218 - 51 - 1 - 5
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2019/02/27/the-senate-the-2020-democratic-primary-and-health-plans/
Yup, yup, yup.
And wvng makes an excellent point too.
Yup.
The way to get more liberal policies isn't to elect more pure people, it's to elect more people that share roughly the same goals. That way, the outliers (more conservative Democrats) don't have as much individual power over policy. When every vote is necessary, there are lots of choke points.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yup, yup, yup.
And wvng makes an excellent point too.
3
wvng says:
February 27, 2019 at 7:49 am
David, this point is critical: “Under one branch of highly plausible scenarios, the winning coalition of 51 votes in the Senate will have Senator Manchin (D-WV) as a key member of the winning coalition…” Democrats will always be constrained by the limits blue dogs place on policy, even when they have a substantial majority. And the only way Dems get that majority is by running conservative Democrats in red states and winning those seats. That has been the case since Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act and lost the South for, as it turns out, much more than a generation. Blue dogs constrained every piece of legislation Obama was able to pass while Dems held both houses, and they will continue to do so in the future because leadership has no leverage over them.
Yup.
The way to get more liberal policies isn't to elect more pure people, it's to elect more people that share roughly the same goals. That way, the outliers (more conservative Democrats) don't have as much individual power over policy. When every vote is necessary, there are lots of choke points.
Cheers,
Scott.
