The great thing about Warren is she would run a truly populist campaign, focused like a laser on the economy. By far, the economy is the number one issue to voters. And a true populist campaigns, unlike the half-assed ones we have seen from other candidates, has the very real potential to rally the disenfranchised. The people who rarely get a fair shake may see Warren’s very sincere rhetoric, and be stirred to vote by it.
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Yesterday, as Chuck Schumer’s treachery was unfolding upon us, it was Elizabeth Warren leading the good fight.
Warren said that she had asked Democrats in a closed-door luncheon meeting Tuesday about the banking provision, but that her colleagues did not provide a rationale for its inclusion. A spokesman for majority leader Harry Reid had no comment. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat, said he would not speak about the bill until it passes the House.
Would not talk about the bill till it passes. No disputes allowed. I know which side Hillary would have taken, she’d have been fighting under the banner of Goldman Sachs right beside her old accomplice Chuck Schumer.
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And Elizabeth is not afraid to fight (alas, Obama’s weakness)
Look at this exchange regarding shoddy service for those with student loans:
The U.S. Department of Education will pay its oft-criticized student loan servicers more money under new contracts that the White House demanded in response to the companies’ lack of adequate customer service.
An Education Department official acknowledged the bump in pay on Wednesday during a testy exchange with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
“Let me get this straight: You break the law. You don’t follow the rules. You treat the borrowers badly,” Warren said of the loan servicers. “And you all just renegotiated the contracts to make sure that across the portfolio [loan servicers] are going to make a little more money if nothing changes?”
We just saw millions of the 18-39 year olds sit out the election. Warren can reach out to this group – 80% of them did not vote in this election- and give them some hope that somebody fights for them.
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Hey now! Be nice to me, I said I was moving on to the fence for your candidate. 
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So whose candidate is going to sign that thing?
I’m not even sure she couldn’t win; but I am sure I want her to stay where she is. If she didn’t win, her standing might well be diminished (and unlike Republican losers, the media generally consider Dem losers un-persons who become invisible unless they contribute to the “Dems in disarray” storyline). And that’s if she even remained in the Senate. And if she were to win the nomination, the shtstorm of Citizens-United-enabled propaganda thrown at her, dutifully covered “objectively” by the media, would be quite the spectacle. And of course that wouldn’t stop if she happened to be elected. Have we all forgotten Obama’s numbers when he took office, and how within months of utter lying about the stimulus, lies amplified by our esteemed fourth estate (Anderson Cooper literally did a daily segment on the latest GOP-supplied “outrage” in what was an astoundingly fat- and fraud-free piece of legislation) those numbers were sliding? Anyone who thinks Warren would be immune to that treatment is delusional.
I’d clone her if I could; barring that, we need her where she is. She’s truly Teddy’s successor, the lioness of the Senate.
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Oh, please. I still love the guy, but Obama had been very obviously running for president since the day after Kerry lost in 2004. Warren hasn’t quite hit Shermanesque (“if nominated, I will not run, if elected I will not serve”) (or even Johnsonesque) (I will not seek, nor will I accept my party’s nomination for another term as your president"), but she doesn’t really have to. Ever since McGovern people moved the bulk of the delegate selection into the primary races after the 1972 nightmare, anyone who didn’t spend the year before the outgoing incumbent’s last midterm doing all the little things that one does before one begins hinting that one might be about to admit that one is running hasn’t got a chance.
If you want to win, by this point you need to be in a position to simply be able to snap you fingers and a campaign organization just seems to magically crystalize out of a previously unseen supersaturated solution. Sickening though the concept is to contemplate, we’re way past the last minute to begin putting together a campaign that has a chance of winning.
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You know what a lot of these arguments against her running are, though?
People kicking the tires before they commit themselves emotionally.
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Actually, I think we are right about at the moment when all those things start happening. Nobody on either side is particularly well down the road, Hilary being the furthest…and only Paul has named anyone to his actual campaign (no big news, he was basically named to it when he was consigned to McConnell’s campaign last year). Names are merely being mentioned to run state efforts, nobody is being chosen yet.
Moveon.org for example, is already beating the bushes for Elizabeth, raising money. This story is another example of that. What is sort of interesting, is a lot of this stuff is typically down under the radar. But because of her statements saying she isn’t running, its all being done very publicly for all to see.
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I know he is not the world’s best example because he lost, but Rick Perry didn’t announce he was running until August of 2011. He immediately shot to the top of the pack. He didn’t lose because of lack of campaign infrastructure. He lost because of the fact that he is an idiot. Even GOPers could see that.
There is still time to build a strong infrastructure. If she hired someone like Howard Dean and some of the guys who have spent time at DFA, she could have Iowa’s caucuses in a lock in very short time. And as sad as it is, whoever wins Iowa normally is the eventual nominee. Plus, with MoveOn and DFA behind her there already is an infrastructure, if not a formal one. They could more than cover the spin up stage, even if she can’t collaborate with them directly.
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True and everybody loved him then but the realities of governing and deal making have tarnished his image somewhat.
That’s it.
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Obama was tarnished on the left because he started making deals with the right before he had to. He negotiated with himself, especially during the first two years, and yet he still somehow lost. What is great about Warren is she has many of the same ideals as Obama (and more progressive in some ways), with the same tough, no-nonsense, take-no-crap-from-anyone attitude that Hillary is known for. She is to me a perfect combination between Obama and Hillary
You guys are making good arguments and starting to bring me around but I’d advise avoiding throwing Obama’s negotiating skills under the bus to make your point.
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That’s pretty good. I still stand by the arguments I made above regarding why I don’t think she should run, but that’s really pretty good.
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I like her where she is too but @BlueberryTomatoSoup and @chammy are starting to make me believe again. Maybe another wildly popular Democrat is just what the country needs to move the Overton Window to the left again?
This is the most important thing to me. Even if Warren doesn’t get the nomination and Hillary is the nominee, even just having her in the fray will force Hillary to deal with the more progressive side of the party. If she can move Hillary even a little to the left I will see my money donated to a Warren campaign as a huge success. Even if you don’t think she can win (I do), I am sure most people could see the value in her running.
Bonus, Bernie Sanders said he would only enter the race if he didn’t see anyone espousing progressive views in the nominating process. Warren running will keep Sanders out. I love the man, don’t get me wrong, but he is exactly the wrong image we need to win people over the progressive side.
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Maybe…but I don’t know that it’ll have to be Warren. I know BTS and others will hurt themselves laughing at me for this, but I’m not sure that can’t be Hillary. Shut up, hear me out:
The power in the party is so clearly on the populist-progressive side right now, and (healthy, leftish economic) populism is what the country’s yearning for, even if they don’t label it as such. So I think any Dem candidate would have to – I think want to, on the merits and out of self-interest – take up that mantle. Hillary is certainly not stupid, and has already been making statements in that direction. Plus, it’s unfair to forget that progressivism is genuinely part of her DNA: Bill’s folks always hated how she was trying to pull him to thte left (well, until Dick Morris; nevertheless…). She has a legitimately enthusiastic fan base of her own, and did eventually become a hell of a candidate in 2008; too late to save her candidacy, but remember that Obama ended up limping over the finish line once she found her inner Norma Rae. I’m hardly in the “ready for Hillary” camp, and I think others might be able to do it as well; but at the moment at least, I can’t think of anyone, and the calendar is getting late. And I really do think Warren’s irreplaceable in the Senate [edit: especially with a President Hillary, not to mention anyone else]; she can get attention (the media’s and her colleagues’) in a way that Sherrod Brown, say, can’t.
The twin obstacles we’ve been facing for so long now are the media’s total surrender to the GOP and the Dems’ near-total capitulation to that situation rather than fighting it with all their might. If the Dem base/progressives put their energies into pushing the media the way the right has done for decades and pushing the Dems into doing the same, I don’t know that we’d need an extraordinary candidate, just a good one. Lord knows I’m not unalterably opposed to changing my mind about where in my wisdom I think Warren should be; but notwithstanding BTS’s terrific insight, I’m not changing it now.
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Moving that window should be the most important thing for all of us. But I don’t think Warren needs to be in the race for that to happen. (Just responded to Doremus myself on that point.)
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Elizabeth Warren is a graduate of Rutgers Law School. She _taught_ at Harvard Law.
She has said she isn't running for president and I believe her.
I just did some googling, and on Oct 22, 2006 Obama said that he was planning on finishing at least his first term as a Senator before running for president. That statement would of course preclude a 2008 run. The next day he said that he would give it consideration, but wouldn’t make any decisions until after the Nov 2006 election. Of course, the following February he did announce he was running. So really, Elizabeth Warren is only two months or so behind the timing of Obama’s campaign.