You’ll probably never see John Delaney on a presidential debate stage ever again. He doesn’t have a single qualifying poll for the September debates or even half of the unique donor count requirement. But in effect, he sacrificed himself for the future of the Democratic Party last night with his line of attack against Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. It was both a Hail Mary for his own campaign and a last ditch effort to point out the economic lies of their progressive Christmas list.
Throughout the evening, Delaney reiterated the political unpopularity of abolishing private health insurance. But his most pointed critique wasn’t that of public support, but rather of dollars and cents.
Delaney is categorically correct here, not just based on politically conservative estimations, but even according to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, which determined that replacing the private health insurance system that currently subsidizes Medicare with a Medicare For All plan would result in hospital closures in the short term and fewer physicians and healthcare providers in the long run.
The former congressman’s line of attack likely will not generate enough headlines to carry his campaign to the September debates, but it left enough of a mark that Sanders faced flack from the likes of David Axelrod for espousing such extremism, and Warren was later challenged for lying that the middle class wouldn’t face tax increases to fund the plan, conservatively estimated to cost $32.6 trillion in its first decade. (Warren maintains that her plan is already paid for, which is a lie even in the unlikely event that the courts allow her proposed wealth tax to take effect.)
So, Delaney ensured that greatest victor of the evening was not President Trump. He would have scored a win if Democrats had proven they’re willing to race in lockstep to the far-left ends of the spectrum. Instead, Delaney set the stage for Joe Biden.
The top four candidates in a race featuring more than two dozen contenders have consolidated nearly half of the total primary vote. Of those four, only Biden, who leads the pack by 16 points according to his RealClearPolitics average, will clearly not make private health insurance plans illegal. I say “clearly” because fourth-place contender Kamala Harris has flip-flopped-and-flipped again on the matter, now debuting a “Medicare for all” iteration that would allow for private insurance in the short term but rapidly siphon off patients into traditional Medicare.
From the day of Trump’s nomination, the best case for Biden’s nomination was that the former vice president provides the option of a return to normalcy and a status quo seen as broadly acceptable to the electorate. Delaney, in laying out the unpalatable math behind “Medicare for all,” furthers the case that Warren and Sanders are fundamentally unelectable candidates better suited for Venezuela or North Korea than the world’s largest producer of the medical research and development. Thus, if Delaney cannot supplant Biden, he has set the stage for Biden to dominate his debate tonight.
By July 2015, Trump had topped the primary polls. Biden has returned to his pre-debate polling and proved durable with older and black voters, a constituency necessary for him to win the primary. If Biden stands his ground and refuses to cower to the Left, the nomination could be his for the taking in a matter of months.
