Ok, so in my quest to find a metric by which to judge 2024 candidates, I'm trying to design a metric to test on 2020 candidates. At this point, I'd like to go back over some of the more prominent 2020 candidates and measure how they stack up by this test.
This test is a slightly modded version of my "big four" test measuring my big 4 political priorities of UBI (100), Medicare for All (50), Free college/student debt forgiveness (25), and climate change (25).
In addition, I will reserve up to 50 points to either add or subtract or anything in between. This accounts for details and nuances in policy, ideology, or accounting for really good or really bad proposals that exist outside of the big four. If I want to recognize Bernie for a housing plan, or Yang for ranked choice voting, I will be doing this. If I feel like a candidate isn't sincere, I might reduce points. If I feel like they are, I will add them. It really depends on the candidate. Without further ado, let's test it.
Joe Biden (candidate)
This will be based on his 2020 platform, not judging him as president here as there is somewhat of a mismatch between his intentions and how his presidency is going. Biden supports a child tax credit i support, but he lost it. He supports a based climate plan, but we got a 1/5 measure. So, mainly aiming at intent here.
UBI- 10/100
He supported the child tax credit, which is like a mini UBI for kids. But, it's only for kids, the amount is 1/4 what an adult UBI should be, and he did it via an NIT way, which, as we've seen IRL, can go bye bye at any moment. Still, 10 points for effort and giving us a small taste.
Healthcare- 20/50
While his presidency has been a complete bust on healthcare as far as I'm concerned, he DID support a public option, with automatic enrollment, so I have to give him SOME credit here. BUT, he MOSTLY seemed intent on expanding on the ACA and doing things in the most backwards ways possible. The thing is, public options can either be good, or they can suck. Medicare extra for all, the public option I endorse as a potential alternative to single payer, would be very aggressive in enrolling people into it, and would automatically scale with your income in terms of cost. Biden seems to mostly be trying to preserve the exchanges under the ACA, and seeking to work mostly through subsidies, only offering the public option to those he deems worthy of it. So he falls on the weak side of the public option. All in all, I think 20 points or so is fair. He gets some of the way there, but like many centrist dems has literally one of the worst ways to go about addressing the problem.
Free college/student debt forgiveness- 15/25
Biden supported free community college, free 4 year college for people making under $125k, and IBR with removing the tax bomb. He has failed on these priorities somewhat as president, but he offered acceptable compromise options in his campaign platform.
Climate change- 25/25
I mean, we looked at build back better, it's pretty based. Second best climate plan behind Yang's.
Additional considerations- +20/50
Biden did have a mildly progressive platform otherwise, and seemed to do good on minor priorities on my last metric. While nothing he has done is earth shattering, I think he does deserve a slight bump. I also think that he has, in retrospect, at least tried to implement parts of his platform, but he is being roadblocked and sabotaged hard. While even if Biden accomplished everything he wanted, it would still be on the weak side for me, he's not TERRIBLE.
Overall- 90/200
This is about what he scored on my actual 2020 purity test. Kind of underwhelming given what I want, but honestly, not terrible. We could have far worse.
Bernie Sanders
UBI- 0/100
Bernie Sanders came swinging hard out of the gate against UBI this time, blunting it and pushing his JG instead.
Healthcare- 50/50
His medicare for all plan is so good, I literally based my own plan in part on his.
Free college- 25/25
I literally endorse this free college/student debt forgiveness plan. Full 4 year free college with no preconditions, full student dent forgiveness. He solves the problem.
Climate change- 15/25
While his climate change plan is very aggressive, it's so darned expensive. I have to knock off points for spending literally 10x as much as the other guys roughly.
Additional considerations- +50/50
I mean, while I have shifted away from him in the past 2 years ideologically, for a while, Bernie's platform was THE gold standard for me. He supports tons of progressive positions, from $15 minimum wage, to housing, to workplace democracy (ie, the one form of socialism I like), etc. And honestly, I know he's good for it. Dude has been consistent and has had his own brand for 40 years, with little to no changes. Dude will never stop fighting for the little guy.
Overall- 140/200
Bernie is someone who I have great respect for. I may not always agree with the dude, especially on the whole JG vs UBI debate, but I respect the guy, and see him as one of the best politicians we can run.
Andrew Yang
UBI- 80/100
While Yang's freedom dividend isn't perfect, he did single handedly bring the concept into the mainstream, so I will give him credit for that, although I will deduct a few points due to his numbers not totally working out. Nothing we can't fix, but I have to be honest and I do have standards.
Healthcare- 5/50
We've documented Yang's devolution on the concept already. He supports single payer in theory, but he flip flopped so many times it's hard to know where he stood and what plans he produced were underwhelming.
Free college/student debt forgiveness- 10/25
In retrospect seems more moderate than even Joe here. Supported universal IBR but no explicit promise to remove the tax bomb. And he only supported free community college to my knowledge. Still has some okay positions, but meh.
Climate change- 25/25
Yang had just about the best climate plan of all of the ones I looked at.
Additional considerations- +25/50
Yang is complicated. On the one hand there is not a single other politician I have ever come across I had such an affinity with ideologically. And that's only gotten stronger in the past 2 years. So I want to give him credit for that.
I also want to give him credit for the fact that he had many progressive and innovative ideas, especially related to political reform, which were worth considering. Ranked choice voting, democracy dollars, this guy is based as a political reformer. And he did support mildly progressive proposals on issues like Bernie and Yang did.
And let's face it, I also wanna give him credit for the fact that even though he fumbled on healthcare hard to the point I could not, in good conscience, continue to support him at the time, I know deep down he believes in the concept, and after ripping him hard on his healthcare plan, i do want to refund SOME points here.
At the same time, his flaws with healthcare ARE an endemic problem with him, as evidenced by his recent iteration of the Forward Party. Dude is way too willing to abandon his principles to appease people and avoid controversy. Unlike Bernie who will just keep hammering home on the issues no matter what, Yang seems too willing to make tactical retreats to keep the peace. He did it with healthcare and now his new forward pitch feels like that.
So, he's mixed. Given 3 positives (+75) and one major negative (-50), I'm gonna cut the difference at 25, what points he would gain with a decent public option plan.
Overall- 145/200
Yang....JUST eeks out Bernie under this new metric. To be fair, the additional points are subjective. And I really didn't know how to treat Yang here. I want to praise the dude for stuff he does right, I want to condemn him for backing away from those principles, I want to refund him for some of the points I took away from his healthcare plan due to his wishy washiness, and at the end of the day, I gave him SOME positive reinforcement, but I couldn't max that meter out like I did with Bernie.
Andrew, seriously, if you were more consistent, you could have it all here. A full on medicare for all plan would get 50 on my healthcare metric. A public option like medicare extra would get 40. A weaker public option could get 20-30 (Biden's was particularly weak while medicare extra is particularly strong, so you get the idea of where the scores go).
And honestly, I really would have loved to have given Yang an extra 50 points here instead of 25. So, the dude could get anywhere from 50-70 more points here if only he were more consistent and stuck to his guns. That's how much I like Yang ideologically. He literally could have broken 200 here if he had just stuck to a decent healthcare plan and didn't merge forward with two conservative movements.
Pete Buttigieg
Why do I keep looking at Pete's stuff? Because he is poised as a potential Biden successor. He's one of the good old boys of the party. And given Biden MAY not run in 2024, I do want to look at alternatives like Buttigieg and Harris.
UBI- 0/100
While Buttigieg has on occasion said UBI was worth looking into, he did not seem to support it in any way, and I'm not even sure he supported anything as progressive as the child tax credit.
Healthcare- 20/50
Despite the fancier name of "medicare for all who want it", he functionally has the same plan as Joe Biden. A weak public option combined with a bunch of tinkering around with the ACA. Which is...disappointing. For a while i suspected with all of his talk of a "glidepath to medicare for all", he actually was promoting something closer to medicare extra. But no, in terms of the metrics that matter, he functionally is a Biden clone on this issue.
Free college- 13/25
He supports free college for those making under $100k, and also an IBR plan for 20 years with no real mention of removing the tax bomb. He seems very similar to Biden, but slightly weaker.
Climate change- 20/25
While he had a plan that would meet IPCC guidelines it seemed weaker than green new deal inspired build back better, or yang's plan. Still, it wasn't bad. But it seemed uninspiring.
Additional considerations- +17/50
Much like Biden, Buttigieg did have some other proposals worth considering, like a $15 minimum wage, worker protections, and even a decent housing plan. But...other than that, he's just a Biden clone. The dude offers nothing unique and is, if anything, just a weaker version of Biden, yes, WEAKER. The policy differences that are there generally trend in favor of Buttigieg being even MORE moderate.
THe only thing Buttigieg seemed was more woke. Which was weird. Given the jokes about "Mayo Pete", he seemed to be pandering hard on the identity politics. Every aspects of his platform was about how this helps POC and blah blah blah. But it didn't matter worth a crap for him.
Honestly, I just have to point this out because I often hear centrists crapping on the left acting like they dont understand black people, but then I see...this? I mean, as someone who isn't big on this stuff, the obsession with inclusivity and postmodernism is insufferable, and while it won't change my rating either way, I just have to bring it up given how much crap Buttigieg had gotten for not being appealing to POC.
Overall- 70/200
Overall, Buttigieg seemed to be about as bland and uninspiring as humanly possible. Almost. Kind of forget Bloomberg existed as a candidate in 2020, but yeah. Buttigieg was a joke. Just another cookie cutter democrat that offered next to nothing.
Kamala Harris
UBI- 10/100
Kamala Harris was known for pushing the LIFT act, a small tax credit that functioned a bit like a mini UBI, and may have inspired Biden's child tax credit. It would have offered a tax credit of $3000 for an individual earner and $6000 for a family who earned below a certain amount.
Healthcare- 40/50
While it was hard to track down, Harris' medicare for all system seems to bear a striking resemblance to medicare extra for all, in that it aggressively enrolls people into an expanded version of medicare. The goal of it seemed to get us to single payer, but it did allow private insurers offering variations of medicare for all. While it may have differences from medicare extra in the details, her plan did seem significantly better than what candidates like Biden and Buttigieg offered.
Free college- 13/25
She seemed to offer free 2 year, "debt free" 4 year", and for student debt forgiveness supported a variation of IBR. No discussion of the tax bomb.
Climate change- 15/25
While unclear, it looks like she supported a $10 trillion green new deal, although this would not be all public sources of revenue. Still, this is kind of reminding me of Warren's gargantuan green new deal plan.
Additional considerations- +22/50
Idk, did I sleep on Harris in 2020? While she's not perfect, she actually seemed to have plans that fell more within the left wing of the democratic party. I always considered her a fake progressive given her willingness to fall in line behind the centrist wing, but she actually had proposals that were substantially more aggressive on issues like climate change and healthcare. While I don't approve of massive green new deals over more moderate plans, her healthcare plan seemed to remind me of medicare extra for all.
She actually seemed kind of based and while I wouldn't max her "other" meter out, she did seem to go a step further than other more centrist democrats.
Overall- 100/200
While not as strong as say, Bernie or Yang for me, she did seem to be a bit better than Biden or Buttigieg. I would consider supporting her in 2024 based on healthcare alone if she ran on the same plan. She ain't perfect by any means, but still, again, "better than most centrists".
Elizabeth Warren
UBI- 0/100
Warren does not support a UBI to my knowledge. However, she did seem open to the idea in the past.
Healthcare- 50/50
Warren had a fairly based single payer plan that, much like Bernie's, heavily influenced my own.
Free college-20/25
She supported free 2 and 4 year college, and had student debt cancellation, but it didn't go as far as Bernie's. She only forgave up to $50k and only for people below certain income thresholds. That doesn't really solve the problem though. How she goes almost as far as Bernie but then stops just short irks me.
Climate change- 15/25
As we discussed previously she had one of those bloated overkill green new deals I'm not a huge fan of.
Additional considerations- +20/50
Warren is very complex. Much like Bernie, she often ends up being extremely progressive, but she always seems to stop just short of Bernie on policies and it's kind of irksome, like her $50k student debt cancellation. Why not cancel all of it? Why means test it? Why get 90% of the way there and then screw it up. But that's how I feel about Warren sometimes..
And then she ended up doing weird things during the 2020 campaign where she made that obvious attack claiming bernie was sexist to pander to the SJWs. I mean, there's a reason the left calls her a snake. Because she kind of is. She stayed in the race way after it was her time to get out, and she siphoned votes from Bernie. So I have some grudges against warren at times.
At the same time I do want to give her some additional credit for being open to UBI, she's one of the few who actually made it to the point of being "open" to it in the future. Still, Bernie was also potentially open in 2016 and in 2020 doubled down on JG so we know how that turned out.
So, one positive (+40), one negative (-30), and one other positive (+10).
Overall- 105/200
I'm surprised she actually ended up scoring almost identically to Harris. But, in retrospect, the two candidates are similar. Both are more supportive than centrist dems, but at the same time, Harris just doesn't inspire me enough to give her tons of points, whereas with Warren, she's clearly more progressive, but then I end up holding a grudge against her. It's weird. it's very similar to Yang where in reality, I really WANT to love Warren to some extent and she's basically Bernie lite, but then she just did something I found alienating and I hold a grudge. With Yang it's flipflopping on positions to appease people, with Warren it's overstaying her welcome in the 2020 race and basically undermining Bernie.
As I see it, Warren's moment was in 2016. She actually was looking to be the one to take on Hillary, but she stepped aside and let Bernie run instead and Bernie built up this base of support. Then she clearly tried to muscle into Bernie's wing of the party in 2020, and ended up splitting the progressive vote and dragging sanders down into the mud. Warren is very progressive, but much like Hillary, she missed her moment and didn't know when to quit.
Marianne Williamson
Williamson is looking to be a potential 2024 candidate, and may even run with Forward for all I know. While she didn't seem noteworthy enough in 2020, I do want to include her here.
UBI- 80/100
She actually supports a UBI. She didn't provide any plans for how to pay for it, but she supports a UBI. For the sake of argument, given she referenced yang on her economic page, I assume she would endorse his freedom dividend plan.
Healthcare- 15/50
She claims to support medicare for all, but gives mixed signals like all who like their private insurance can keep it. So I guess she supports a public option of some kind? It looks like she would have us buy medicare on the exchanges? Kind of lame if you ask me. And no auto enrollment to my knowledge.
Free college- 25/25
Free college AND student debt relief. Just, blanket everything.
Green new deal- 15/25
While her laying out of the plan seemed convincing and quite progressive, she did seem to be in favor of a full green new deal framework, and that's expensive.
Additional considerations- -10/50
Okay, so, this is where I gotta say, hold your horses. This is too good to be true.
Marianne Williamson ticks every box for me (except healthcare), but there's a problem. She's not an experienced politician, and she has literally no plans for how to pay for this. Sure, she mentions wealth and estate taxes, but we we know from studying these kinds of plans on here, these aren't cheap. Yang's UBI cost $2.8 trillion a year. She gives no numbers for how much her healthcare plans cost. Green new deals cost $1-3 trillion a year. Where is all of this coming from?
And then she supports a lot of crazy ideas I wouldn't even support like reparations. I mean, she's progressive, she's very progressive. But that's the thing. She's almost too good to be true. Honestly, I have to take off points in order to correct for her crazy good scores, because I'm not quite convinced that without data for how to pay for these plans and what they would look like in practice, that she would be an actual good candidate. So I kind of have to correct her score downward.
At the same time, i would be tempted to give her a lot of points because she does seem to be one of the few progressives who stick to their guns and would fight for people. All in all it just about evens out.
For negatives, I'd give her -50, but then I'd give her +40 for being a decent progressive. So ultimately, I'll just deduct 10 points from her score.
Overall- 125/200
Williamson seems like she has potential, but sometimes I wonder if she's just promising tons of things with no ability to deliver. As such, I have to actually correct her score downward a little to 125, putting her ahead of the likes of Warren and Harris, but below that of Bernie and Yang.
Howie Hawkins
UBI- 40/100
We discussed Hawkin's UBI plan before, it's a NIT plan that either seems very underfunded, or likely isn't truly universal.
Healthcare- 35/50
He supports an NHS type system, going full in with nationalization of the industry, but he also seems to grossly underestimate its cost.
Free college- 25/25
He literally endorses Bernie's plan so, full credit
Climate change- 10/25
He uses the climate emergency to push a literally socialistic agenda, calling for nationalizing key sectors of the economy, and spending a whopping $2.75 trillion A YEAR on a massive jobs program. If you wonder why he struggles to afford other stuff, this is why.
Other considerations- -20/50
I really have to shoot down Hawkins somewhat here. His plans seem unworkable, he seems obsessed with his green new deal, and while he kind of ticks all the boxes, his plans' numbers don't add up.
He also seems to have awful ideas at times outside of my core agenda like reducing defense by 75%, so there's that. Still he is fairly progressive.
All in all, I'll shave off 20 points.
overall- 90/200
All in all, he ends up with the same score as Biden. Biden got his score for being mildly progressive, but being able to fund his plans. Whereas Hawkins is infinitely more progressive, but that's the thing. This dude is TOO extreme for me at this point. I went with him in 2020 as a Bernie substitute, to protest the dem party, but all in all, I ain't huge on him.
Conclusion
Honestly, this was an attempt to come up with a purity test to go by in 2024. Let's rank the people as they scored:
Andrew Yang- 145
Bernie Sanders- 140
Marianne Williamson- 125
Elizabeth Warren- 105
Kamala Harris- 100
Howie Hawkins- 90
Joe Biden- 90
Pete Buttigieg- 70
Honestly, while this metric isn't terrible, I think that extra 50 points seems to mess with things a bit. Take Hawkins vs Biden. I had a habit of correcting centrist candidates upward, but then I corrected Hawkins downward, leading to the same score.
If I included no extra points, this is how they would all score:
Marianne Williamson- 135
Andrew Yang- 120
Howie Hawkins- 110
Bernie Sanders- 100
Elizabeth Warren- 85
Kamala Harris- 78
Joe Biden- 70
Pete Buttigieg- 53
That...actually is closer to my actual thoughts of what I would think of them, with the exception of maybe Williamson and Hawkins, both the ones I ended up correcting downwards. Williamson and Hawkins were able to game my metric simply by promising the moon even though I questioned the abilities of either to deliver. Williamson had no solid plans for most of her plans. And Hawkins' numbers didn't add up well. While both were nice candidates who promised nice things, I question their ability to deliver. Honestly, adding points seems dumb in retrospect. As I read the various platforms, most democrats advocated for similar things with small variation. many, for example supported a $15 minimum wage, more rights for workers, and generous housing programs.
However, if I removed points, I often would have done so for petty reasons. I held a grudge against Warren for her role in derailing Bernie in 2020 for example. And Andrew yang's inconsistency has major problems with me.
Perhaps I should reserve the ability to reduce points, but only if the plans don't have numbers that work well. I mean, I even deducted points from Yang's UBI plan for this. Perhaps if I was just more critical of the plans themselves and deducted points for unrealistic math it would correct itself. Hawkins and Williamson would likely take hits for that, while centrist and more wonkish/serious candidates would not. After all, yang got NAILED HARD for that here. Especially on healthcare.
All things considered, Williamson was the only one I felt like I fully gave a pass on here, and her numbers werent mentioned. When Hawkins presented plans, I ripped him for it. His UBI which may not be a true UBI only got 40 points. healthcare, despite being more progressive than my plans, got 35 points for bad math. I castigated his climate plan for its bloatedness.
So yeah, remove the extra points, but perhaps be harsher on candidates with bad or unrealistic math. It's one thing to promise ideas it's another to deliver. And on this blog, I tend to support progressive ideas, but I also tend to want decent math. As you guys know, I research the crap out of issues, come up with my own ideal plan, and then look at what candidates do. I like to actually look at policy details and decide.
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