Not all in yet

The presidential campaign of 2020 keeps to its early timetable as of Monday morning, as Kamala Harris announced her candidacy for President.  I haven’t previously resonated with her major policy platforms — Medicare for All as a solution to American healthcare, and a large wealth transfer tax to increase working people’s incomes — but I’ll look more seriously at them now that she’s a candidate and I’m not associating Medicare for All strictly with Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Socialists.  Her tax credit actually is very reminiscent of Sherrod Brown’s tax credit proposals, though it may differ in specifics.  And I admire her for taking the step to run explicitly for the office at this point, and to try her particular way of organizing the coalition she wants to elect her, which seems clearly not to be the same approach as that taken by the candidates appealing to Iowa or New Hampshire or people who voted for Obama but then Trump in the Midwest.  She’s starting her campaign on Sunday in Oakland, and I’ll be there to hear her, even if I don’t decide to support her to the exclusion of others.  

This “all in” terminology is not my generation, or at any rate it’s not me.  I’ll vote for anyone against Trump, and I want to see someone run who can defeat Trump, and beyond that I want to vote for someone I basically agree with — the combination of those three axioms leads to conclusions such as: 

(1) In California, I wouldn’t feel compelled to vote for someone I truly disagree with, like Bernie Sanders, even in the general election.  A three million or more vote cushion means I don’t ever have to take responsibility for a Democratic defeat based on how I vote in California. 

(2) Most other candidates I’ve heard about I’d give at least some money to during the general election campaign, to meet my responsibility of doing something positive to get a Democrat elected over Trump. 

(3) But in the next two years prior to the general election, I’m much more likely to give money to someone with an agenda I agree with, such as Warren or Brown or maybe Harris, than I am to somebody who just wants to be President.  I don’t know which of those categories Julian Castro or Kristin Gillibrand is in, yet, but I’ll try to find out.