Sanders: Medicare for All is the 'Defining Issue' of the 2020 campaign

[crazytown]

Politico, August 13, 2019
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/13/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all-2020-election-1459217

(snip) Sanders told POLITICO he is now talking about Medicare for All more than ever before and that he sees it as the “defining issue” of the 2020 campaign.

“It could be the winning issue for me in the primary, it will be the winning issue for me in the general election,” he said. “I’m campaigning on the legislation that I wrote. As you know, I wrote the damn bill,” he added, referencing his quip from the second debate that went viral.

Campaign staffers argue the new tack is working, pointing out that Sanders received the biggest polling bump (1.8 percent) of any candidate after the second debate, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight. That was especially encouraging given that health care dominated much of the conversation.

(snip) “Health care is the No. 1 issue with voters, especially Democratic primary voters, and Bernie is the most trusted candidate on health care,” Sanders’ pollster, Ben Tulchin, said in an interview. “So it became increasingly clear over the last few months, as the campaign talked more and more about it, that health care was a real strength and opportunity for us to focus on. And as a result of doing that, we’ve gained in the polling.”

[George II]

1. Let's hope it is. At least three other candidates' plans are more popular with the voters than M4A.

[crazytown]

2. Oh ye of little faith

[George II]

3. Biden's plan is actually the most popular with the voters. I'll try to find the poll.

[Horizens]

10. Biden's Plan

Biden's plan is the best and most doable plan.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread crazytown.

[crazytown]

5. It's the same Politico article posted earlier as 'Stalled Campaign ... Reboot'

but I went looking for substance. Headlines are just click bait these days.

[Joe941]

6. His campaign is stalling and he is trying to reinvent himself.

[crazytown]

7. Reinventing himself as a Medicare for All advocate?

Senator Sanders is doubling down.

[BeckyDem]

8. No matter who wins the primary, Medicare for All is the ticket.

[JoeOtterbein]

9. +1000!

[Vegas Roller]

11. MfA is political suicide nt

[crazytown]

12. Well we shall see

It is now front and center of Bernie's campaign.

[Hortensis]

13. :) Of course he does, but how self serving and dangerously misleading.

Before Biden and others spoke of the soul of America, the issue was already unquestionably to protect our democracy, and with it our right to vote and the freedoms we've always assumed would always be ours.

Democracy or authoritarian government. The right is already developing unmistakable tendencies to fascistic behaviors and attitudes, including ruthless election theft. We NEED leaders who will rally us to save democracy from destruction, to make us understand the enormity of what is at stake -- once again in our history - and to inspire us to ask who we are and should be.

The defining issue of this election is not healthcare itself but whether we the people will continue to have the power, and the even the right, to choose to have it.

[crazytown]

14. +1

"whether we the people will continue to have the power, and the even the right, to choose "

Exactly right.