Yes. How is that relevant to whether the execution risk is acceptable?

Less than with Yang, but yes. Again, how is that relevant to whether the execution risk is acceptable?

There is always execution risk, but execution risk would be dramatically lower with a lot of other candidates than it would be with Yang or Schultz.

Ok, but that's a lot different than saying he is your #1 choice to actually be president.

Exactly. One of the many reasons Trump is a terrible president is because he is incompetent and was completely unprepared to actually do the job.

Of course I think its important, but Kamala Harris was an AG until 2017. That's a wildly different role than someone who is drafting laws. Buttigieg is the Mayor of a small town.

I also don't see why having experience is necessary to push the discussion in a specific direction.

AOC has no government experience and is doing a fantastic job of just this.

These topics should, mostly, be mainstream Democratic ideas and not fringe ones. You can do a lot of good as a candidate without ever winning. Failing to acknowledge that seems like strange pushback.

Ignoring the fact that FDR had been dead for almost a quarter century 50 years ago, there's also the fact that we had top marginal tax rates well north of 70% in FDR's time.

I never said this. I said he was my preferred CANDIDATE not preferred PRESIDENT. I also explicitly mentioned the value of pushing the discussion to these topics while also acknowledging that he is unlikely to make a lasting impression. There is extreme value in a candidate like him being legitimized just like there has been residual value to the legitimization of Bernie Sanders over the past 4 years (who wouldn't have been thought of as a serious candidate for President til ~2014).

Maybe I should run for president. It's true that I'm completely unprepared for the job, but I support a lot of the ideas that are thrown around in this forum.

what was FDR's top rate of tax? Perhaps he thinks AOC's underselling the concept.

PDF of historical rates

Looks like FDR started at 63% and by the end it was 94%.

By preferred candidate, I assumed you meant the candidate that you preferred to get the job.

If I stood up in a board meeting and said, "my preferred candidate for CEO is Mr. X", I think most people would assume that I wanted Mr. X to get the job.

I think there are nearly 0 people in the US who are actually prepared to be President. Hillary and Biden are basically as close as possible at the current time and the former already lost an election to the clown in office while the latter is pretty moderate. Whoever ends up in office is going to have to learn on the job just like Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. did.

The idea that you need prior experience in government is the same one that political insiders, mainstream dems, and media are trotting out to say AOC skipped over people who waited in line. There shouldn't be a line.

The best President would be the one who combines great policy ideas, leadership, and an understanding for what Americans (and to a lesser degree the world) want and need with the ability to get that legislation passed into law and instituted in the most efficient and effective manner.

Execution is only part of the President's job and I think all of us can agree its actually far less important than good policy. Anyone who can influence that future policy for the better is good for debate and the country would benefit from their voice being heard.

Time will tell how much juice Kamala has with the left....but she's doing ok with cnn lolol

Ok. I don't have any problem with him being a candidate. I might even vote for him in a primary over some other candidates.

I don't think it reflects well on someone though that they think it's reasonable that their first position in government is as POTUS, so it is a strike against him imo, not a huge build-the-wall kind of strike, but still a strike.

And I expect Howard Shultz has been loling about AOC's tweets.

This is bizarre. This hole wouldn't be that hard to just step out of, but you're trying to dig your way out.

I wonder if the bolded is really true.

For example, I suspect that the main hurdle to getting the ACA passed was execution risk.

I don't think there should be a line or that it should be impossible for an outsider to be POTUS or any other office. But, it's not of no importance. AOC is starting in the HoR, which is totally reasonable imo. She has some responsibility for the whole federal government, but it's a long ways off from being its CEO.

And it's not like we don't have someone to vote for who has been the chief executive of a city government for 8 years, in the House for 16 years, and in the Senate for 11 years.

Mostly it was having the right POTUS and congress at the same time though. Other generally competent managers like Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon failed to get their UHC plans through.

Right but that was after Bernie had dropped out. I was under the assumption Warren would've endorsed Bernie but his path was too narrow so she didn't want to rock the boat.

I still think there was a lot of execution risk. But maybe Pelosi deserves more credit for managing the risk than Obama does.

Getting House Democrats on the same page for something as complicated as that bill was no small feat.

Of course it is true. If you have bad policy then good execution will never result in a good scenario. Imagine Trump but in a reality where he executes things well.