How Out Of Step Is Biden With His Own Party? More Than You Might Guess

The Challengers by Nancy Ohanian

A new Langer poll for ABC News and the Washington Post shows that 86% of Democrats approve of Biden's pick of Kamala Harris as his running mate-- and so do most independents and even 25% of Republicans. This morning's CBS News Battleground Tracker has the Biden/Harris ticket with 279 electoral votes to Trump/Pence's 163. Even if Trump wins all the undecided votes-- he won't; Biden leads in all of them-- he would still lose, since they make up 96 electoral votes, not enough to put him over the hump. And the new Marist poll for NPR and PBS today shows Trump/Pence losing to Biden/Harris by a very wide margin-- 11 points, in a 53-42% rout. That said, my interest in party conventions ended in 1964 when I went to Atlantic City, sweet 16, to cheer on LBJ. Can you recognize which one is me?

And convention platforms are of barely more interest to me than the conventions-- all meaningless show. Platforms get shelved the moment a president is elected-- if not sooner. A lot of friends of mine are delegates to this year's convention and have been working hard-- and in good faith-- on the platform. One of them slipped me this information over the weekend. It's kind of subversive inasmuch as it shows Biden consistently and significantly out of step on the top issues of the day with his own party's elected delegates. And Ro Khanna wasn't the only delegate to vote against a platform that was railroaded through by Biden campaign honchos despite not representing the values of most Democrats:

Although the majority of delegates were elected on Biden's ticket, they are more progressive than he is on the issues. "It is common for the media," wrote the authors of the document, "to portray the Sanders’ supporter as reaching for 'pie in the sky' and the Biden supporter as nostalgic for a simpler time and dedicated to incremental solutions. The truth is that taken as a whole, the actual participants to the 2020 Democratic Convention believe in big ideas. We are absolutely unified in the mission of getting Trump out of office. This part is clear without needing a survey. But we are also in strong agreement when it comes to the issues of healthcare, climate crisis, education access, and election integrity. The precursor to this survey was an investigation of every state’s Democratic Party platform on the same four issues, which showed strong support for Medicare for All, Green New Deal, College for All, and Fair Elections, within the Democratic Party across the country."

We felt a survey was necessary to further investigate because we could see that the platform committee of 2020 was not bringing the biggest, most urgent solutions to the table for a vote. When we started the survey, we were not sure what the results would show, but we suspected exactly what we found to be true: across each of the four topics we polled, enough Biden delegates agreed with the Sanders delegates such that the delegation as a whole has a strong preference for bold, progressive solutions.

On the issue of healthcare, when the data was weighted across all of the pledged delegates (based on the current proportions of delegates), 75.1% of the delegates support Medicare for All, and 75.3% support Single-Payer.

On the Climate Crisis, 84.7% of the delegation supports a 10 year mobilization, and 78.9% support the Green New Deal.

On education access, 87.0% of the delegation supports cancellation of student debt, and 77.6% support tuition free college.

When it comes to elections, 71.9% of the delegation support Rank Choice voting, 90.3% support election audits, and 73.2% oppose party interference in primary elections. The following pages and graphs tell the full story of the opinions of the 2020 Delegation.

HEALTHCARE

When asked to react to the statement, “American should be able to access public coverage through a public option, and those over 55 should be able to opt in to Medicare.” 85.5% agree (either strongly or somewhat) with this statement, and 54.2% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “We should support a comprehensive single-payer, government-run insurance system that eliminates all copays and deductibles, is not tied to employment, and does not require payment at the point of service.” 75.3% agree with this statement, and 48.6% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “We should support expanding the current healthcare system to Medicare for All that is comprehensive in its coverage.” 75.2% agree with this statement, and 52.1% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to rank their preference of the three statements, 58.5% of delegates rank either Single-Payer or Medicare for All as their first choice solution.

Environment

When asked to react to the statement, “We must be committed to getting 50 percent of our electricity from clean energy sources within a decade, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions more than 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.” 82.4% agree with this statement, and 60.4% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “We must achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers and should be accomplished through a 10-year national mobilization.” 84.7% agree with this statement, and 62.3% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “Recognizing the scientific research that climate change is driven by human activity, we must support a Green New Deal that explicitly cares for fossil fuel states and workers.” 79.0% agree with this statement, and 61.1% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to rank their preference of the three statements, 61.5% of delegates rank Rapid Transition/Green New Deal as their first choice solution.

EDUCATION

When asked to react to the statement, “Every student should be able to go to college debt-free. Those who currently have student debt should be able to refinance their loans at the lowest rates possible.” 69.5% agree with this statement, and 41.9% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “We should eliminate existing student loan debt and eliminate predatory student loan practices.” 87.0% agree with this statement, and 59.5% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to react to the statement, “We should call for free education to extend through public college or university and vocational/technical schools.” 77.6% agree with this statement, and 59.9% believe the language is appropriate.

When asked to rank their preference of the three statements, 67.3% of delegates rank Cancel Student Debt/Tuition Free-College as their first choice solution.

Before I was sent the full document, another delegate had sent me just one table, one table because she knew it was an issue I've been carrying on about since Rahm Emanuel took over the DCCC and Chuck Schumer took over the DSCC-- the ability of corporate money-obsessed party bosses to fix primaries-- up and down the ballot-- for candidates in their own craven, corrupt images. Most Democrats don't like it either. The document noted that "When asked to react to the statement, 'Organizations using the Democratic name, such as the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC, should not interfere in state and local elections by making endorsements prior to a primary election because doing so creates the appearance of an unlevel playing field while the party is committed to maintaining impartiality.' 73.2% agree with this statement, and 68.6% believe the language is appropriate." Damned shame it won't mean a damned thing-- just like the rest of the platform, convention and sentiment of the Democratic grassroots. Keep repeating to yourself: "Biden is better than Trump. Biden is better than Trump, Biden is better than Trump... Trump is Satan."

This morning's CBS News poll asked Democrats (only) if they wanted or didn't want to hear from 11 people at the party convention scheduled to begin tomorrow. In order of how much excitement each speaker drew:

• Barack Obama- 92%
• Joe Biden- 91%
• Kamala Harris- 91%
• Michelle Obama- 88%
• Elizabeth Warren- 72%
• Bernie- 68%
• Nancy Pelosi- 65%
• AOC- 63%
• Hillary Clinton- 58% (with 42% opposed to her having a speaking slot)
• Bill Clinton- 56% (with 44% opposed to him having a speaking slot)
• John Kasich- 38% (with a resounding 62% opposed to him having a speaking slot)

One more little, tiny note for those who have come this far: Two years after I, all rosy-cheeked and innocent, was waving that handmade LBJ sign on the Atlantic City boardwalk, I was in jail for burning my draft card, dropping out of school and slamming heroin because I was obsessed and out of my mind about America killing innocent Vietnamese women and children and, soon after, moving abroad. "Hey, Hey LBJ... how many kids have you killed today?" And LBJ, you know, was much, much better than Biden... in every conceivable way.