2016 Election Night

One interesting nugget from the early exit polls is the question of honesty. Trump called Clinton’s honesty into question throughout the campaign. And while 59 percent of voters say Clinton is not honest, 65 percent say Trump isn’t honest.

As we look back on the 2016 presidential campaign, one of the things many of us will be thinking about for a long time is the content of this campaign. A few days ago on the podcast, Jody, Farai and Harry noted that they’d like to see presidential campaigns emphasize issues rather than personality. This fascinating piece at Slate argues that the campaign was, in fact, about important issues. I’d like to make the case for focusing on the candidates — not in a way that’s specific to 2016, but just in terms of looking at what’s unique about picking a president. Party labels will tell us about where the candidates stand on the issues. Clues about how they will make decisions can be relatively rare, but they’re really important. From unexpected crises to the individuals they appoint to key policy positions, presidential decision-making is incredibly influential. But decision-making qualities can be hard for voters to determine, even for experienced candidates. This just might be an argument for why the input of party elites is useful at the nomination stage.

During the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders pushed for a universal single-payer health care system he dubbed “Medicare for All.” Sanders’s home state of Vermont tried, and failed, to implement a single-payer system in 2014. Costs and political considerations doomed the Vermont plan, but nevertheless, Sanders has thrown his support behind Colorado Amendment 69, which would create a statewide universal health insurance system funded by a 10 percent tax on payrolls and other income. In return for these payments, all Colorado residents would receive comprehensive medical coverage with no deductibles. The system would replace employer-provided and private insurance but exist alongside programs like Medicare and Medicaid. (Participants would still be free to buy additional insurance if they wanted.) An independent 21-member elected board would govern the ColoradoCare system, whose budget of about $38 billion would dwarf the size of the current state government. Proponents, who include Sanders and Gloria Steinem, say that the system would help slow down increases in health care costs and eliminate wasteful administrative costs. Opponents argue the amendment would give Colorado the highest income tax rates in the country and that doctors might leave the state if they weren’t satisfied with the payments the system provided. Abortion rights groups also oppose the measure, concerned that the program would reduce access to abortion due to a 1984 amendment to the state constitution that bans government money from going toward the procedure. The measure appears unlikely to pass. A recent poll showed widespread opposition to it, with 65 percent of respondents saying they’d vote no.