Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: Biden Thinks Trump Is the Problem, Not All Republicans. Other Democrats Disagree. [View all]Celerity
(54,801 posts)she was only a registered Republican from 1987 to 1996, after she moved to PA
She grew up in an FDR Democratic household.
Her first vote the POTUS was AGAINST Nixon in 1972. She did vote for Ford, but liked Carter. She voted Carter in 1980 and Mondale in 1984. In 1988 she voted for Dukakis, and in 1992, Clinton. Obviously voted for Clinton again in 1996 and every other Democrat since then. She registered as a Republican because she had moved to PA and liked Arlen Specter, who also switched to our Party from Republican.
Maybe people also have issues with former Republicans Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, Chris Coons (has Biden's old seat in the Senate), Carolyn McCarthy, Harley Rouda, Gabby Giffords, James Webb, Wendy Davis, Gil Cisneros, Jim Jeffords, Patrick Murphy, and Specter himself, etc.etc etc. Some of them even ran (oh the HORROR!) for President.
Speaking of other current Democratic candidates, you sure as hell do not see Warren going and giving a 200,000 USD (plus 50,000 in travel expenses) paid speech to a Republican fundraiser for a Republican Representative named Fred Upton (who had just voted to repeal Obamacare a few months before) in Michigan a few months back, right before the 2018 elections. That doesn't seem like a very Democratic-friendly thing to do does it? Warren would not have done it, no way.
Going to the polls, she said, was nothing new for her. Warrens mother had been a poll worker and brought her young daughter to the polls each Election Day.
Nixon was re-elected that year, of course, but resigned and was replaced by Gerald Ford. Warren said she had voted for him in 1976, believing that Ford was a decent man.
But she was happy with Jimmy Carter, who beat him. I thought he [also] was a decent man, she said, transferring her then-standard for what she wanted in a politician from Ford to Carter. He was a really good man.
As the 80s wore on and her research on bankruptcy progressed, Warren started waking up politically. At the time, though, the two parties had yet to separate entirely along ideological lines, as some deeply conservative and racist Democrats still held office, as did some genuinely liberal Republicans.
In 1988, Warren voted for Michael Dukakis but, in 1992, split her ticket, voting for Republican Arlen Specter for Senate and Democrat Bill Clinton for president. Specter is a good example of the one-time flexibility of the party system and the politicians within it: He began and ended his career as a Democrat, but was a Republican for much of the middle of it.
By the fall of 1987, she had moved to Pennsylvania and registered there as a Republican. Warren said she couldnt quite remember why she did it but that she was a fan of Specter. Again, I thought he was a decent man, she said. She couldnt recall whom he ran against. (His Democratic opponent was Lynn Yeakel.)
That GOP registration, though, has set off speculation over the years that one of the Senates most progressive champions may have at one time been a Ronald Reagan backer.
So we asked her: Is it true? Is it possible the champion of the regulatory cops on Wall Street voted for the man who made deregulation a hallmark of his presidency?
No.
In 1980, she said, she was a registered independent living in Missouri City, Texas, and cast her vote to re-elect Carter.
When Reagan won, she wasnt happy but not crushed the way she was on election night in 2016. I was disappointed and didnt like him, but I wasnt deeply worried for the country, not anything like when Trump was elected, she explained. If she could go back in time, she said, she would tell herself this was a far more pivotal historical moment than you understand.
Warren is tied for the 2nd lowest Trump score in the entire Senate

compare that to the highest Democrats

NO way can she be framed as some consistently villainous ex-Rethug who was in it for the cash (she grew up dirt poor) and is some late-comer to the game.
She is a ROCK SOLID Democrat, a wonderful, warm, hyper-intelligent, lucid-thinking person and would make a superb POTUS.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden