The NYT stops being polite and starts getting... "real"

The New York Times editorial board listens to Amy Klobuchar

I watched that NYT endorsement show, where the editorial board meets with the candidates as part of their endorsement process... it was interesting, if silly.  As others have noted, they basically turned the process into a reality tv show, which is pretty much where we already were anyway.

A few quick points:

First, while the folks on the NYT editorial board don't seem like idiots, nor do they seem particularly more informed or insightful than most people I know. They're just people taking their best guess at this, using the same bs metrics all the rest of us are using, trying to figure it out. (Some argue the 'endorsement' of Biden from the building's elevator operator may be more significant than that of the editorial board.) The confusing 'double endorsement' of completely different candidates just reenforces that they're as clueless as the rest of us.

Another thing that stuck out for me involved their take on my man Andrew Yang. Basically they liked him and thought he had good ideas (without really grappling with those ideas, which after all are quite a bit different than those of all the other candidates)... but basically just dismissed him because he has no previous elected government experience. And, I will admit, that's a valid argument! It's something that concerns me as well. 

But one of them made a comment that to my mind actually deflated the significance of this factor: something to the effect of "we already have someone with no government experience in the WH, and we see how that's going." That made me chuckle... as if Donald Trump had only had a few years being governor or a senator then he'd be doing a better job as president. Trump's flaws clearly have nothing to do with his lack of experience: at this point he has three years experience being President and he is clearly getting worse at the job, not better. 

Holding Trump up as a point of reference seems to actually strengthen the case for Yang in my opinion: Yang, in contrast to Trump, clearly has the the kind of temperament and thoughtful approach to issues that one would want to see in a President, which is obviously more important than "experience.". On the other hand Trump's lack of government experience does highlight that that is clearly not a barrier to getting elected (it may even work to a candidate's advantage)... so if electability is our most important metric (as it should be) then perhaps we should not be placing such weight on this factor. 

Now, I get it: at this moment voters are not comparing Yang to Trump, but to the other Dems running for the nomination. In that context, all things being equal, I would prefer a candidate that has government experience. I think there are nuances to getting the bureaucratic gears turning that would be helpful for a President to already understand going in.

But it's not the only thing to consider. If there were a candidate with government experience who seemed to understand both the desperate need for change in this country AND that running just a more extreme version of the same game plan as before will simply continue to divide the country, creating more partisan gridlock and the familiar frustrations of the Obama years... someone who "got" the urgent need provide relief to struggling families without playing into the 'givers/takers' paradigm that turns so many voters off ... then of course I would vote for that person! But no one like that is running, so I'm left choosing between the person who does get all that stuff and... people with government experience. 

As a side note: I've come to realize even supporters of Bernie's "revolution" don't think anything significant will change under a Sanders admin... they just want someone at least arguing for full-throated revolution while the government stagnates under what they see as inevitable gridlock.  (Good to know they don't buy into all that 'revolution' crap, but still...) Meanwhile Biden's peddling fantasies of future bi-partisan cooperation, which are preposterous on their face. Yang's the only one thinking about how to scramble and re-align our politics to get us out of this awful stalemate. It may be a long-shot plan, but at least it's a plan!

Long story short: I feel Yangs strengths outweigh his weaknesses. If someone finds his lack of government experience disqualifying I can respect that. I just felt the NYT discussion of Yang if anything exposed some of the weaknesses of that line of thinking.


Finally, the show reenforced my belief that we lost a notably talented candidate with the exit of Cory Booker.