#Bernie

Bernie has pushed for rent controls, what are your thoughts?

I am against rent controls, and so are economists. 81% of economists say that rent controls failed to provide cheap and high quality housing in New York and San Francisco, while only 2 percent of economists said otherwise.

Moreover, several studies are against rent controls...

“a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.”

"The abolition of the rent control regime, can not only shift the equilibrium out of this inferior outcome, but can also result in an across-the-board lowering of rents."

 I want to see what others have to say.

Let me preface this by saying that if I was the one seeing this headline in the poltiics thread, I would have immediately dismissed it as bullshit without giving it a second thought.... If you're skeptical about the bold claim being made, I completely understand, I find it difficult to forsee happening myself

Just hear me out. 

Warren and Bernie have been competing for the more liberal wing of the Dem party. I dont think anyone really disputes that. If you consider Bernie is further to the left of Warren enough to really establish himself as the representative of the far left is one thing, but at the end of the day the only two candidates who could even make an appeal to the liberal wing of the party was Sanders and Warren..... For that reason, its easy to conclude that should one drop out, they would almost certainly endorse the other. With Sanders now the frontrunner and Warren down to 4th, you could conclude that Warren would likely drop out and likely endorse Sanders 

Heres the counterargument. 

In 2016 we had a clear 1v1 faceoff between a very centrist establishment candidate (Hillary) against a leftist outsider opponent (Bernie) in the primary. Shit, a lot of people wanted Warren to run against Hillary as the leftist representative but instead Bernie was the one who jumped in and carried the torch. You might think that because of how much the two had in common and the legitimate race between the two, Warren would have endorsed Bernie over Hillary since Warren was not campaigning, the primary was a close race, and Bernie clearly was closer to her ideologically than Hillary.... But Warren never endorsed Bernie...... Warren waited until the race was practically over before endorsing Hillary, so even though Warren offered high praise for Bernie all throughout the campaign, she still endorsed Hillary instead. 

Maybe though she just knew Hillary would win, or that it was more important to unite behind whichever candidate won to defeat Trump in the general election. Fair theory, fair conclusion. 

In 2018, Warren handily won reelection to the Senate in Massachusetts by an almost 2 to 1 margin. While her Senate term doesnt expire until 2024, right when the next presidential election would be taking place, at that point she would be 74 years old. While the oldest current senator is Dianne Feinstein from California (86 years old), the ability of ANY candidate to win votes in a presidential contest at that age would become a stark problem that would be borderline impossible to overcome..... If Trump loses in 2020 and a Dem takes the White House in 2020, then the next opening for Dems to jump in would be 2028, where Warren would be approaching 80 if she tried running then. 

To summarize, this election and this run for President was arguably Warren's last good shot where she had decent odds to actually win the nomination. Assuming she doesnt win at this point, she will not get a better opportunity to win in the future and will be relegated to being a Senator for the remainder of her career barring a VP selection of some sort. If this is the end of the road for a run for president, which it very well appears to be, then SANDERS would be the one most responsible. Not Biden, not Hillary, not the DNC, not the media or some sort of scandal or flip-flop on a policy issue, it would be Sanders. Sanders has flat out eaten her base of support and united the progressive wing of the party behind himself and away from Warren..... If Warren is salty enough at missing out on her shot to be President thanks to Sanders taking over her base, she could endorse a more moderate candidate out of spite. 

Biden values Warren, both her voice and her stances, to the point that from the get-go he was considering having Warren be his VP on a 2016 ticket. Warren's hard stance against Wall Street and subsequent legislation on banking regulations really caught Biden's eye when he considered entering the race, and he actively sought out Warren as a possible VP candidate to see if it was worth running in 2016. based on reports, Warren liked the idea but was still skeptical since Hillary effectively had the moderate/centrist vote on lockdown, leaving Biden with a very difficult path to even winning the nomination to begin with. Even when Hillary was campaigning people thought Warren should VP for her, since it would supposedly unite the moderates and progressives in the Dem party behind one ticket.... Warren liked THAT idea too because she figured it would give her some leverage in pulling Hillary more to the left on certain issues in order to secure her agreement to be VP. 

Biden values Warren, and Warren could strategically pull Biden to the left on certain issues if she was VP while also uniting the party behind one ticket to beat Trump. 

Thats not the case with Sanders though. If Sanders was the nominee and Warren his VP, then she doesnt get to have much of a say at all. Sanders as the face of the progressive movement would be able to go with whichever policy or agenda he feels is right since voters have made him the representative of the progressive faction in the first place. Sure, Warren would likely agree with Bernie's policies more regularly than Biden, but thats assuming that they get to the White House in the first place. Preaching purely to the left wing faction of the base to drive out fanatical levels of support is what Bernie is basing his entire argument that he can beat Trump on. Thats a very risky strategy that could very well fall short considering how conservative many swing states in the country are and will be..... Biden's strategy on the other hand would be to appeal to centrist and moderate voters more easily swayed away from Trump while Warren becomes the advocate for the progressive faction in an administration, which has better odds of succeeding just from the nature of politics in America.