THE MIDTERMS: DID HEALTH CARE ANXIETY TRUMP CARAVAN CRAZINESS?

The 2018 midterm elections are now history (except for results yet to come in), and the exit polls tell quite a story.

Actually, they tell many stories, so you may want to examine the results for yourself and pick the ones that mean the most to you. I will tell you what resonates most with me.

Voters were asked: What is the most important issue facing the country?

For months, the opinion polls had been telling us that the answer would be Health Care. And it was.

41% of voters answered: Health Care, making that the number one issue, by a wide margin. Democratic candidates had already figured that out from hearing the fear and rage coming from those lost in the cracks of a badly broken system.

In the United States of America, 62% of bankruptcy filings are due to medical bills. Health Care anxiety has become a middle class disease. Quite simply, you might have to lose your house to pay for your child’s cancer treatment.

Meanwhile, Republicans have worked tirelessly to repeal Obamacare, shrink Medicaid, undermine the health exchanges, and return to insurance companies the right to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the number of non-elderly Americans with some kind of pre-existing condition may total 130 million. That number alone just might translate to an awful lot of high anxiety health care voters.

As the midterms grew closer, Republican candidates realized that they would likely pay a steep price by being on the losing side of this issue. So they shrewdly put together a two-pronged strategy to save the House, increase their numbers in the Senate, and save their governorships.

First, they would proudly present themselves as the true champions of Health Care, especially when it came to protecting pre-existing conditions. Not hard to do! It just required using alternative facts in the context of an alternative Trump-Fox News reality.

The second prong of the midterm strategy would be to go full-Trump and scare voters into believing that nothing would endanger life and liberty more than lax border control, and for that, the caravan presented them with the opportunity of a lifetime.

Without stopping the caravan at the border, MS-13, ISIS, a loose collection of bad hombres, and of course people carrying diseases, including smallpox, would be spreading through America, raping, murdering, dropping babies, collecting benefits, and illegally voting Democratic.

So, did the Republican strategy work?

On some level, did genuine Health Care anxiety trump manufactured caravan craziness?

Well, of the 41% of voters who told exit pollsters that Health Care was their number one issue, 75% were Democrats and 23% were Republicans.

And, would you care to guess which issue finished second to Health Care, as the most important issue facing the country? 23% of voters answered: Immigration.

That party breakdown was the exact opposite of the Health Care answer. 75% were Republicans and 23% were Democrats. Of course, for some of those “Immigration” Democrats, the threat of deporting a family member would likely outweigh even severe Health Care anxiety.

I guess you could say that the Republican strategy worked on Republican voters.

Republicans made a good short term bet, but a bad long term bet when they first vowed to repeal and replace “every word of Obamacare.” Remember when Ted Cruz was willing to shut down the government to stop Obamacare from becoming law?

He warned his Tea Party friends that by getting subsidized health insurance, Americans would become “addicted to the sugar.” But that was back in 2013, when Ted had job security. He had no idea that one day he would get battered by a guy named Beto, running around deep red Texas, championing health care for all.

Texas will never be the same, and neither will Ted.

Besides electing leaders and policies, elections tell us a lot about who we are as a nation. Sometimes those answers are perplexing, but sometimes they are loud and clear.

The 2018 midterms delivered a big blue wave, but they also provided some answers as to what we have become in the last two years. 

The exit polls have a lot more to tell us, but I am at the end of my two minutes.

THE BRILLIANCE OF BETO IS BEAUTIFULLY BASIC

Though I am an eternal optimist, not just on this blog, but in everyday life, I confess that the past weeks of Trump-inspired domestic terrorism, and sad aftermath, left me needing a strong pick-me-up.

So I reached for my laptop and took a strong dose of Beto O’Rourke.

Warning! First-time watchers of Beto rallies have reported experiencing a sudden jolt of Beto-mania. It is powerful stuff.

I start watching the video. Beto takes the stage like a rock star. The Charisma Kid needs no warm-up. He is at full gallop, and so is the audience. They are with him, stride for stride, standing, cheering, and screaming. Halfway through, I go back to the beginning of the video and start transcribing. I want to be able to see the naked words.

Hello San Antonio, how are you? 

(THUNDEROUS CHEERS) 

I feel the same way. I feel a lot better than I sound or than I look at this moment. In fact, I feel like you sound right now. I’m pumped up. I’m thrilled. I’m excited. I’ve got more energy, though I’ve had less sleep than at any other time in my life, because you all are making something absolutely extraordinary happen right now.

Now we learned that here in San Antonio, in Bexar County, yesterday, we surpassed the midterm first time early voting totals for all time here. And then, today we beat yesterday’s numbers in San Antonio.

So, with your help, tomorrow, if you want to help beat today’s numbers, yeah! We’re counting on each other at this time. It’s all of us in this together, meeting the urgency of this moment with the power and joy of people -- no PACS, no special interests, no corporations, all people, every day, in every single county, in the state of Texas.

BETO SPEAKS TO EVERYONE, INCLUDING THOSE WHO OPPOSE HIS POSITIONS. THE RESPECT AND HUMILITY HE SHOWS TO THE OPPOSITION CAN BE SERIOUSLY DISARMING.

Listen, not only are we running this the right way, going to every one of the 254 counties of Texas, working for, listening to, seeking to understand, represent, fight for and serve all of us, regardless of your party affiliation. If you’re a Republican and you’re here, you’re in the right place. If you’re a Democrat and you’re here, you’re in the right place too.

Everyone welcome! The small differences – party, geography, who you love, who you pray to, how many generations you can count yourself an American, or whether you just got here this morning – all that matters is that we are all here together. Am I right?

TEXAS IS SUCH A HEALTH CARE MESS THAT THERE IS NO PLACE TO GO BUT UP. SO, BETO ASKS: WHO BETTER THAN TEXAS TO LEAD THE WAY ON GUARANTEED HEALTH CARE FOR ALL?

We’re going to do this for everyone. And we’re not only going to run it in the right way, we’re going to win this in the right way, so that we set ourselves up to deliver on the very high expectations that we have set for and by one another, like this, going from the least insured state in the United States of America where the number one provider of mental health care services is the county jail system, where people with schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder get arrested on purpose, to get locked up so they get taken care of – fed, clothed, prescribed the psychotropic medications that they literally need to stay alive.

A state that sees us lose people to diabetes and the flu, though we are the wealthiest, most powerful country on the face of the planet. We understand the consequences of failing to be there by and for one another perhaps better than any other people in any other state and that is why we are going to lead the way on guaranteed high quality universal health care for every child, every woman, every man, in every single way -- primary health care, specialty health care, mental health care.

IN TEXAS, WOMENS’ HEALTH IS STUCK IN THE DARK AGES.

And for a state that is at the epicenter for a maternal mortality crisis, three times as deadly for women of color, a state that has shut down so many of its family planning clinics, we’ve made it too hard for too many to get that cervical cancer provider that family planning  provides, to see a provider of any kind that we’re losing them here faster than perhaps any place in the developing world.

We also say that universal health care means that every woman makes her own decisions about her own body and has access to the health care that insures that she can.

IN THIS DEEP RED BORDER STATE, BETO GOES BEYOND DEFENDING IMMIGRATION. HE CHAMPIONS IMMIGRATION.

This state, this beautiful, bold and ambitious state, defined in part by the immigrants who have chosen us, those who have left their homes, their families, sometimes their comfort, their language, their culture to start anew as strangers here, in a strange land, trying to do better here for themselves, their families, but also doing better for this country that they were called to and inspired by, their very presence making us stronger and safer and more successful, and yes, more secure.

BETO MAKES IT CLEAR. FAMILY SEPARATION IS A HUMAN TRAGEDY AND A MORAL CRIME. TEXANS MUST DEMAND AN END TO IT.

Those of us in this defining border state who bore witness to kids who, if they were lucky, arrived here with their parents, fleeing some of the deadliest places on the planet, bar none, what would it take for you to travel two thousand miles, spend three weeks on the road with your baby girl, your infant child to try to come here, this land of refugees and asylum seekers and immigrants and instead of finding asylum, or refuge, or safety, you encountered your worst nightmare -- that kid literally taken from you at your most vulnerable and desperate moment, torn from your arms, prosecuted like a common criminal for doing what any human being would do in the same situation.

That child today might be in a foster care home in Michigan or Ohio, or God only knows where. That mom, back in El Salvador, not knowing when, or even if she will see that child, for whom she risked her life. This state, we all together, regardless of party can rise up and insist that never again can another child be taken from a parent coming to this country, and we will reunite all those kids right now, get them back with their families.

WHO ARE THE DREAMERS? THE DREAMERS ARE US.

And we take the next step, defining ourselves, not by what we are against, but what we are for, rewriting our immigration laws in our own image, defined by our experiences, what we know to be true, our values and our interests, beginning with freeing every dreamer from any fear of deportation by making them U.S citizens here in their home country.

DAMN IT TEXAS, START RESPECTING YOUR TEACHERS!

For those school teachers and public educators here, out in the community, many of them, too many of them, nearly half of them working a second or a third job just to make ends meet because they do not earn enough teaching our kids in that classroom. I want to make sure that we’ve got those teachers’ backs, that we pay them a living wage so that they just have one job, the most important job, connecting with that child, unlocking that lifelong love of learning and not being forced to teach to a high stakes, high pressure test that in no meaningful way measures that teacher’s performance or that child’s potential.

THE WAR ON DRUGS HAS BACKFIRED, ESPECIALLY ON THE YOUNG, MINORITIES, AND VETERANS.

We can lead in this state on the issue of criminal justice reform, acknowledge that a war on drugs has become a war on people. We can end the prohibition on marijuana and we can expunge the arrest record of everyone arrested for a substance that is legal or decriminalized or medicinalized in most of the rest of the country. Make sure that not another veteran has to be an outlaw in the eyes of the law for wanting to take medicinal cannabis instead of an opioid, make sure that not another young person, and if we’re honest with ourselves about who we are locking up right now, not another young person of color is behind bars for something that’s perfectly legal in most of the country. Not another young person, when released, will have to check a box on an employment application form, saying that they have a conviction, meaning that they will not get that job. Not another young person denied a Pell Grant because of one decision that they made in their lives, freeing everyone to live to their full potential to be who they’re supposed to be, to contribute to their maximum capacity. I know that we can lead on this.

TEXAS IS TERRIBLE ON CIVIL RIGHTS, SO WHO BETTER THAN TEXAS TO LEAD THE NATION ON CIVIL RIGHTS? BETO SEES FAILURE AS OPPORTUNITY. ALWAYS!

You give me the challenge. We are up to it. In a state that has seriously debated that proposition that we are going to try to scare parents, freak you out about transgender kids coming into your child’s bathroom, though we know that transgender kids are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrator of an attack in any schools. This state where it is perfectly legal, although not in my measure, not at all okay to fire someone based on their sexual orientation, in a state where there are thirty thousand kids in the foster care system because they needed a loving home but in this state apparently, you can be too gay to be able to adopt one of those kids right now.

What if that was the same state through this election that decided that we would stand up for every single one of us and the full civil rights of every single American, regardless of their differences? We can do that as well.

BEING HIT REALLY HARD BY CLIMATE CHANGE HAS PREPARED TEXAS TO LEAD THE NATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS. A MORAL OBLIGATION.

Climate change, we got you on that one. No one understands the shift better than the people of Texas. We’ve lived it. We’ve experienced it. We know the clock is ticking and we have precious little time to get it right and damn the next election or polls. I’m talking about the next generation and every generation to follow. They’re counting us, the people of 2018, sending this message to the people of the future, our kids, our grandkids, the generations yet to come. They want to know that while we still have a chance to get this right, that we did this, that every tough political decision that we decided that we would come together, that we would transcend the pettiness, the partisanship, the bitterness, the smallness of this moment and offer our courage, our strength, our big bold beautiful heart that could only come from the state of Texas.

And what you have shown just over the first two days of early voting, is that the hope we feel, that you have given me, the inspiration that you have provided, the investment that you made into this campaign and into the future of this country, you have turned it into action by voting at the early voting locations.

BETO WANTS EVERY LAST OUNCE OF YOU. HE CAN ASK FOR THAT BECAUSE HE IS GIVING EVERY LAST OUNCE OF HIMSELF.

And let me tell you this: if like me, you want to make sure that you have done everything that you can, spared no expense or effort to make sure that you deliver at this defining moment of truth, when we decide this on the sixth of November, you do not want to wake up on the seventh, wondering what more you could have done, given the stakes, given everything that is on the line for this country.

Please make sure that your conscience is clear that you have done everything, knocked on every door, made every phone call, reached out to every friend and family member, classmate and colleague and invited them into the election of our lifetime. If you’re like me, on the seventh of November, the day after this is decided, you want to wake up with a glorious hangover, celebrating the victory of our lifetimes for this state, for this country, for this generation, for every generation that follows.

Are you with me?

Are you with me?

I am with YOU, San Antonio!

(The crowd screams BETO! BETO! BETO!)