"[I]t's becoming increasingly clear that [Clinton] would face an easier path to the White House than anyone since Eisenhower, and maybe even since Thomas Jefferson," says Kos and well, he's not alone. "If I've talked to a Democrat who doesn't want her to run, I can't remember it," James Carville told the Daily Beast a couple of weeks ago. "The classic thing to say about presidential elections is that Democrats are looking to fall in love and that Republicans fall in line. This time, it's the Democrats who are falling in line, and the Republicans are looking for somebody to fall in love with."
So the very serious members of the Washington echo chamber say Hillary Clinton will be the next nominee; many people involved in the Netroots believe and want Clinton will be the next nominee; heck, even the polling says Hillary Clinton will likely be the next nominee.
So why should Senator Warren find it impossible to pass up running for President in 2016?
Because I've got her back.
Follow me over the fold.
1. It's Warren's time. Obama was dealt a tough hand. The economy and housing market were in utter meltdown, Detroit was on the verge of collapse, American manufacturing was getting hammered and we were fighting two wars. I don't blame Obama for not being able to usher support for fundamental financial reforms. He was too busy fighting against slipping into another depression and the fact that we aren't in a depression is an accomplishment in itself. Indeed, maybe half measures were the best course of action just to get things running again.
It seems now that we're at the beginning of a long term growth cycle. American manufacturing is just starting to take off again and many companies are starting to in-source now that there are declining spreads between the cost of overseas and domestic labor. Now is the time to make fundamental changes to the financial system to protect against bubbles for the next twenty years.
Warren is the best politician I've ever witnessed at explaining the economy and the banking system in terms everyone can understand, without glossing over complexities. She singlehandedly has shown me that a populist is just a person who needs to resort to an over-simplified vision of why things happen because they lack the abilities of persuasion to provide the whole truth. Warren's gift is her ability to create a compelling narrative that ties together complex themes.
Warren gives us a puncher's chance at real financial reforms. That ain't much but at least it's a start. Warren would also push the Department of Justice to target financial crimes with the same zeal they prosecute violent crimes. Can any of you imagine any other politician, Clinton included, who can provide that opportunity? Clinton wouldn't even promise to try to enact real changes in banking laws and at the Department of Justice, for fear of cutting off the spigot of banking donations.
2. I'm a hard working American. It's important for the sake of honesty that you know that part of this about holding a grudge. "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," Clinton told USA Today in an interview before the 2008 West Virginia primary. Clinton cited an AP poll which "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
"There's a pattern emerging here," Clinton said, and she was correct -- a pattern of Clinton, herself, using race baiting as an attempt to divide the primary electorate and eek out victory. I realize that politics is a contact sport and that all is fair in primaries. That doesn't mean I have to forget how she tried to leverage racial attacks like a Republican before the South Carolina primary to push the good people of West Virginia to the polls. I take solace in the fact that Clinton was wrong and that Obama appears to have built a coalition of the plurality of non-Caucasian "others" who should ensure the Democratic party retains the Presidency for the next generation.
I'm a hard working American. I'll say it proudly, brown skin and all. I don't have millions of dollars to fund a Superpac or sway over Superdelegates.
I have two hands, and they're good at knocking on doors. Two feet, and they're good at pounding pavement. I have a heart, and I'm ready to forcefully argue on your behalf.
And if it takes traveling a couple of hours to New Hampshire to knock on 100 doors, 1,000 doors, 10,000 doors to show Secretary Clinton how hard working of an American I am, so be it. Senator Warren, I've got your back.
How could you ever pass on 2016?