The more I listen to Dean Phillips the more I like the guy...

 So I sat down and watched the whole interview with Andrew Yang. And it's improved my views on him considerably. So much I'm gonna have to once again rerate him. 

So, a few things. First, commitment to progressive goals. He wants money out of politics, he has embraced forward's vision, and he's stood up to the democratic party in a way that shows independent thought and initiative. He's kinda learned the hard way that the democratic party is an oligarchy, and he does have balls. I dont think he's hard line enough on policy as I indicated last night, but for all we know, he might shift that year. He understands the issues to some extent, all it really would take is a little pushing or evolution for him to shift further left into my camp. He's leaving the cave, but maybe he hasn't fully gotten there policy wise. We will see.

He also has decent experience, both as a politician but also in the business sector. Some things he mentions on policy like grocery stores charging to put products on shelves leading to inflation are actually pretty interesting and his background when applied to humanist principles could lead to an interesting perspective. I dont normally like business experience since most people who emphasize it are like "I wanna run the country like a business", and because business experience generally implies an anti worker pro money perspective, but this guy does seem to be more humanist and pro worker in his orientation where like Yang he uses his background for good.

He's not exactly what I want in a candidate. i would like someone more hardcore on policy and who unapologetically pushes stuff like he's bernie sanders, but he's interesting. 

So let's revisit metric #1:

UBI support- 4/10

Support for Medicare for all- 4/10

Economic policy- 6/10

Social policy- 9/10

Foreign policy- 8/10

Overall ideology- 14/20

Commitment to progressive ideological goals- 8/10

Experience/competence- 8/10

Doesn't act as a spoiler- 10/10

Total: 71/100

He's still a bit weak on policy and on metric 2 he hasnt changed much at all for me, but now he's up with williamson. While williamson is stronger on policy, Phillips is stronger on actully having experience and being a well rounded candidate. Would I support him over williamson? Well, she has a 72. So I see them as about equal. im to the point I'd support either over Biden.

On Metric 2, I'll keep him the same mostly.

All in all I dont think he's quite the "transformative" leader Yang was talking about. I mean, yang was hypng him up like he was FDR, although he does give similar "we need to save this system from itself" vibes.

As I said, he needs to up his policy game to be "that guy". Marianne Williamson is closer to that than Dean in right now. If Dean embraces UBI full throatedly and amps up his healthcare reform and student debt forgiveness plan, then I would unapologetically simp for him like I've previously done with Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders. But he just aint there yet. Still one of the better choices this cycle though.