Elizabeth Warren 2020 campaign megathread

[Mr. Smith]

The problem is that she took the bait.

You don't defeat Trump by taking his bait and hoping you can sling it back, you defeat him by making him collapse on himself either by his own sword or by feeding him bait.

If she hadn't done that stunt with the test, she would have been my pick.

[Mr. Smith]

That's a good video, and I'll be happy to vote for her in November 2020 if she's somehow the nominee, but let's get real - she's an awful candidate (at least against Trump) and one of the most likely Democrats to blow what should be a very winnable election.

Just out of curiosity, which states exactly do you think she would underperform in vs. say, Kamala Harris.

Arizona for one, and likely Florida as well.

[Mr. Smith]

I'm a liberal so I don't hate the left wing. You make no sense.

Someone doesn't know what "liberal" means.

Yeah and that someone is you.

By any standard definition, liberals are slightly left of centre at best and right-wing at worst, unless you work for Fox News and use "liberalism" as a catch all for any party to the right of Republicans.

Any thoroughly left-wing movement, be it democratic or revolutionary socialism, anarchism, left libertarianism, etc., is opposed to liberalism in all its forms, and liberals don't usually think highly of them either

What are you even talking about?

NF, I think the disconnect here is that Atlas generally uses liberal in the more international sense (radical centrism), rather than the American sense.

In fairness, even the American sense is a standard that is failed by the mainstream American left from a certain POV. Which, in the end, does come up as centrist.

It's especially the case when you look at the discourse of healthcare compared pretty much everywhere else in the developed world.

[Mr. Smith]

I may be lending Shadows too much credibility with this, but he may be bringing up that Warren would face possibly even more difficulty than Sanders in passing her agenda.

Why would Republicans (or Democrats quite frankly) work with Sanders any better than Warren? LOL.

Because Sanders exuding excitement in the base would scare the moderates into doing something useful in ways not done since LBJ.

And Sanders can run the same Madman gambit Nixon and Trump have to force the window shift on the GOP.

Warren's response to the whole DNA Test thing proves that McConnell would have a field day.

[Mr. Smith]

The media focused on Clinton’s emails, false stories about the Clinton Foundation, and perpetuating the narrative that she was dying because she caught pneumonia.

Meanwhile, whether good or bad focusing on Trump’s comments on Mexicans and Muslims was literally elevating his policy positions and reinforcing them over and over again.

So the media is responisble for everything that went wrong with Hillary's campaign?

You have to be in opposition to everything I say? I just made a statement about how the media neglected Hillary’s policy positions and elevated Trump’s. Nothing more nothing less.

You have to insist that Hillary's loss was not her fault at all? All I'm saying is that Hillary ran a campaign based on platitudes, as has been documented above. People aren't that stupid.

Say what you want about the Clinton campaign, but it was effective and she was clearly winning right up until Comey intervened in the last few days prior to the election. Who knows?  Maybe a different strategy would have been more effective, but the strategy her campaign adapted was a winning one until outside forces scrambled the vote at the last minute.

She wasn't winning. She was sparring to stay ahead, usually waiting for Trump to put foot-into-mouth and blow his leads granted to him by his spinning of the media.

It was a coin-flip, and Comey's timing simply landed the coin in Trump's favor. One more week would've flipped Arizona and The Southeast. A week before Comey likely would've meant the Midwest held. A week before P&*(syghazi would've likely landed the same result.

And in the end, the Senate and House were thrown under the bus with her strategy, which would've made Hillary a Bush Sr-esque lame-duck anyway.

[Mr. Smith]

Being 100… I’m already asking myself whether Warren’s campaign is over? 

First, Warren is not like Clinton for the simple fact that her finance director left the campaign as a result of Warren’s decision to swear off soliciting money from wealthy donors during the primaries.  Clinton would never have sworn off money for any reason.  Despite her principles, Warren raised $6 million in the first quarter of 2019, which is lower than Bernie’s $18 million and Kamala Harris’ $12 million.  Reports indicate that party insiders aren’t willing to help her anymore, which means she can’t rely on the Democrat establishment for any support.  She doesn’t seem to want it.  However, she isn’t the only outsider candidate, as Bernie certainly owns that title.  So how does she create separation by defining her campaign and distinguishing herself from the field?

I’ve thought long and hard about possible scenarios for a Warren nomination.  I simply don’t have an answer.  There’s no way.  I’m giving her a non-zero chance.  She appeals to policy wonks, but there are plenty of policy wonks running.  It feels like her campaign can be summed up in a few short sentences: “Please like me. I have policies.  I hate Trump.  I hate him more than anyone in the world.  I’ll give you anything you want if you’ll just be my friend.  Do you want money?  Listen.  I’m desperate.  Don’t make me beg.  Okay.  I’ll beg.”

She simply has no appeal, and she doesn’t have a voter base. She’s not going to win old people.  That demographic belongs to Biden and Sanders.  She doesn’t poll well with people that no her or in her own state. The young, old, women, men, black, white, Hispanic, etc., etc., etc., don’t like her, and at best, consider her Ralph Nader.  You know.  The presidential candidate that most closely resembled air.  You knew he was there but you couldn’t see or hear him.  Her negatives are too high, and they are rising in the Democratic primary.  She’s not even the second choice of any of the candidates.  I’m told by people that she will do well in the debates, but I’ve never been impressed with her persuasive skills.  The number one issue for Democrats is “winning” and she doesn’t have the personality to assure anyone of a win.

Moreover, she’s not even comfortable in her own skin, and she’s desperate for the approval of every political-identity group.  I think we can skip over the whole Native American thing, and lying about submitting forms in which she indicated that she was a Native American.  Let’s get to the part where she promised African Americans reparations.  Do I have to say any more?  She is trying to go so far left for Democrat votes that she has essentially become unappealing to one of her strongest potential voters – old Democrats. 

Therefore, it’s over.  She might go all the way with it, but it’s done.  I’m honestly trying to find one thing that could salvage her campaign, but there isn’t anything concrete.  Whether its policy or platitudes, she doesn’t have the qualities to create that atmosphere.  That memorable moment.  She just doesn’t have “it”. 

Huh,a nearly spot on post...no kidding.

[Mr. Smith]

Wow. Just one week difference!

[Mr. Smith]

Warren needs to drop out already. I respect her, she would make a good first female president but right now she's dividing the progressive vote and its making Joe "Too close for comfort" Biden the likely nominee.

Bernie's the one in third place, so why don't you go knocking on that ego's big head for an epiphany instead, huh?

Warren comes off as an NE elite, Bernie Sanders has more appeal with non-college educated whites than Warren does. Warren couldn't stand a chance against Trump while Bernie could easily wipe the floor against Trump.

Counterpoint: Trump didn't stand a chance against Hillary and The Silent Majority in the big box store burbs. Look how that turned out!

[Mr. Smith]

She making a lot smart moves lately. I still don't think I want to roll the dice with her. She still has not found a way to handle her DNA debacle. I still think it be a mistake to nominate her. She is already tainted like Hillary. I'm worried we are making the same mistake.

OMG! Nobody cares about that DNA stuff. Damn.

Hillary's emails, "health concerns," "basket of deplorables," etc... all nothingburgers that unfortunately hurt her anyway. Anything stupid like the DNA story could be just enough of a headache to really hurt Warren in the general. No matter how many times Warren says "it never helped my career, it was just an honest mistake," people won't forget it.

The “issue” is already uncared for in the media and isolated from her campaign compared to other challengers. The fact of the matter is that as long as she learns from the decision, which it seems like she did, she’ll do fine against Teflon Don.

It's uncared for right now, and only because she's not the odds-on-favorite to win the primaries in the first place.

But it, or some other nothingburger will show up once it's the General...and the media will play that for it's worth just to keep the race even.

[Mr. Smith]

She making a lot smart moves lately. I still don't think I want to roll the dice with her. She still has not found a way to handle her DNA debacle. I still think it be a mistake to nominate her. She is already tainted like Hillary. I'm worried we are making the same mistake.

OMG! Nobody cares about that DNA stuff. Damn.

Hillary's emails, "health concerns," "basket of deplorables," etc... all nothingburgers that unfortunately hurt her anyway. Anything stupid like the DNA story could be just enough of a headache to really hurt Warren in the general. No matter how many times Warren says "it never helped my career, it was just an honest mistake," people won't forget it.

The “issue” is already uncared for in the media and isolated from her campaign compared to other challengers. The fact of the matter is that as long as she learns from the decision, which it seems like she did, she’ll do fine against Teflon Don.

This. We’ve all moved on. She’s the policy candidate. Nobody in the MSM has referenced that DNA mess for months. Even when the guy on The Breakfast Club tried to embarrass her- it was in the news for like.... a few hours. The fact that people think that is more problematic than Biden’s history is indicative of how biased politics and the media are.

I dont think Charlamagne tried to embarass her. He actually flat out did and her response was horrible. If you think this won't be an issue with African Americans, when it's addressed during debates or in a general election, you are crazy.

Why would African Americans be particularly concerned with the DNA story? LOL. If there are indigenous people that are hesitant to Warren and want more from her on that, that is completely reasonable but she has done a ton to rectify it, people are moving on, and the fear mongers trying to force Warren out with this non-story need to get over it.

https://americanindian.si.edu/exhibitions/indivisible/cherokee_freedmen.html

[Mr. Smith]

My point is that if she calls out Biden for his record, he could just say, "well at least I was a Democrat." She needs to preempt that by owning up to it.

Dawg she was a private citizen then. She reevaluated and changed course. There's nothing really to apologize for.

Past party affiliation is a stupid rabbit hole to go down considering both the current president and Vice President are former Democrats, Trump having been a very liberal Democrat only a couple of years before he ran for president

Is there a good running mate that Warren can pick so that the 2 tickets were 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans for the 1980 election, but opposite ways?

I don't think Trump voted for Carter. He was quite the Republican in the 80's and stayed that way until the late '90's when things got weird.

[Mr. Smith]

Can we make this about Elizabeth Warren's campaign again and take the pissing and moaning about college to general discussion?

Thank you! I'm overwhelmed with responses from something that I didn't think warranted it.

You said that better-educated people are generally more left-wing. I wanted to clarify that there's no evidence to back that up. One's degree of political involvement does increase the more education they have, but they don't sort disproportionately towards the Democratic Party.

But...data literally shows that college-educated voters tend to be more Democratic...

The divide you're referring to emerged only in 2016. I was surprised about this too, but up until 2015 the parties were basically neck-and-neck among people with high school degrees and college degrees. Republicans actually used to have an edge among the college-educated. So the claim that "education is anathema to conservative values" is pretty dubious in my opinion.

Not that dubious, the trend was building for awhile. I mean, even William Buckley himself had to point out where things were going.

[Mr. Smith]

It'd be more useful to convince Spain to do what Sweden did to Masculine/Feminine than use something like "Latinx".

[Mr. Smith]

It'd be more useful to convince Spain to do what Sweden did to Masculine/Feminine than use something like "Latinx".

What did we do?

Common/Neuter [or some other sort of classification] instead of Masc./Fem.

There'd be much less stigma if those endings were no longer "womanly" or "manly"

[Mr. Smith]

I’m guessing that Warren will be the nominee.  Somewhat of a hunch, but she just seems like such a compromise between the establishment and the progressive wings, and the Hillary folks seem to like her.  Warren is also running a good campaign, and while she’s kinda old, she’s considerably less so than Biden or Sanders.

Had hope that we could get the old white dudes out early and have a Harris v. Warren primary but Harris will just never penetrate Biden's hold on black voters. It's just not going to happen. If the busing thing couldn't do it NOTHING will. The electorate just doesn't have time for petty attacks when they are not far apart on policy. Warren v. Biden makes sense because Warren is more palatable to white women than Bernie, and she can draw a clear ideological difference without getting too nasty.

Warren is looking like the only one who can build the coalition to block Biden.

The busing thing was the wrong approach if Harris wants to make inroads with black voters.  She needs to challenge Biden on his presumed "electability"--argue that's he too old, he's been in Washington too long, and he's compromised himself by cashing in with speaking fees and other shady dealings.  That's the kind of attack that will resonate with black voters--they don't give a damn about busing.

Biden’s time in Washington is a strength with black Democratic primary voters. Everything you listed was stuff that Bernie hit Hillary with. She still won black Southerners 85-15. Harris is toast.

Devil's Advocate: Sanders didn't really contest The South or make the same effort. Harris is doing her homework in that area.

[Mr. Smith]

One of the key differences between Sanders and Warren is that Sanders is fundamentally a savior populist.  Bernie wants you to believe that:

• Everyone who's woke supports his policies, and those who oppose him have been hoodwinked by corporate lies
• All other politicians are 100% corrupt, bought and paid for by corporations.  That's why they won't support his policies.
• The Democratic Party and all its affiliates are 100% enslaved to corporations, that is why they won't rig the primary for him and make him king of the party.
• Any policies other than his own will doom the country... no, the planet! to death and destruction, misery and poverty.
• He is the only one who can rescue is, because he is the only pure, non-corrupted politician in America.
• Any tactics, no matter how dishonest or vicious, or how ostensibly friendly the targets, are therefore justified in the name of rescuing the planet.  The stakes are just too high.

Warren doesn't do most of this crap.

She does tend to demonize opposing policies rather than debating on their merits, but it doesn't rise to the level of Bernie "Joe Biden's health care plan is equivalent to 13 9/11s" Sanders.

She doesn't attack the Democratic Party or other Democrats.

She doesn't accuse every other politician of being bought-and-paid-for by big corporations.  There's no "Paid for by you (not the millionaires and billionaires)" on her ads.

She doesn't claim, like Trump, to be the only one who can rescue America.  There's no savior complex with Warren.

She doesn't use absurd hyperbole to exacerbate the problems and solutions she's discussing, which means real discussions can be had rather than every disagreement becoming "why do you want 50 million people to die."

She doesn't staff her campaign with extreme Twitter aggros and Jill Stein flunkies like Nina Turner, David Sirota, Briahna Gray, or Winnie Wong, or recruit as surrogates lunatics like Linda Sarsour, Susan Sarandon, RoseAnn DeMoro, Killer Mike, Cornel West, Shaun King, everyone in the TYT Network, and all these horseshoe-theory conspiracy wackos like Jimmy Dore.  That is to say, she isn't proudly building a movement of the absolute worst people calling themselves leftists.

She's just running for president, not trying to start a personality cult where supporting her becomes your entire identity and you envelop yourself in a world of disingenuous alternative media sources that are openly biased in her favor and sh*t all over everyone else.

She isn't going to start a Super PAC to recruit primary opponents for other Dem senators if she loses.

Is it any wonder Democratic Party insiders prefer her over Bernie?

And no, having a preference for a candidate is not "rigging."  You have to actually take an action to rig the primary for it to be "rigging."  Otherwise it's just an "endorsement."

I am a Bernie 2016 voter who switched to vote for Trump for exactly the reasons you listed above. You see, as sjoyce said, the Democratic party is largely bankrolled by millionaires and billionaires. This is despite saying they are a "grassroots movement" and funded by small donors.

This is outright unacceptable for me - I joined the Republican party in protest to teach the Democrats a lesson. They deserve to lose for as long as they pull this kind of stuff. If the Democrats can't see the light and become a truly progressive party in all aspects, they aren't worthy of my vote.

So... you decided to vote Republican? That makes total sense

There's a lot of sh*( that you can gain with a party that seems to believe in nothing but f*(king libs and cutting taxes if you play the cards right. Look at how Trump advocated for single-payer healthcare to thunderous applause in 2015!

In contrast, the current Democratic Party, at least since Watergate is obsessed with norms [of which anti-racism just happens to be one] and appeasing the concern troll media...and otherwise believes in nothing....they can't even agree on f*(king the "f&*k the libs" crowd!  

[Mr. Smith]

Trumpworld: Scared of everything that aren't scared of their own shadow. News at 11.

[Mr. Smith]

4- She will not get the minority turnout she needs to win

She will get the same black turnout that Gore, Kerry, and Hillary did. She just needs to maximize their influence where our vote is decisive (MI, WI, PA, NC, GA, FL)

No Democrat will get Obama-esque turnout until a prominent black Democrat like Abrams runs for POTUS.

If it weren't for Biden, either Booker or Harris likely would've guaranteed it. Instead he allowed them a "real safe pick".

[Mr. Smith]

None of this has anything to do with what I said.  I support Warren's work in the CFPB and in general going after bad financial products and shady credit, rating and auditing practices like those that led to the great recession.  But we got that with the Obama-Biden administration, and things have been pretty solid since.  You don't need an overzealous revenge-warrior to get it done.  You just need a sensible, practical politician like Obama or Biden who can work within the bounds of the system.

Yeah, the Obama-Biden administration did a great job at prosecuting the people in the financial industry who ruined millions of people's lives by causing the Great Recession with reckless and criminal lending! An "overzealous revenge-warrior" in the White House might have dangerously upset the gravy train.

See, there it is.  You don't want a fair economy.  You don't want everyone to have a better shot.  You don't want income equality or economic growth.

You want to punish the bankers.  You want to throw people in jail.  That doesn't do anything for the economy.  But it gives you that sweet, satisfying revenge.

If that's your priority, great.  Vote for Warren.  She's the overzealous revenge-warrior you've dreamed of.

But don't act like you're voting for her for some other reason.  Be honest.

Buh, buh, muh "Atlas shouldn't look like Breitbart comments"!

[Mr. Smith]

Boy i was reading through the earlier comments in this thread and it sure does continue the Atlas tradition of being horribly, laughably wrong

In fairness, her rollout/early campaign was pretty bad. I think Warren has surprised a lot of people and exceeded their initial expectations.

And Biden was Biden, Sanders was always going to be static, and Hit-Or-Miss Harris ended up with much more misses.

[Mr. Smith]

Morgan Cox, the person who asked the Marriage Equality question to Elizabeth Warren also happens to be a huge supported of Warren & a longtime donor & has donated to her in the Presidential campaign as well.

Are you insinuating that Warren was fed an obvious question by a supporter beforehand? Because thats dumb.

Also Warren has categorically indicated that she will be raising Corporate PAC big money through the DNC for the GE !

Also good. She's not crippling the party by forcing her no big donor pitch on downballot candidates.

I support Warren but there are few ways to long-term cripple the Democratic Party more than by taking money from wealthy interests at this point.

There are few ways to long-term cripple the Democratic Party more than by getting outspent a billion to one by the GOP every election

It's never crippled California Gubernatorials....even when the state was swingier [such as, oh, 2002], it didn't stop Obama, it didn't stop TX-2018 from being decided by 200,000 votes, it didn't save Heidi Heitkamp or Claire McCaskill, or....Hillary Clinton herself.

[Mr. Smith]

I'm not necessarily opposed to this by any means, but I think folks here are really over-simplifying the issue.  I want to know what she's going to replace it with because right now it doesn't sound like she has a real plan of her own about how to evaluate teachers and schools without such tests.  What she's doing is like when Republicans were essentially saying "we need to repeal Obamacare and replace it with some nonsense someone drunkenly scribbled on a napkin."

Well, ideally we could take Finland's example and use more project-based learning, and teachers could use student work for their projects as evidence of learning and growth. I personally think tests are more useful as a diagnostic tool, to demonstrate to the teacher what students still need to learn, rather than a summative assessment which determines a student's future. Of course, many districts would hate using projects as a form of assessment, since data collection and grading would be more subjective and they would have to put more trust in teachers to recognize what constitutes understanding and critical thinking.

Of course teachers need to be evaluated, but the current evaluation process is far too impersonal, and doesn't consider the difference in structure classes of varying subjects. And if teachers are graded on how well their students do on a given assessment, there's a lot of incentive to make the assessment as simple as possible.

Couldn't have said it much better myself.

[Mr. Smith]

This reminds me of the Green New Deal.  Utopia can not happen in a vacuum, so the only way to promise some sort of utopian plan is to make the entire rest of the country a utopia as well.

So we can't solve climate change unless we have single-payer health care and a universal jobs guarantee.  We can't eradicate private insurance unless we have comprehensive immigration reform.

Any single one of these items would be the heaviest, most substantial legislative change in decades.  The progressives are saying, not only are they going to do them, but they're going to do them all at the same time, and in fact they HAVE to because just doing them in isolation won't work.

At this point, why not just promise a perfect economy that delivers 5% YOY GDP growth, and say that will fund M4A?  Oh wait, Sanders tried that in 2016 and got laughed out of the room (by the ivory tower neoliberal elites with their "PH.Ds")

And just exactly what do you think The New Deal and Great Society were? Were they not a bunch of sweeping changes themselves?

[Mr. Smith]

The notion of prescriptive political cycles is utter nonsense.

Yes and no.

History may not repeat, but it does rhyme quite a bit.

[Mr. Smith]

Not one of the better moments, but hardly something construable either.

Wake me up if this is an actual pattern down the road.