Bret: It’s easy to forget that she’s a relative political novice, at least when it comes to national politics. It shows with her repeatedly shifting positions on health care, though I gather she now has a plan. There’s no question she has a serious shot at the nomination. But I have doubts about her electability. She’s ideologically too far left for the sort of constituencies a Democrat will need to win in November 2020. The question is whether she can win back the Obama voters that Democrats lost in 2016 to Trump.

Gail: Maybe we should give everybody until Thanksgiving to nail down a health care plan. The voters must be so confused by now with all the shifting messages. And if Trump would unveil that big Republican reform he was promising a while ago …

Bret: Uh-huh.

Gail: About Kamala Harris. I think she belongs in the first tier of possibilities. There are second-tier people who also deserve watching. Cory Booker is very smart and he can pack a ton of verbiage into a two-minute response. But he’s going to have to project a stronger image.

Bret: Much as I admire Buttigieg, I have a longstanding distrust of Rhodes scholars, and both he and Booker were Rhodes scholars. It just strikes me that they are the sort of people plotting their course to the presidency from the age of 8, hence not to be entirely trusted.

Gail: Well, there are Rhodes burdens, too. Perhaps right now at the humble Catholic school I attended, there are a couple of kids mulling a presidential trajectory. Highly unlikely they’ll make it, but if they fall short and wind up in the State Senate they’ll be pretty pleased at the opportunity to make a contribution. Whereas if there’s a former Rhodes scholar sitting in the next row, he’s drinking heavily and contemplating a new career in investment banking. Perspective is all.

Bret: Fair point.

Gail: Back to the candidates. Bernie Sanders will be in the pack forever but I don’t see any prospect of him winning the nomination. It’s not his positions — it’s that he comes across as a Yelling Guy. Probably because he is.

Bret: Several years ago I shared a stage with Sanders at an awards ceremony at the University of Chicago. We were each expected to make some gracious remarks about our mutual alma mater. He managed to turn his into a little stump speech suggesting the country was in its greatest crisis since the Civil War. Come again? This was late in the Obama presidency. It just reminded me that he’s the sort of guy who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. In other words, the definition of a fanatic.