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[OFFICIAL] Elizabeth Warren for President thread

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Os Trigonum, Jan 1, 2019.

  1. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    in honor of the Democratic front-runner as of today. Let's track her progress until November 2020 in this thread.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...s-chances-broken-down/?utm_term=.c4894a15d147

    Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 chances, broken down

    By Aaron Blake
    December 31, 2018
    The 2020 presidential race just lurched to a start — on the last day of 2018.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday announced an exploratory committee — a step that almost always leads to an actual campaign (and for which there is no real legal distinction). The announcement features a biographical video and a honed message that makes clear plenty of preparation has already been put into getting a campaign off the ground.

    A couple of other Democrats have launched campaigns (Rep. John Delaney of Maryland) and exploratory committees (former Housing and Urban Development secretary Julián Castro). but Warren is the first entrant who can credibly be described as a front-runner. In fact, I recently pegged her as the No. 1 most likely 2020 Democratic presidential nominee.

    Just how much of a front-runner, though? Let’s break it down.

    Her populism
    Warren is perhaps one of two senators most associated with a form of liberal populism that is clearly ascendant in the Democratic Party. While Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) rose to prominence in the 2016 presidential race with a message decrying a “rigged” system, Warren has been using such language for years. In the first TV ad of her 2012 Senate campaign, in November 2011, she said, “Washington is still rigged for the big guys, and that’s got to change.”

    And her efforts to crack down on corporate malfeasance date to before that campaign. As a Harvard University professor, she laid the groundwork for what became the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

    Put plainly: If Democratic voters are looking for the kind of candidacy Sanders was selling in 2016, Warren has about as good a claim on it as Sanders does — if not better. And as Sanders and President Trump showed in the 2016 primaries, populism has broad appeal, when packaged correctly. That’s why I had her at No. 1; there is so much upside.

    But it’s not clear there is the same populist desire on the Democratic side as the GOP side. Sanders performed well even in defeat, yes, but part of that undoubtedly owed to Hillary Clinton’s weakness as the Democratic front-runner. And an October 2016 University of Maryland poll actually showed significantly fewer Democratic voters strongly agreed that the system was “rigged” against them (16 percent) than Republicans (35 percent) and independents (43 percent). That may have been due to Trump’s focus on that message, but it’s worth entertaining the idea that Sanders’s success wasn’t all about a liberal yearning for a populist uprising.

    There is also the possibility that Warren will be fighting for the same voters as Sanders, who is considered a likely 2020 candidate and would undoubtedly be one of a handful of front-runners — if not the front-runner. The race will undoubtedly be very crowded, scrambling the idea of any one candidate monopolizing a “lane.” But the likely battle between Warren and Sanders for the 2016 Sanders voters is a major subplot involving a tranche of voters who could prove decisive.

    Black voters
    While the size of the populist tranche is up for debate, there is no disputing the huge influence of black voters on the Democratic nominating contest. And that’s an area where Warren, like Sanders, could suffer.

    As the Republican Party has become whiter and more male in recent years, the Democratic Party has trended in the opposite direction. In 2016, about one-quarter of all Democratic primary voters were black, and their strong preference for Clinton was a big reason she secured the nomination. Fully 78 percent of black voters supported her in states where we had exit polls available, and she won virtually every state with a large black population. That’s an especially big deal given that Southern states feature heavily on Super Tuesday.

    But as The Washington Post’s Annie Linskey reported this weekend, while Warren has tried to make inroads with black voters — including being one of the first white politicians to endorse the Black Lives Matter movement — there’s little evidence of progress. Few black leaders came to her defense when she recently released a DNA test showing a distant Native American relative. She also faces the prospect of two black Democratic senators — California’s Kamala D. Harris and New Jersey’s Cory Booker — running against her.

    From Linskey, a former Boston Globe reporter who has covered Warren for years:

    Age
    One of the biggest questions for Democrats in 2020 — as it has been since the 2018 election — is whether there will be a call for generational change. Like their congressional leadership, the Democrats’ crop of 2020 front-runners skews older. And while Warren isn’t a septuagenarian like Sanders, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg or Hillary Clinton, she will be come June 2019. If the party demands youth as a counterbalance to the oldest newly elected president in history, Warren isn’t it.

    But there are a couple mitigating factors. One is that Warren has been on the political scene for less than a decade — which will help her fight back against the idea that she’s part of an entrenched political class that requires uprooting. Second is that she doesn’t really project “senior citizen.” Most voters will likely be surprised to learn she’s only eight years younger than Sanders.
     
  2. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    conclusion:

    The DNA test — and divisiveness
    To the extent primary voters are strategic and just want someone who can beat Trump, Warren might not be it. While she quickly became a liberal star when she joined the Senate, there is a real argument to be made that a Harvard professor from Massachusetts is not what the party needs in the 2020 general election.

    (It’s worth noting here that Warren is originally from Oklahoma and was a registered Republican until her 40s.)

    That’s in large part because she’s such a divisive figure — the kind of bogeywoman Trump thrives on attacking. Trump seems to relish feuding with Warren just like he relished feuding with Clinton. And a divided electorate is how Trump won in the first place, despite only 4 in 10 Americans liking him.

    Warren also clearly has some liabilities, starting first and foremost with that DNA test. It was clearly an attempt to put to rest an old controversy that had dogged her dating back to her 2012 campaign, when her past claim to Native American heritage was cast by Republicans as an attempt to obtain unwarranted Affirmative Action.

    That Warren finally decided to get a DNA test and release it was an unmistakable sign of her 2020 intentions, but it also went poorly. The Cherokee Nation’s secretary of state called it “inappropriate and wrong” and said it made “a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven. Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.”

    A Quinnipiac University poll earlier this month showed independents had a negative impression of Warren, with 41 percent viewing her unfavorably and 24 percent viewing her favorably.

    None of this is to say she couldn’t win — and there is an argument that you fight a fire-breather with a fire-breather. But Democrats saw in 2016 what can happen when 6 in 10 Americans dislike their nominee, and that’s a distinct possibility with Warren in 2020.​
     
  3. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    Elizabeth Warren's "Electability Dilemma"

    http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/elizabeth-warren-and-democrats-2020-electability-dilemma.html

    Elizabeth Warren and the Democrats’ 2020 Electability Dilemma
    By Ed Kilgore

    Senator Elizabeth Warren’s semi-announcement of a much-expected 2020 presidential candidacy represents something of a formal opening of the presidential cycle just as 2018 ends. And with it came some familiar fretting about Warren’s popularity in Massachusetts and nationally, and how it affects her viability when a potentially vast presidential field is winnowed. CNN’s Harry Enten, for one, isn’t impressed by Warren:



    Explanations of Warren’s pallid poll numbers range from her lack of engagement of national political media to her allegedly “too liberal” ideology to borderline sexist concerns about her “schoolmarmish” or “standoffish” persona, and fears of blatantly sexist public rejection of women – especially older women – as presidential prospects. Most recently, her struggle to overcome the idiotic taunts from Trump and other conservatives over her claim to a minor Native American heritage seems to typify her predicament. Even though she is by all accounts a brilliant woman with a unique capacity to understand and articulate the plight of the middle class in an era of great corporate power and official corruption, and may be ideally positioned to unite her party, her standing has been deteriorating. Politico sums it all upas Warren’s “battle” with the “ghosts of Hillary Clinton” – the supremely qualified yet “standoffish” older woman who lost to Trump in 2016 after he subjected her to smears and slurs far worse than “Pocohontas.”

    The comparisons to Clinton, however, raise an interesting quandary for Democrats: retroactive judgments notwithstanding, Clinton looked entirely “electable” against Trump right up to Election Day. In RealClearPolitics’ 2016 general election polling averages, Clinton led Trump from beginning to end on all but six days (three in May and three in July). In polls that included minor candidates, Clinton led throughout except for two days in July. And lest we forget, Clinton won the actual popular vote by 2.1 percent. So she was eminently “electable” – but nonetheless wasn’t elected.

    How, then, are Democrats to adjudge “electability” going into 2020? Do they stick with conventional polls, figuring that Trump cannot twice draw an inside straight by winning the Electoral College while losing the popular vote? Do they focus obsessively on potential nominees’ Electoral College potential, recognizing that individual state polls are generally less reliablethan national surveys? Or do they look at candidates’ favorability ratios, since HRC’s were relatively poor? Even then, Clinton’s 47/52 favorable/unfavorable rating (according to the final Gallup survey) was a lot better than Trump’s 36/61. And that was after months of savage pounding of Clinton by the Trump campaign and both conservative and mainstream media. Who’s to say the same thing couldn’t happen again in 2020?

    The sui generis character of the Trump Era led my colleague Eric Levitz last summer, after a careful assessment of “electability” data in 2016 and 2020, to suggest we’re in uncharted territory in which claims of a superior ability to beat the 45th president should be taken with a shaker of salt.

    Does that mean Democrats should ignore public opinion data altogether? No, of course not. It’s entirely possible that Trump’s well-established unpopularity – particularly if the economy slows or stalls – means that anycredible Democrats could take him down in 2020, when he will be the symbol of the chronically despised status quo in Washington rather than a sort of Scourge of God sent to slay the bureaucrats and drain the swamp. And that’s without even knowing what Robert Mueller or House Democratic hearings might disclose about collusion or corruption in Trump’s inner circle.

    But perhaps more to the point, Democrats won’t be able to stop thinking about “electability” as the hour of decision approaches. For most Democrats, the prospect of a second Trump term in the White House is an existential threat, whereas in 2016 his initial election was a bad but implausible nightmare. A second Trump term would not only drive progressives wild with frustration and fear: it could tangibly mean enough additional Supreme Court decisions to guarantee an end to abortion rights and other cherished constitutional protections, along with a federal judiciary skewed to the right for a generation and enough backsliding on critical challenges like inequality and climate change to darken every American’s future.

    So if early polls show one potential Democratic nominee cleaning Trump’s clock while another trails him, the knowledge that polls can change between the primaries and November – and have in any event gotten Trump’s standing tragically wrong in the past – may not matter that much. Levitz is right that Democrats should stop tormenting themselves with hypotheticals and “simply vote for whichever candidate they would most like to be president.” But in the end “electability” is going to be an important factor, because when it comes to ending the Trump presidency in 2020, nothing will be left to fickle chance.


     
  4. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    Elizabeth Warren's struggle with black voters

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...paign-dna-test-boston-democrats-a8704541.html

    Elizabeth Warren struggles to win support from black voters ahead of potential 2020 presidential campaign
    Massachusetts senator has limited support despite efforts to build links with black leaders, strategists say

    Annie Linskey
    2 days ago

    Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) worked for years to build relationships with black leaders, an effort that included becoming one of the first white politicians to endorse the Black Lives Matter movement. But when she got in trouble recently for releasing a DNA test that struck many as racially insensitive, few black leaders rushed to her defence.

    The episode suggests a lack of depth in the alliances she has forged among non-white activists and influencers, a group she must lean on to vouch for her should she go ahead with a presidential bid.

    It is difficult to see a path to nomination without some support from black voters. More than 8 in 10 African Americans identify with or lean towards the Democratic Party, and on average, 25 per cent of the primary voters and caucus-goers in the last presidential c

    ontest were black. In 2016, African American voters made up 62 per cent of the electorate in South Carolina, a key early-voting state. They also make up a large share of the vote in southern states that cast ballots on Super Tuesday or later in the calendar.

    In 2016, black voters were essential to Hillary Clinton's nomination, with 78 per cent siding with her over Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) (in primaries and caucuses where exit polls were available). That task will be far more difficult for Ms Warren and any other white Democratic candidates in 2020 because of the potential presence of at least two black senators, Kamala D Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

    Ms Warren has been travelling the country to speak in front of black audiences, added black staffers in key roles, and cultivating key black leaders. But there remains an awkwardness she has not quite addressed, according to strategists who focus on the demographic.

    The reasons include her message of economic populism that can clang in the community, her ties to Boston and her DNA test, which dredged up ugly reminders about defining ethnicity.

    "African Americans are a strong constituency in the Democratic Party, in fact the most loyal voting bloc in the party, and she is not so well-known or connected - that I know of," said Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina-based Democratic operative who advised Ms Clinton's 2016 campaign in the state.

    "We want to feel appreciated. We want to feel courted," he said, noting he has heard from a number of potential Democratic candidates, but not from Ms Warren. "You can't come in as a fly-by-night candidate and expect to garner support just because you show up."

    The economic populist agenda Ms Warren champions does not always connect with black communities because it can be seen as de-emphasising racism as a root problem for inequality, black leaders say, even though Ms Warren has gone out of her way to underscore the impact of racism among communities of colour.

    Adding to this disconnect is Ms Warren's geographic base. Her home state of Massachusetts is largely white; its capital and the probable area for Ms Warren's campaign headquarters is Boston, a city whose long history of racial strife makes it shorthand for racism among many blacks.

    As one Democratic congressional staffer put it, the city of Boston is seen as "the Mississippi of the north".

    Another difficulty stems from Ms Warren's fraught relationship with her racial identity. As a politician, she has stumbled over a claim made during parts of her earlier teaching career that she was a Native American.

    In response to gibes from President Trump, who belittled her as "Pocahontas", she recently released a DNA test that showed she may have a distant Native American relative. Minority groups responded by criticising Ms Warren as seeking to define ethnic identity by a blood test.

    Few black leaders defended Ms Warren after she made the test public in October. Although, former interim Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile tried to pivot away when asked about it: "You want to know what's in her DNA?" she said on MSNBC. "A willingness to fight for our democracy."

    Others have been far blunter.

    "She would have done much better not to address Trump's racism," said Aimee Allison, the executive director of She the People, a group that supports non-white female candidates.

    Ms Allison's group released a straw poll of black female activists and strategists earlier in December that illustrated how much work Ms Warren has ahead of her among those influential leaders. Just 22 per cent picked Ms Warren as one of their top three candidates.

    Among those who finished ahead of Ms Warren were potential black candidates Ms Harris and Mr Booker. But Ms Warren was also behind two possible contenders who are white: One was Texas Representative Beto O'Rourke, who during his unsuccessful US Senate campaign offered a full-throated and later viral defence of NFL players who take a knee during the national anthem. The second was Joe Biden, vice president to the nation's first black commander-in-chief.
    much more at the link

     
  5. ipaman

    ipaman Contributing Member

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    Love Warren and would be a dignified choice (unlike Hilary) to make history but.... she's too old. Sorry but it's true.
     
  6. CCorn

    CCorn Member

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    I see the other old person, Biden, getting the nod over her.
     
  7. DaDakota

    DaDakota If you want to know, just ask!

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    Not a good choice - unless Beto is attached as a VP.....well Beto should be VP for just about any of them, Biden, Berie etc.

    DD
     
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  8. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Contributing Member

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    I like Warren's causes but she's too old and unrelateable to middle america. The whole "I can speak well enough to tell you how I can save you from yourselves and also protect against mean big banks" doesn't work in Dumpsville, Tennessee. They don't teach words like predatory lending through Readin' Ritin' Rithmoticks'. Sounds liberal and atheistic.

    Rhodes Scholar Bubba and Fake Texan Yale/Harvard graduate Dub**** Jr. understood that well enough.

    P.S. your [official] thread is not doing wut its supposed to do:(
     
  9. FranchiseBlade

    FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
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    I like Warren's politics, smarts, and integrity probably more than any of the other candidates. I don't want to have to be reminded that America cares about her DNA test more than actual issues because that will be brought up over an over. I don't think she will excite new voters to come out at a level to make a real difference.

    Politically, she probably isn't the best choice. As far as being capable, prepared and having the focus to do the job, I think she's miles ahead of candidates from either party. I choose that over who I think has the best chance to win. The reason is that we are all just guessing that she won't motivate people and pull in voters. Sure the guess is an educated one, but you never know. If we ever want a candidate who isn't just the supposed most likely candidate then we all should stop thinking in those terms. I'm pulling for her.
     
  10. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Contributing Member
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    She can't lead this country.
     
  11. dachuda86

    dachuda86 Member

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    Why would Beto want to play second fiddle? Dude can run by himself. Not that I think he will win, but he stands a better chance than the old people. The key is to not give people enough time to destroy you. Announcing too early is usually a death sentence for momentum.
     
  12. ThatBoyNick

    ThatBoyNick Member

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    Not sure about this. Beto is getting backlash amongst young progressives, and they don't like Warren too much either.

    To me, Bernie brings everything Warren does to the table and more. Bernies still the favorite over Warren, definitely over Beto amongst the progressive side of the Democrats.
     
  13. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    Warren simply cannot overcome being a woman.
    I just don't think the country is ready for it
    but
    I did not think the country was ready for Obama either
    the backlash of Trump shows . . . the country only thought it was ready

    What is the MORE that Bernie brings? Being that he is even older than her.

    Beto needs national experience so VP suits him better
    But he could be the Lightning in a bottle candidate

    Rocket River
     
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  14. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Contributing Member

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    Bernie is a great "big talker". He just kinda sucks at everything else. He's been pretty useless as a Senator. Not many accomplishments legislatively.

    His views have little pragmatism with little nuance.

    Warren is Bernie Sanders in terms of ideology with nuance and pragmatism. She's actually gotten **** done as a senator. She actually has detailed legislation plans on how to mitigate corporate lobbying. She actually has done dicernable action in terms of banking regulation.

    She's a much better candidate that Bernie.

    Too bad our electorate loves simple problems to complex issues which is perfect for Bernie.

    I swear people who preffer Bernie over Warren have never actually sat down and looked at the legislative action of the two and compared them. It's so easy to compare them one to one also as they are both prominent senators.
     
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  15. mtbrays

    mtbrays Contributing Member
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    I don't buy too much into the "backlash" against Beto among the Bernie cohort. Those people wouldn't know winning politics if it bit them in the butt. You can't run in Texas and not accept individual contributions from one of the state's largest employers.
     
  16. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    It is the EYE TEST
    Bernie simply looks the part better

    Rocket River
     
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  17. mtbrays

    mtbrays Contributing Member
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    I don't buy too much into the "backlash" against Beto among the Bernie cohort. Those people wouldn't know winning politics if it bit them in the butt. You can't run in Texas and not accept individual contributions from one of the state's largest employers.
     
  18. dobro1229

    dobro1229 Contributing Member

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    The media would do a great job of suppressing the vote with Warren and a few others. For whatever reason, like with Hillary, they'll blow up anything they can into a scandal. Some really solid Dems just cannot win with the media. She's one of them, and while I think she's really solid, she'll suppress the vote we need to win.

    Say this about the GOP, but they do an amazing job at propaganda. They will make Warren's native American heritage a talking point you hear about 100X a day, and the media will fall in to the trap like they do every time. The GOP machine is trying that with the Beto (white guy trying to sound Hispanic) name thing, but so far, glad the media hasn't really been playing that game with Beto.

    Mentioned this in one the other 2000 Os Trig threads, but I hope her running means Bernie doesn't need to run now. There's no reason for him to run if she's a serious candidate.
     
    #18 dobro1229, Jan 2, 2019
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2019
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  19. dobro1229

    dobro1229 Contributing Member

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    Couldn't agree with this more. The sad part is Bernie knows this himself, so if he still runs after Warren already entering the race like she is, it says alot about him. He should be campaigning for her already and working with her on simplifying her messaging which is what he is good at.
     
  20. No Worries

    No Worries Contributing Member

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    This.

    The Dems should be looking for someone that is inspirational and can motivate Middle America and Purple State voters to show up for him/her at the voting booth.

    Middle America Candidates:

    Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota)
    Steve Bullock (Montana)
    Sherrod Brown (Ohio)
    John Hickenlooper (Colorado)
    Mitch Landrieu (Louisiana)
     
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