Pelosi warning to frontrunners
Nancy Pelosi has issued a stark warning to her fellow Democrats that the sweeping healthcare and tax proposals championed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren could wreck the party’s chances of defeating Donald Trump next year.
Pelosi, the House Speaker, did not mention the two presidential candidates by name but there was no doubt to whom she was referring: Warren has pulled to the front of the race for the Democratic nomination in Iowa with a series of radical policy proposals, after adopting Sanders’s ‘‘Medicare for all’’ plan.
Known as M4A, it envisages a single public healthcare system for the United States.
Warren released details on Friday of how to fund the additional US$20.5 trillion (NZ$32 trillion) over ten years that it would require.
Pelosi’s status in the party has grown steadily stronger over the course of the past year after her re-election as Speaker of the House, with the help of several confrontations with the White House and her cautious but steady leadership of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
Describing herself as a ‘‘leftwing San Francisco liberal’’ – a light nod to the way she was cast in countless Republican advertisements, despite being more of a centrist – Pelosi claimed that the progressive ideas that had enthused the Democratic base would not catch on in the crucial swing states that the party needs to win next year.
‘‘What works in San Francisco does not necessarily work in Michigan,’’ she told Bloomberg. ‘‘What works in Michigan works in San Francisco: talking about workers’ rights and sharing prosperity.’’
Some labour unions – the traditional allies and funders of the Democratic Party – have expressed concerns that ushering in M4A could result in their members losing out on the hardwon healthcare plans provided by their employers.