Hillary's Nightmare? A Democratic Party That Realizes Its Soul Lies With Elizabeth Warren

[pangaia]

This from New republic via HuffPo.
I just found the LONG, very long, thing interesting..
Although I an not a Hillary lover or hater, I do like Elizabeth Warren.
I tried to pick a couple of representative paragraphs...

"On one side is a majority of Democratic voters, who are angrier, more disaffected, and altogether more populist than they’ve been in years. They are more attuned to income inequality than before the Obama presidency and more supportive of Social Security and Medicare.1 They’ve grown fonder of regulation and more skeptical of big business.2 A recent Pew poll showed that voters under 30—who skew overwhelmingly Democratic—view socialism more favorably than capitalism. Above all, Democrats are increasingly hostile to Wall Street and believe the government should rein it in.

On the other side is a group of Democratic elites associated with the Clinton era who, though they may have moved somewhat leftward in response to the recession—happily supporting economic stimulus and generous unemployment benefits—still fundamentally believe the economy functions best with a large, powerful, highly complex financial sector. Many members of this group have either made or raised enormous amounts of cash on Wall Street. They were deeply influential in limiting the reach of Dodd-Frank, the financial reform measure Obama signed in July of 2010."

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115509/elizabeth-warren-hillary-clintons-nightmare

[Laelth]

1. This is an excellent essay. Highly recommended. k&r n/t

-Laelth

[rainy]

2. Elizabeth Warren would be a way better

choice. Real change would at least have a fighting chance!

[Pisces]

3. These stories and threads are utopian dreams for the Repubs. Warren is not running in '16

but it sure is fun to speculate and write about. Dream on Repubulicons!! Warren is going to support Hillary and you are
going to have to run against her without the left helping you.

[Beacool]

6. No, these are utopian dreams of the Left.

Just as Cruz is the utopian dream candidate of the Right.

[UCmeNdc]

4. Both of these women would be better than Chris Christie

Chris Christie would become another Bush and support Bankers and Banking interests without any hesitation compared to either of these women.

[CrispyQ]

5. This:

In 2010, Obama appointed Warren to be a special Treasury adviser in charge of setting up the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren was particular about the title she received, wanting it to reflect her work on behalf of the middle class. Treasury officials joked that if she were “Ambassador to the Middle Class,” it would make them “Ambassadors to the Plutocrats.”

Except that it's no joke, assholes, you are Ambassadors to the Plutocrats.

[pangaia]

17. That's what makes me so impressed with Sen. Warren.

At the age of 70, I would go out and fight for that woman!

[freshwest]

7. BREAKING: Elizabeth Warren supports Hillary for President

ABC News:

All of the female Democratic senators signed a secret letter to Hillary Rodham Clinton early this year encouraging her to run for president in 2016 – a letter that includes the signature of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other senators who are mentioned as potential candidates, two high-ranking Democratic Senate aides told ABC News.

The letter, organized at the urging of Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., was meant to be a private show of support from a group of 16 high-profile former colleagues and fans who are now senators, urging Clinton to do what much of the Democratic Party assumes she will, the aides said.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/10/in-secret-letter-senate-democratic-women-rally-behind-hillary-clinton/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023950130

Not only that:

Elizabeth Warren Not Interested In Running For President

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) insisted in a recent interview with The New York Times that she does not plan to seek the presidency.

"In the interview, Warren, 64, said twice that she had no interest in running for president, a point her aides amplify privately," reported The Times. "But she said she would continue to focus on economic fairness, saying it is the signal issue of the day."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/30/elizabeth-warren-president_n_4016319.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023752134

Does anyone think both of these stories are in error, or more importantly, that Warren is being dishonest?

Hillary is NOT my favorite. Not because of herself, although she enraged me in 2008. It was more her supporters that turned me off of her and the direction they wanted to go.

Many I knew voted for McCain to spite Obama, never returning to the Democratic Party. They showed themselves to be of three types, Endtimers, privateers and racists.

She has not announced, not really expressed what she would do, period. In 2008 her campaign was more about foreign affairs than domestic. That is the focus of 2014 and 2016.

She is NOT responsible for what Bill did in office, nor Bush. The charges most often laid at her feet, NAFTA, Glass Seagall and the Iraq War don't add up, as she was not POTUS, and those passed Congress without influence by her.

In her defense, she was trying to reform healthcare and was savaged for it by Rush as FLOTUS, and a major driver for the Gingrich take over.

She also spoke loudly about the 'Vast Right Wing Conspiracy' and was mocked for it but she was right wasn't she? Koch brothers, Birchers anyone?

And it was Hillary who created the meme 'Darth Cheney.' No love lost there, and I'd suspect anyone who was seriously on Darth's team.

I LOVE the first paragraph picked for this OP, and do NOT think you're trying to set up division, as those who would let their ire for her make them stay home in 2014 and 2016. Now is no time to give into the fascists running the GOP.

[jeff47]

9. It's an article about philosophy, not literal candidates.

Warren is an example of the party turning away from the Clintons and the "third way" philosophy they used in office. Warren doesn't have to actually run for this to be a problem for Clinton.

[libdem4life]

10. I read that her family did not want her to run, either. Few families want their entire lives picked

over like so many vultures, as the political process has become. It's always a family decision. She's doing a magnificent job in the Senate where likely she can get more done.

Not coincidentally, she'd have to accept money ... lots of it ... from those same institutions she's investigating at present. Like it or not, that's the only way the political war chests make it to the billion dollar level. She knows that, as well.

[freshwest]

12. Excellent points. I wonder if Hillary wants the abuse, either.

[libdem4life]

13. The thought has occurred, and I'm thinking that's why the PACS are setting up now...to convince

her the party and the pocketbooks stand behind her. The letter from the Senate Democratic Women I felt was another sign of please run "we've got your back"...and the 3 year mark is also telling. This election cycle, it's going to take 3 years to raise the immense amount of money and political infrastructure needed.

Who knows what actual intra-party betrayals led to her Primary defeat last time? Kind of the opposite of Cruz et al who could possibly win a Primary, but not a General Election.

What I'm thinking is that she won't take abuse or heavy criticism from within her own party. The old "scandals" are just that...old. The new Republican Scandal Hope, Benghazi, backfired on them, so there is nothing new.

If she doesn't run, we've got a big problem, IMO.

[pangaia]

16. Might I be really, really naive to think..

or perhaps hope is a better word, that if Warren DID run, or if and when she does, that maybe, just maybe, she would be able to break those chains that so corrupt our government?

[libdem4life]

18. She's a policy wonk, and one badly needed. Crusaders are just cut from a different cloth.

The energy needed at this point in time as I see it, is a knight/ess in armor charging into the fray of medieval political positions...i.e. the Tea Party and its ilk. A "nice person", regardless of their gender, isn't anxious to go into battle, as the Tea Partiers are most anxious to do. And even battle-scarred Hillary hasn't committed. It's not a nice place they have to go to make this work.

That's why Elizabeth is not going to run. She doesn't want or need the chain and mail and sword and steed. Period. The End.

So rather than dream and argue and swashbuckle about false Hillary/Elizabeth dyads, the question remains, if not Hillary, then who?

Excuse the metaphors, but they do somewhat work.

[pangaia]

20. Yes the metaphors work.

And what you say is good..
I know Warren is not running.
But I wonder if she does have the....I don't know how to say it..
Somewhere I think she DOES have that 'thing' it takes to be willing to put up with all that going into battle requires. For the sake of us. Someday.
I am just hoping for a knight, as you say.

As for, if not Hillary, then who?
Right. As strong a progressive as I am, I do not have the political savy(spell?) to even make a suggestion. Oh sure, I can throw out the usual names, but..you are right.. I have no idea.
I can only offer this...

I met Howard Dean several years ago. Heard him talk to a very small group -maybe 150- in support of a local House candidate to whom I had contributed. I introduced him to my then new wife who is Chinese. She had been in the US for just a few weeks. When I introduced her to him, she told him, "my husband told me that you ran for president and are a very special American politician, and a very fine person, so I asked him, could I meet you? In China we can not meet our politicians."

He talked with her, and he really listened. When others wanted to meet him and when his 'people' wanted to leave, he ignored them and stayed focused on my wife. Maybe 10 minutes; a long time. And I could feel that he was touched by meeting her. When she said she should leave because she knew he had to catch a plane, he said, "No.The plane can wait." The brief time was something I will never forget. She was in tears at his kindness.

[libdem4life]

21. Thank you so much for that story. I have never met him, but when he speaks...especially now, I

definitively feel a natural empathy and caring. I get the same from Elizabeth Warren when she speaks and it's likely what makes her so good at what she does starting with the very unpopular Consumer Protection Agency. She feels it. She had to fight tooth and nail for it...for us. And most Progressives I know, it is the same thing.

Back to politics. And that is what I see right now....this culture, this election cycle. They are not compatible. And it makes me sad.

And as for Warren, her family does not want her to run. And probably for that and those reasons in paragraph one, she won't. Thank goodness she still has our back with the Banksters.

Guess that leaves us with Hillary.

[pangaia]

22. It makes me sad also.

I certainly respect Warren's choices, and those of her family.

And if it IS Hillary? She certainly is 'no slouch' and we MUST WIN !

[libdem4life]

24. Amen !

[davidpdx]

32. I really liked the story about your wife meeting Dean

Having come from a country that is so radically different, where no one questions authority, she must have been fascinated. My wife is Korean and not into politics (even here). She follows the presidential race mostly because I do (ok, I obsess I admit it). Korea went through years of turmoil and dictators before finally becoming a democracy. I've lived in both China and Korea and am familiar with both cultures. I would have paid to have been a fly on the fall during that conversation.

[freshwest]

19. You can think whatever you want, but Warren doesn't want the job; she wants Hillary to take it.

Do you think she is playing coy or something?

I don't see her that way, she's not running, she wants Hillary to run.

So why are you persisting in this when she clearly says she will not do so?

It's not productive, and at this stage, not going to happen.

Can you support Hillary despite what people have said her?

I posted why the charges made against he are as simple as one might think, and wish that there was another candidate.

[pangaia]

23. I know she doesn't want the job.

Freshwest, I am with you, not against you.

I do not think Warren is playing coy at all. It never occurred to me.
I accept she wants Hillary to run.
I don't mean to appear to be persisting. I just hope that some day she WILL run, IF she wants to, or decided to..whenever. And IF she does I just wonder if she can 'break the chains.'

Yes, I will vote for Hillary if she is the nominee, no question.

[freshwest]

26. We're cool. But we also must not focus on 2016 while in danger in 2014.

If we don't regain control, I almost feel that 2016 won't matter much. Because we cannot take another few years of these destroyers being in office. And they're not backing down on their fascist ways, in fact they are changing this country from the ground up and it's scarey. See you later.

[pangaia]

15. Thanks for your well-thoughtout reply.

It is, of course true, that I was not taking sides, or even imagining that Liz Warren would run.

What I find interesting is that if both women DID run....
Just reading that article and think about it was useful to me to think about what I personally would do.

And I find that I learn so much more here from others, such as yourself, than I feel I am able to contribute.
So I posted it because.... I think it can cause one to engage in an inner debate.

[bigdarryl]

8. How many times has this woman have to say she's not RUNNING

[Whisp]

11. Who, Hill or Liz? n/t

[Lamonte]

14. Elizabeth Warren

This seems obvious to me. Eight years of Hillary with Elizabeth Warren as VP. The VP choice has an effect on the election. Then eight years of Elizabeth Warren with Tulsi Gabbard as VP. Then eight years with Tulsi as president.

[libdem4life]

25. Tulsi Gabbard is amazing. Thank you for mentioning her name. We'll be hearing more...like Tammy

Baldwin, she has an amazing array of qualifications. It's time we brought Hawaii into the Players Circle.

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

[tularetom]

27. You know what's more important than whether or not Warren runs in 2016?

That the Dems hold the Senate and take over the House in 2014. Sure the liberal media love the battle of personalities in the presidential race but that's a long way off and it won't mean jack shit to the country unless the congressional obstructionists are booted out and we get a congress that is actually interested in accomplishments and not just blocking the president's agenda.

I'd love to see Warren run, and I suppose I could hold my nose and vote for Hillary but either one will accomplish nothing if Boner, Cantor, McConnell and the rest of the Hitler youth are still on the job.

[pangaia]

29. Agreed, 1000%.

[MBS]

31. Agreed, 10,000%

Totally spot on: THANKS for the clear thinking here. Come on, guys: let's focus on 2014, and taking Congress back.

[okieinpain]

28. lol, talk about cutting off your nose to

Spite your face

[JoePhilly]

30. Question ... how do we get Democrats to fight amongst themselves?

Answer ... Write an article that claims people who are on the same side are actually adversaries.