WaPo's Jennifer Rubin: Why not Warren?

[SunSeeker]

The most progressive wing of the Democratic Party is represented by two candidates: One is younger than President Trump, cheerful, doesn’t have the “socialist” label and has a zillion policy ideas. The other is five years older than Trump, prickly and humorless, has the socialist label and embraces the most extreme positions many in his party reject (e.g. allowing incarcerated mass murderers to vote). So far — to my ongoing amazement — Democratic primary voters tell pollsters they want the grouchy socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), not Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the cheerful policy wonk who declares she’s a capitalist, albeit one who recognizes that the system is “rigged."

We should remember that early polling might simply reflect Sanders’s name recognition, but nevertheless, it is not as if Warren is an unknown quantity. By virtually any measure, she’s a more accomplished and more electable choice, yet it’s Sanders who remains in the top tier of candidates. As Warren showed Monday night at a CNN town hall, she’s obviously the candidate with the most detailed, specific policies — and the one most capable of explaining detailed plans. She also manages to be less frightening — but bolder — than Sanders.

Specificity is an asset in the policy realm as well. Warren has a fleshed-out plan and has a way to pay for it. “What we have to do as a country is roll back that debt. And so, I have two parts to the proposal,” she said. “Part one is that we say that we’re going to roll back student loan debt for about 95 percent of students who have debt.” She continued, "And part two is to make sure that we never get in this mess again on student loan debt and that is to make college universally available with free tuition and fees, and to put more money into Pell grants so that students of color, so that our poorest students have real access to college and that we put real money into our historically black colleges and universities. " She’s explicit about how to pay for it, without demonizing the rich:
...
And here’s how the money works out. If we put that 2 cent wealth tax in place on the 75,000 largest fortunes in this country, 2 cents, we can do universal child care for every baby zero to 5, universal pre-K, universal college and knock back the student loan debt burden for 95 percent of our students and still have nearly a trillion dollars left over.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/23/why-not-warren/

[Cha]

1. KR!

Thank You, SunSeeker!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

2. Gee, another posed column by WAPO's "Right Turn" conservative columnist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Rubin_(journalist)

Jennifer Rubin (born 1962)[1] is an American neoconservative[2] journalist[3] who writes the "Right Turn" blog for The Washington Post. Previously she worked at Commentary, PJ Media, Human Events, and The Weekly Standard. Her work has been published in media outlets including Politico, New York Post, New York Daily News, National Review, and The Jerusalem Post.

[pnwmom]

4. Funny you can't address the specifics of her column. Warren is every bit as concerned

about ordinary Americans as Bernie, and every bit of progressive -- with a stronger record on guns.

And unlike Bernie, she accomplished something major for consumers -- the Consumer Protection agency was her brainchild.

[BlueFlorida]

6. So her praise of Warren is all untrue?

[SunSeeker]

8. Just asking. Why do you support Sanders over Warren?

[corbettkroehler]

28. Another Sanders Supporter Answers

I love Elizabeth Warren. If she won the nomination, I would arrive at my polling station an hour before it opened on Election Day. She would be a fabulous president and I really wanted her to run last time. As a supporter of Progressive Democrats Of America, I supported their 2016 effort to recruit her.

I prefer Bernie because I am convinced the he would have won the 2016 general by a landslide. I already hear the retorts from some that "he couldn't even win the primary". Without firing off a range of facts which would bounce off that viewpoint like rubber, I will say that coming very close to winning the 2016 primary is not dispositive of winning the general.

I repeat, landslide.

[Cha]

25. Here's Ezra Klein on the difference between BS & EW..

Link to tweet

[LonePirate]

3. Warren is by far the better choice of the two.

[question everything]

5. Not to mention that she is a Demcorat

[SunSeeker]

7. Indeed. nt

[Karadeniz]

9. I hope she spreads the word.

[Fiendish Thingy]

10. At some point, when the topic of student debt comes up in a debate

Someone, maybe Harris herself, will have to point out Biden’s complicity in creating the student loan problem...

[cannabis_flower]

11. Last election...

I supported Bernie Sanders. I still like Bernie but I had supported Bernie after Elizabeth Warren decided not to run. I'm still not sure I'll stay with Warren because there are so many candidates running that I don't know much about but for now I am supporting Elizabeth Warren.

[BigOleDummy]

12. Why Not Warren ...

…. indeed? She's smart, she knows her shit and she's a fighter! Damn, what more do you want?

[ChiTownDenny]

20. I like her.

I specifically like:

"She's smart, she knows her shit and she's a fighter!"

[FakeNoose]

13. I think Liz Warren would be eminently capable as President, but ...

... I can't bear the thought of another awesome woman getting the same horrid, misogynist treatment that Hillary got in 2016.

[bloom]

33. EW knows what she is up against.

I think the horrid treatment makes her want to fight all the more.

[watoos]

14. Warren moved up my list

When she came out in favor of impeachment

[maxsolomon]

15. Plus, Warren used to be a Republican

No wonder Rubin likes her.

[Hassler]

16. And she didn't punt on impeachment like others at the townhall gathering.

[SunSeeker]

18. Yep. Here's what Warren said about impeachment, showing she actually read the report:

"The first is that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election in order to help Donald Trump. The evidence is just there. Read it, footnote after footnote, page after page documentation.

Part two, Donald Trump welcomed that help. ...

Part three is when the federal government starts to investigate part one and part two, Donald Trump took repeated steps aggressively to try to halt the investigation, derail the investigation, push the investigation somewhere else, but otherwise keep that investigation from going forward and turning into a serious investigation about a hostile foreign government that it attacked us and about his own personal interests.

So, here’s how I see this: If any other human being in this country had done what’s documented in the Mueller report, they would be arrested and put in jail. Obstruction of justice is a serious crime in this country. But [special counsel Robert S. Mueller III] believed because of the directions from Donald Trump’s Justice Department that he could not bring a criminal indictment against a sitting president. I think he’s wrong on that, but that’s what he believed. So he serves the whole thing up to the United States Congress and says, in effect, if there’s going to be any accountability, that accountability has to come from the Congress. And the tool that we are given for that accountability is the impeachment process.

This is not about politics. This is about principle."

[warmfeet]

17. At this point,

I am supporting Elizabeth Warren.

Ultimately, whomever becomes the Democratic nominee, that is who I will vote for.

The infighting is not necessary or helpful.

I would like to see a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and especially, a Democratic POTUS.

I doubt that I am the only one here who feels this way.

[dlk]

19. I Prefer Warren's Reasoned Analysis Over Bernie's Finger Wagging

[stuffmatters]

21. Always a Warren booster, even more so after CNNs last night: the smartest & fiercest of the 5.

[PatrickforO]

22. My son, a 32 year old millennial, watched these town halls last night.

He said he came out of it thinking Buttigieg is very strong, but said Warren had a 'badass answer' about impeachment. When I asked him what he meant, he said that Trump is the crappiest president ever and that the House needs to start impeachment proceedings - if they don't, he said, they would lose the respect of young people for being spineless.

His words, not mine, though I agree with him.

As to Warren, I like her a lot and would have absolutely no problem supporting her as the Democratic nominee. I wouldn't have problems with Bernie, either, except there is some weird crap going on with Ro Khanna - that deal where he claimed the Buttigieg 'compared Sanders to Trump' was ridiculous. I watched that footage and that is NOT what I came out if thinking Buttigieg was saying at all. Nor do I think anyone else who actually watched the clip felt that way.

Better watch it, Ro.

As to Buttigieg, I am supporting him in the primaries because I really like his articulation of policy, and I believe he's very solid on healthcare, taxes, Social Security and the environment - all stuff I care about. I think he's also solid on social justice, which is very good. He did make a mistake, firing that police chief, and he needs to be very upfront answering for that. He has admitted it was a mistake, for sure, but still - he'd better work with minority communities beginning right now to build up some powerful social justice policies.

I say this, because I'm like my son (or he like me) in that I'm sick and tire of politicians that SAY one thing and DO nothing. I want some action when we flip Congress. That's why I was so down on Feinstein when those kids confronted her. I was sickened by the whole Senate thing of voting 'present' on the green new deal. That was a nonbinding resolution and we HAVE TO QUIT DANCING AROUND CLIMATE CHANGE RIGHT NOW.

RIGHT NOW.

I shook my head at the 'present' thing. I understood it, I guess, but I won't ever be in consensus with it. To me P-R-E-S-E-N-T spelled S-P-I-N-E-L-E-S-S in this case and in the privacy of my home I railed at Hoyer and Schumer. I won't say what I said, but I was pretty disgusted.

Well, enough of that. You all know I'm quite progressive. Perhaps 'aggressively progressive.' But I'm real sick of walking on eggs around these Republicans. Fuck them.

[SunSeeker]

23. Me too. I'm done walking on eggshells in the face of this evil. nt

[Cha]

24. Ezra Klein on the difference..

Link to tweet

[SunSeeker]

27. True. nt

[melman]

29. "like this one on socialism failing elsewhere"

Here's the "Harvard centrist" who asked that one.




Scary socialism will destroy America but Mitch McConnell is A-OK

[Cha]

30. Ezra Klein's point stands.

[melman]

31. No it doesn't

[Demsrule86]

26. Warren has better policy than Sanders. I have no idea why

folks support Sanders,

[flamingdem]

32. Ideal ticket Biden/Warren

tho probably never could happen..