A cold call from someone she never met changed Elizabeth Warren's life. It was Harry Reid.

[BeyondGeography]

WASHINGTON — Elizabeth Warren was a professor at Harvard Law School, preparing barbecue and peach cobbler for a group of students expected at her home. The phone rang. The owner of the faint voice on the other end of the line was well known, but they had never met.

"Who?" Warren asked.

"Harry Reid," he replied. "Majority leader, U.S. Senate."

That was November 2008, when the economy was imploding, and Reid was offering her a spot on a new commission overseeing the Wall Street bailout Congress had just approved. Would she take it? he asked. At the time, Professor Warren was blogging for Talking Points Memo and about as well known as a policy wonk can be — which is to say not very. She had expressed zero political ambition, never run for office and her only real brush with Washington ended years earlier in a demoralizing loss when Congress passed a bankruptcy bill over her objections.

Reid's Congressional Oversight Panel came with a memorable acronym, COP, but had little real power. It essentially had one job: "Submit reports." Still, Warren said yes right away and so began "When Harry met Liz," a political saga that continues to this day.

“Everyplace she's been, she's been extremely good, for lack of a better way to explain it," the understated Reid told NBC News in an interview. Warren said in a statement, "Since then, we've been fighting the good fight — and Harry is someone you always want in your corner.”

...While Warren came to Washington just weeks after the election of Barack Obama, it was Reid who first plucked her from relative obscurity in academia and later championed her Senate bid. "He would always ask about her," said Guy Cecil, who ran the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee at the time and is now chairman of the party's largest super PAC, Priorities USA. "And he was always much more bullish on her than a lot of people in Massachusetts."

...The Mormon ex-cop who started his career as a conservative Democrat may make for an unlikely match with the crusading progressive Ivy League prof. But they shared hardscrabble roots in the American West and the economic populism of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Warren keeps a bust of FDR in her Senate office while Reid has recalled how one of his mother's few prized possessions was a pillowcase embroidered with an FDR quote that hung on the wall of their ramshackle house that lacked indoor plumbing.

"He loves someone with a good story. Someone who's overcome hardship like he has, someone who's worked their ass off like Elizabeth Warren has," said Rebecca Katz, a Democratic strategist who used to work for Reid. "When he believes in you, he will fight for you." And after Reid named her to the oversight panel, he felt invested in her career.

More at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/cold-call-someone-she-never-met-changed-elizabeth-warren-s-n1057926

[Hav]

1. Finding great people for the right spots is a talent

It's interesting how certain things just happen by chance or because someone recognized your potential.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Some chance involved but it wouldn't have happened without competency. . . . nt

[BlueMTexpat]

4. + a million or so!

[ms liberty]

3. She is amazing. Smart, knowledgable, sensible and caring.

She would be a great President. I hope we get to see it happen.

[FakeNoose]

5. I think Liz Warren is amazing

If she wins our Party's nomination, I would be proud to support her and vote for her.

[blm]

6. Good story. Obama sought her out even earlier, before he was a senator.

Reid sees what I see....SHE CAN EXPLAIN IT.

She is able to take complex economic issues and explain them to working family voters using the language of common sense. It’s her superpower. No small thing in the world of politics and governance.

[BeyondGeography]

7. Yes, I'm sure you've seen this

Link to tweet

[blm]

8. No, I hadn't seen that before.

I only read about the incident earlier this year.

[Hortensis]

13. Wonderful. "You had me at predatory lending!" Thanks, Beyond.

"...and he just sort of glows in the light." Funny, yes, but that's kind of how I think of him also.

[KPN]

9. Great read. Great background on the rise of

a truly great woman! I hope she takes this thing. She is my front-runner and preference though I haven’t declared at this point.

[BlueMississippi]

10. Reid is supporting Biden nt

[BlueWI]

12. And?

I am still very appreciative of Harry Reid's recognition of Warren's potential to serve the nation with distinction.

Not every thread has to be a shirts vs. skins nomination skirmish. We can celebrate all of the talented leaders of the party.

[BlueMississippi]

14. He recognized her potential

as a senator from Massachusetts ... after Obama had nominated her for the Consumer Agency.

It is a big leap from there to recognizing her potential to be POTUS.

This thread is in the DP section and OP is a Warren supporter with an implication that Reid is supporting Warren, which is untrue.

[BeyondGeography]

15. Reid isn't going to formally support anybody, that's his style

You’re wrong to say he is supporting Biden.

Here’s what he had to say among other things last month:

Reid has vowed to not endorse any candidate before Nevada’s caucuses, an event slotted immediately after Iowa and New Hampshire that gives the state outsized power in the nomination process. But that doesn’t mean he’s any more filtered — or much less involved — than he was in the past.

He called the Biden campaign’s field operation in Nevada “good,” Harris’s “great,” and Warren’s “sensational.”

Reid said thinks “the world” of Biden, who he said had “very minor disagreements” with in the three-plus decades the two worked together, sidestepping past fights over Biden’s deal-making approach to politics. But he saved his warmest praise for Warren, who Reid brought into politics when he put her on a board overseeing the Wall Street bailout after the 2008 economic collapse and later backed for Senate.

“I’ve been impressed with Elizabeth. She is not hiring a bunch of pollsters and consultants. Everything she’s doing is in-house,” Reid said. “I’m not going to endorse anyone until after the caucuses but everyone has to be impressed with what she’s doing.”

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywadgw/exclusive-harry-reid-of-course-medicare-for-all-and-decriminalizing-border-crossings-are-bad-ideas

[BlueWI]

16. Check post 15.

Can you disagree with facts? Otherwise, you could gracefully acknowledge your previous factual inaccuracy.

[BlueWI]

11. What a great call!

I was a volunteer for Harry Reid's first Congressional campaign way back when and got to meet him briefly. So glad to see how things turned out!