The fear that Democrats and others who worry about an erratic and incompetent authoritarian in the White House is that a non-objectionable Democrat may not win the nomination. It is a shame really that Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) — a meat-and-potatoes, center-left Democrat — decided not to run. He’s the kind of guy who does not give independents and soft Republicans reason to flee. He also has some very good advice.

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"I think it's a terrible mistake if the Democratic nominee would publicly support 'Medicare for All,' " said Brown, an unabashed progressive who believes such a policy could scare voters and unwittingly give Trump a political advantage on health care. He urged candidates to focus on improving the Affordable Care Act, while protecting pre-existing conditions. David Pepper, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, takes pains to not take sides in the 2020 primary. But he joins Brown in arguing that Medicare for All — and ultimately abolishing private health insurance plans — could turn off many voters here. “People don’t want to be told they’re going to lose their health care or their health care plan,” Pepper told CNN. “Whoever the candidate is, there are ways to broaden health care without having people feel like their own health care situation will be thrown upside down.”

In other words, the best way to make one a non-generic candidate is to adopt a position on a key issue that is anathema to voters you need to win over, and isn’t much of a help in turning out your own voters.

Who does Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pick up with Medicare-for-all? No one, I would suggest, since she has the market cornered on staunch progressives. If she (or another candidate) were to say let’s build on Obamacare to achieve the same end, she sure isn’t going to turn off African American voters (who overwhelmingly supported President Barack Obama and tend to be moderate in ideology). That kind of “generic” Democratic position is supported by a majority of all voters.

Now, Warren is as smart as they come and surely knows that logically Medicare-for-all would be a loser in the general election, feed into Trump’s “socialists” attacks, make her the issue and thereby lose the advantage of being a non-objectionable Democrat.

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So why did she adopt that stance and evince no leeway to tack back to the center in the general election? I suspect that she expected fellow candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to be much more formidable and figured he would run her over with the health-care issue among progressive voters. In essence, she overestimated the need to stake out such a far-left position to win the nomination, and is now stuck with a position that does precisely what Democrats do not want to do, namely take the focus off Trump.

This very likely explains why South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg went with an ad on Tuesday before the debate chiding Warren and Sanders for embracing Medicare-for-all and why he and former vice president Joe Biden as well as Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) were so aggressive in taking on Warren’s Medicare-for-all. It is not merely as a substantive idea that it would be too expensive (hence her excruciating evasiveness on taxes to pay for it) or, as a political matter, that it wouldn’t get through Congress (though both are true). He is making the point that Medicare-for-all lets Trump, who has sought to take away health-care coverage, off the hook and gives him the argument that Democrats are trying to take away the Affordable Care Act, as well. As Klobuchar put it in the debate on Tuesday, Warren is handing Trump an easy escape hatch on an issue that otherwise would be highly problematic for him. (“I’m tired of hearing, whenever I say these things, oh, it’s Republican talking points. You are making Republican talking points right now in this room by coming out for a plan that’s going to do that.”)

Now, a generic candidate doesn’t have to be a mushy centrist with a mousy personality. No one would attribute that profile to Brown or to Buttigieg. However, there is no need to run straight into the line of fire, giving Trump a way to take down the Democratic nominee. If Warren cannot adequately respond to fellow Democrats, how is she going to withstand the onslaught from Republicans? Clinging to Medicare-for-all is not bold; it is reckless, which is the Trumpian characteristic that Democrats should least want to copy.