You’re too leftwing to win, Pelosi warns 2020 Democrat frontrunners

Nancy Pelosi warns Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren could wreck Democrats’ chances of defeating Doanld Trump.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Picture: AP

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.

The House of Representatives Speaker did not mention the two presidential candidates by name but there was no doubt to whom she was referring: Senator Warren has pulled to the front of the race for the Democratic nomination in Iowa with a series of radical policy proposals, after adopting Senator Sanders’s “Medicare for all” plan.

Known as M4A, it envisages a single public healthcare system for the US. Senator Warren released details on Saturday of how to fund the additional $US20.5 trillion over 10 years that it would require.

Ms Pelosi’s status in the party has grown steadily stronger over the course of the past year after her re-election as Speaker, with the help of several confrontations with the White House and her cautious but steady leadership of the impeachment inquiry into Mr Trump.

Describing herself as a “left-wing San Francisco liberal” — a nod to the way she was cast in countless Republican advertisements, despite being more of a centrist — Ms Pelosi, 79, claimed the progressive ideas that enthused the Democratic base would not catch on in 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 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 hard-won healthcare plans provided by their employers.

Ms Pelosi’s intervention could bolster the ambitions of Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana. A more moderate voice, he received a poll boost after a clash with Senator Warren, 70, on healthcare in a televised debate last month.

Former vice-president Joe Biden, 76, remains the Democratic frontrunner in national polls but his support has not increased and his faltering performances in debates and on the stump led to a bold prediction by Mr Buttigieg that the contest would resolve into a race between him and Senator Warren. He came third in the Iowa poll, behind her and Senator Sanders, 78, and said that Senator Warren was “shaping up” as the frontrunner.

In an interview with ABC broadcast on Monday, Mr Butti­gieg, 37, said Senator Warren had sought to cast the healthcare debate as “either you’re for kicking everyone off their private plans in four years or you’re for business as usual”.

He added: “I’m proposing Medicare for all who want it. We do that, that’s the biggest change in American healthcare in 50 years. The difference is the way I do it you get to keep your private health insurance plan if you want it.”

Some Democrats fear that a radical candidate will struggle to win moderate voters; others argue a cautious approach will replay Hillary Clinton’s failure in 2016.

Senator Warren has called for a bolder strategy, saying Democrats would not win by dusting off the view of the insurance and drug companies who don’t want any change that would bite into profits.

The Times