"I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets...

[polichick]

I think that is not true anymore." She continued, "I was a Republican at a time when I felt like there was a problem that the markets were under a lot more strain. It worried me whether or not the government played too activist a role."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/charlie-crist-21-famous-political-party-switchers-time/story?id=20788202#15


Right now Elizabeth Warren is saying all the right things about many of the right issues, but imo her RepubliCon background is a red flag. Warren's quote about being for the people "who best supported markets" is another red flag imo. The best Dem leaders are for those WHO BEST SUPPORT PEOPLE - and RepubliCons, enabled by some Democrats, have put markets ahead of people for the last several decades.

As many of you know, I am hoping there will be a Dem primary challenge from the people's side of the party in 2016, and it's really easy to like Warren - but I stand with those voters who are determined not to be fooled next time around. I'm thinking it may be for the best if she truly is not interested in a presidential run.

Is anyone else bothered by her RepubliCon background and market support reasoning?

[Scuba]

1. I used to consider myself a Republican too.

If a candidate more progressive and equally as likable as Warren comes along, I'll support him/her. Except for Bernie, that seems unlikely.

[polichick]

2. What did you like about the Republican party?

[Scuba]

5. My parents.

[polichick]

6. Aww, that's nice actually! The only good part I can see is some of the people.

[JHB]

3. OK, I tend to think the term "purity" usually gets thrown around too loosely...

...but that's precisely what you're doing here, at least without knowing the answers to several relevant questions:

When was Warren a Republican?
When did she switch?
What did she believe when she was one?
What prompted her to switch?
How has she acted, both before and after the switch?

There's a big difference between True Believers and people who had been operating under some false assumptions and changed their view once they realized the falseness.

[polichick]

8. What about her market support statement?

That reason for being a RepubliCon says something.

[JHB]

24. What about it? What did she mean by that?

Did she mean the same thing by it that you hear when you see those words?

Answer the other questions and it might shed more light on that.

[quinnox]

4. That is troubling

I am not convinced she is some sort of super progressive, all I hear about is stuff she says about Wall street, I don't hear her say things that Alan Grayson might say, for example.

I get the feeling Warren has a lot of hype around her that is just that, hype.

[Scuba]

7. Then you missed this ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024053625

and this ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024034933

[quinnox]

11. So she said one thing that is liberal sounding

I would have to see her in debates, answering hard questions, and hear what she says about all sorts of issues before I would accept she is some kind of super progressive.

[polichick]

9. Dems are so desperate for leaders who seem old-school Democratic...

that it's easy to get excited about someone like Warren.

Maybe that's why all the hype.

[Paulie]

10. Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater girl.

Can we throw her under he bus too?

[Katashi_itto]

12. She sat on the Board Of Directors for Walmart. Yes we can

throw her under the bus.

[polichick]

13. Well, I'd love for her to be in my book club but sure don't want her as prez.

[nyquil_man]

14. Well... Reagan voted for FDR four times.

If he can turn into Raygun, I guess Elizabeth Warren can come to her senses.

[polichick]

15. But there was so much good about the Dem party - not so with the Republican party...

I can forgive someone following their parents' lead for a while and then leaving the Republican party once they figure out what it's about - but a potential leader staying in for a long time as an adult makes me question his/her world view and priorities.

[nyquil_man]

16. No, I can't understand someone supporting the modern Republican Party

unless they're just misanthropes. But I have known people in the not-too-distant past who were socially liberal, yet voted Republican because of tax cuts, especially in the Northeast. It's a kind of political tunnel vision.

Thankfully, most of them have seen through the bullshit.

[PoliticAverse]

17. I'd be more concerned about someone who was receiving large $$$$s from, say, Goldman Sachs presently

[polichick]

18. Surely we haven't set such a low bar...

so anything better than that is cool.

[Douglas Carpenter]

19. not bothered in the least by this. I wonder more about people who have never examined any of their

beliefs - We know that markets are part of the equation of what creates and supports a prosperous and free society. There has never in the history of the world been a relatively free and prosperous society that sustained for any length of time that did not have markets and a market friendly government as part of the equation. We liberals, progressives and social democrats know though that markets and a market-friendly government are part of the equation - but not the only issue. Wealth creation without a mechanism for equitable wealth distribution is as foolish as wealth distribution without wealth creation.

[polichick]

20. Have you seen quotes by Eliz. Warren about her "examining her beliefs?"

She was a Republican because she believed them to be more market friendly, but thinks they aren't any longer. So now she must see Dems as more market friendly.

Capitalism without a good dose of socialism only benefits a few - and that's how we got into this mess.

I'll need to hear a lot more about why she was cool with the Republican party for so long.

[Douglas Carpenter]

21. focus of her academic work over the past several years has been on how economics affects ordinary

working people - Whatever her political beliefs were earlier on - For the past several years she has been focused on people-oriented economy. I have some concerns about her on some foreign policy issues. for sure. But as far as domestic matters - her focus on how economy should be working for the benefit of the many rather than the few satisfies my concerns in that regard

[polichick]

27. Yet she was a Republican all during Reagan's trickle down years...

Just doesn't add up.

[PoliticAverse]

22. The Daily Beast article on Warren (from Oct, 2011)...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/24/elizabeth-warren-i-created-occupy-wall-street.html

Warren’s studies have centered on debt, in particular the stress that the modern workplace puts on families. In The Two-Income Trap, her 2003 book, Warren argued that two-income families are less financially secure than families with a single earner.

[polichick]

28. Please see 27.

[99Forever]

23. Looks like we've got ...

... "the inevitable candidate" crowd running scared.

Good. You should be, 'cuz your days are numbered.

[polichick]

25. Don't look at me - I'm not a Hillary supporter...

I want a primary challenge to the corporate Dem model.

Just don't get why EW was a Republican when they haven't been on the side of the people - EVER. (At least in the last 50 years.)

[Motown_Johnny]

26. HRC was a "Goldwater Girl". Ya live, ya learn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton

^snip^



Raised in a politically conservative household,[6] at age thirteen Rodham helped canvass South Side Chicago following the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election, where she found evidence of electoral fraud against Republican candidate Richard Nixon.[12] She then volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election of 1964.[13] Rodham's early political development was shaped most by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anticommunist), who introduced her to Goldwater's classic The Conscience of a Conservative,[14] and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and met civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., in Chicago in 1962.[15]

[MannyGoldstein]

29. Are people allowed to change their minds?

If so, under what conditions would you believe she changed her mind?

People who conciously convert to a belief tend to be the fiercest advocates for that belief.

Or she could be a wolf in sheep's clothing, although I doubt it. Quite a bit of history on her.

[polichick]

30. I'd just like to know how she remained a Republican all through Reagan's...

trickle down con job. Perhaps some day she'll talk about that more.

[NuclearDem]

31. Warren's done more than most politicians to light a fire under Wall Street's ass.

I used to a meat eating, evangelical, anti-gay, misogynist free marketeer. What matters is what someone is now.

[Shankapotomus]

32. Sometimes a brief allegiance to a faulty ideology

gives us a stronger perspective on which to later critique and counter it. Warren clearly is attacking de-regulated capitalism like no other democrat has done in a long time. Let's not forget it was her who unraveled where the boom and bust cycles were coming from and tied it to the roll back of regulation.