from Uber Crashes the Democratic Party [1] by William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal (gated):
Marco Rubio [2], who last year sided with Uber over regulators in Miami, accused Mrs. Clinton of trying to “regulate 21st-century industries with 20th-century ideas.” Jeb Bush [3] pointedly traveled by Uber for his visit to Thumbtack, a Silicon Valley startup. Meanwhile, Rand Paul [4] says he would like our government to adopt the Uber model—more information and customer ratings—while Ted Cruz [5] says his campaign will be as disruptive of politics-as-usual as Uber is of old business models.
Perhaps even more important, innovation by its nature challenges the inner-Elizabeth Warren in so much of today’s Democratic Party. However open Democrats may be to revolutionary new definitions of marriage, the thought that there might be some nonsexual for-profit contracts between consenting adults keeps progressives up at night. So when a business like Uber’s prospers because its model doesn’t quite fit the established regulatory categories, the Democratic response is almost always to try to pound these new square pegs into the government’s old round holes.
But is Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick any different? Even as he struggles with regulators taking aim at his business model, Mr. Kalanick has spoken up in favor of ObamaCare. During a visit to New York last November, he enthused that ObamaCare was “huge” for companies like his, on the grounds that the individual market has democratized benefits such as health care.
That’s true insofar as it means he doesn’t have to provide it for his drivers. But the reality is that ObamaCare is to health what taxi commissions are to transportation. And if Uber’s co-founder can’t see the difference, maybe he deserves the Bill de Blasios and Hillary Clintons coming after him.