So can we expect your campaign to talk about things like Medicare for all or the Green New Deal?
I commend Senator Bernie Sanders, but I believe that we can achieve [universal health insurance] with a public health insurance plan that is affordable for all and free if you can’t afford it. A plan that is comprehensive and gives people more choices, that allows both private insurers and the federal government to compete for folks’ trust.
Now on the Green New Deal, I commend Senator Edward Markey and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for linking environmental policy and infrastructure policy. However, do I believe that the critical path to fighting climate change requires the abolition of the private health insurance market? No, I do not.
And I’ll debate that all day, while still recognizing the value and honoring the political contribution of folks who maybe see it a little bit differently.
Can you turn out black voters the way Stacey Abrams did?
Absolutely. It’s not about the identity of the candidate. It’s about the quality of the effort, the earnestness of the message, the execution of the campaign, the willingness to reach out to every single neighborhood in this state.
It has become canon for Democrats to say, “Without voter suppression, Stacey Abrams would be governor.” How can you overcome an issue that she could not?
Look, frankly, Astead, when I ran in 2017, I think I was naïve about the depth of the problem here.
We have authorities in the state of Georgia — of course, chief among them now-Gov. Brian Kemp — who despite clear and consistent warnings from information security experts and from the federal judiciary that our system was unverifiable and insecure, have persisted in deploying that same system over highly credible warnings of its vulnerabilities. I struggle to find an innocent explanation for that.
You’re describing the issue. I’m asking you how you’ll overcome it, since this will all still be in place next year.