Warren emerges as potential compromise nominee

[DonViejo]

Centrists who once said the senator would lead the party to ruin are coming around to her as an alternative to Bernie Sanders.

By NATASHA KORECKI and CHARLIE MAHTESIAN 06/19/2019 05:02 AM EDT

CHARLESTON, S.C. — There was a time not so long ago when leading Democrats warned that Elizabeth Warren’s “fantasy-based blue-state populism” risked leading the party to ruin.

But in a revealing tell of how far her campaign has come since its early February launch, some unlikely voices in the center of the party are growing more comfortable with the idea of Warren as the nominee.

It’s a sign of how the ideological lanes of the 2020 primary have blurred and overlapped and of the steady progress Warren is making as a candidate. But it’s also a statement on Bernie Sanders, Warren’s top rival for progressive votes. Sanders continues to face significant resistance from within the party — and nowhere more so than among the moderates and establishment players who blanch at his talk of democratic socialism.

Warren, on the other hand, is gaining traction among those who once rejected her muscular vision of liberalism. She’s drawn notice for her wide-ranging “I have a plan for that” policy playbook, which has just enough growth-and-opportunity, center-left measures to earn her a serious look from former detractors. The Massachusetts senator may be out of sync with party centrists, but she’s drawn at least one sharp line with Sanders that is resonating with prominent moderate voices as she surges into the top tier in national and early state polls.

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/19/democratic-establishment-elizabeth-warren-1369874

[zipplewrath]

1. Third Way is warming up

Further down in the article:

Third Way, which isn’t backing a candidate, famously torpedoed Warren in a widely read 2013 op-ed that exposed the party’s ideological fissures on entitlements. “Nothing would be more disastrous for Democrats” than to adhere to Warren’s brand of economic populism, wrote two of the think tank’s leaders in a piece that drew condemnation from progressives.

Today, however, Third Way is learning to live with Warren even as it embarks on a mission to ensure the Democratic nominee doesn’t stray too far to the left.

Jim Kessler, one of the authors of the 2013 piece warning that Warren would lead the party off the populist cliff, raved about the senator’s performance last weekend at the Black Economic Alliance candidate forum in South Carolina.

“Elizabeth Warren kills it at @BlkEconAlliance candidate forum. Love her entrepreneurship fund,” the Third Way co-founder tweeted Saturday.

“I don’t agree with 'Medicare for All.' I don’t agree with free college, … [But] her consumer protection policies are great. I think she has a good infrastructure plan,” said self-described moderate Democrat Reagan Gray, a health care policy and political consultant attending the Third Way conference. “I absolutely know and believe people are taking a second look at her. She now seems to be getting herself away from the Bernie Sanders grouping. People are taking a second look at her and saying, ‘Hmm. Some of her policies are good. Maybe she isn’t like Bernie.’”

[hedda_foil]

11. This is really a sea change.

From the end of the long piece:

Like many centrists, Bennett, the Third Way co-founder, views Sanders as destined to lose against Trump. But Warren is a different story.

“We really like the idea of using government to rectify market failure. And that’s what she’s about,” Bennett said. “We don’t agree on everything, but she’s fundamentally rowing in the same direction.”

[marylandblue]

2. Warren is reshaping the Democratic coalition. Economic populism is in. Good.

[Eric J in MN]

3. Centrists are praising Elizabeth Warren because

...Bernie Sanders is in the race. He has a different view, democratic socialism, based on cooperation instead of competition.

If in March, all the candidates have dropped out except for her and Joe Biden, then centrists will oppose her, again.

[marylandblue]

4. Maybe, but by that time, Warren's message will have taken hold and be unstoppable.

[Fiendish Thingy]

5. I don't see Warren making any compromises

She's staying true to her vision and values.

It's the Third Way Neoliberals who, in finding Warren as an acceptable alternative to Bernie, who are compromising- that's OK by me.

[SouthernProgressive]

16. I don't see either as compromising from what is being stated here.

"Third Way" actually praises here and mentions what they have in common. Why does someone always have to be shown in a negative light even when it's all positive.

The headline also doesn't say that Warren is a compromised candidate or that she is compromising.

[MrsCoffee]

6. Compromise my ass. We never wanted Sanders to begin with.

[MineralMan]

7. Once again, Politico ignores the elephant in the room.

Ignoring Joe Biden's double-digit lead in the polls seems to indicate something, but I don't know what, exactly.

What do you think it indicates?

[marylandblue]

9. It indicates that there are other candidates than Biden that people might want to read about.

[zipplewrath]

14. No, no...

You can't write an article about any candidate without mentioning Biden. Otherwise it's an obvious case of bias. Didn't you get the memo?

[Demit]

10. It indicates that it's a story about about policies, not a story about polls.

It's not horse race journalism, for a change.

[theaocp]

12. Indeed. Refreshing. n/t

[Politicub]

13. I wasn't aware of Biden's lead in the polls. Thank you for cluing me in to that.

[LAS14]

8. I can really see centrist Dems discovering that....

... it's not actually the policies of the left that turn them off, but the pie in the sky fuzzy-mindedness. Warren's practical policies make so much sense!

[SouthernProgressive]

15. Warren is doing what Sanders couldn't.

Building a lasting coalition within the Democratic Party.

[tishaLA]

20. Very much this nt

[DrToast]

17. She's definitely preferable to Sanders, to me at least

But my biggest concern is that she won't win. I'm pretty sure that Trump will get under her skin and I'm not certain she will handle it well.

[marylandblue]

18. That's what I thought once, and it did happen already, but I think she has learned

to stay focused on her message. If she keeps moving up, Trump will start probing her for weaknesses and we'll see how well she responds.

[Demsrule86]

19. She will not win a general. It is my opinion she won't win the primary.

I would vote for her of course in a general but...i fear Trump would win.