I have always liked and admired Elizabeth Warren. She is as smart as they come, compassionate, passionate about her positions, and she takes shit from no one, especially Donald Trump. And best of all, she has that rare skill for a super smart person. She has that Bill Clinton gift of being able to take complicated issues from her specialty and explain them in ways that the rest of us non economic savants can understand.
What she is not is a natural politician. She showed that in her campaign for the Senate seat in 2012, when she was basically learning on the fly. She had her little trips and missteps, and it may have made the election closer than it had to be. But she has obviously learned very quickly, she has learned to harness her popularity and use it effectively. She quickly became one of Hillary Clinton’s most popular and effective campaign surrogates. And she just showed that she’s learned the ropes very quickly, by making a very shrewd political move.
Today Warren told WGBH News that she would enthusiastically support Scott Brown as the head of the Veterans Affairs department if Trump were to nominate him;
“If Scott Brown is the nominee for Veterans Affairs, I have no doubt that he would put his heart and soul into trying to help veterans,” Warren said in an interview with Boston Public Radio Thursday. “And I would put my heart and soul into trying to help him do that. You bet I’d support that.”
Scott Brown met earlier this week with Trump about the position. Warren has been steeply critical of many of Trump’s cabinet picks, and she is no Scott Brown lover. Why would she publicly give him a leg up like this.
Well, for one reason Scott Brown served in the National Guard for 30 years, he’s familiar with the issues from an “in their shoes” position. Clearly Elizabeth Warren believes that he is sincere and passionate about helping veterans, a cause she fully supports. And in fact it’s refreshing to see someone look past a party affiliation to recognize possible talent and skill for a job.
But here’s the politically savvy thing about this. Scott Brown is unemployed right now, and he’s dangerous. He gave her quite the tussle in 2012, and he knows which buttons to push. Also, one would imagine that he could resurrect his campaign and fundraising base fairly easily if he were to decide to make another run at her seat. If she can get Brown appointed as the VA Secretary, she gets him out of her hair for the immediate future.
Right now, as best as I know, the only declared GOP opponent to Warren in 2018 is nutjob former pitcher and disgraced ESPN commentator Curt Schilling. This is a guy who lost Hall of Fame support for a post complimenting a t-shirt promoting violence against reporters at a Trump rally. He was fired from ESPN for insensitive Tweets. And he stunned even Fox by defending a Trump interview boast that “he’d be dating a 10 year old beauty contestant in another 10 years”. This is her opposition at the moment.
Who would you rather go up against, a skilled politician who gave you a run for your money the first time, and could likely do so again, or a babbling boob who picks up Radio Venus in his fillings? If she plays this right, she can have a slick say in hand picking her patsy. Like I said, Elizabeth Warren is learning politics very quickly. Thanks as always for reading, you are ALL the wind beneath my wings!