I'm all in for Elizabeth Warren. One of the issues that vexes all Democrats is whether his or her candidate is electable. Most Democrats, including me, are solidly in the "blue no matter who" camp. For most, the electablility issue is extremely important. That said, it is an issue that is extremely subjective, and based on the what one considers to be critical to the electability argument. Each candidate can generate his or her own reasons why they consider themselves to be electable. In this diary, I want to describe why I think Elizabeth Warren is not only electable but is the most electable of all the candidates. There are five broad areas that I considered to make this judgement: life experiences, accomplishments, policy positions and plans, coattails, and focus on the fight.
Life Experiences. Elizabeth was born and raised in Oklahoma. She married at a young age and became a single mom raising a child while working and going to school. This required help from her family to take care of her young child. She completed college, became a special education teacher, and then had to leave her job because of a second pregnancy. She put herself through law school and became a professor of law at Harvard. Her specialty became financial law. She became an activist when she saw how the middle class was being taken advantage of by big banks and financial institutions. She set to work to find solutions, became an expert on the topic, and became a trusted adviser to Barack Obama. She identified the need for a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to protect consumers from injustices perpetrated by the banks and other financial institutions. In September 2010 President Obama chose Warren to develop and stand up the institution. Elizabeth accomplished this monumental task in less than a year. The CFPB formally began operation in July of 2011. As a former federal employee, I recognize how incredibly difficult it is to successfully implement such a large complex agency in such a short period of time. After republicans blocked her installation as head of the new agency,she entered the race for Massachusetts senator in 2012. She began the race down 17 points and beat a popular incumbent republican by 7 points.
This is a compelling life story. Life experiences dictate how a person sees the world. She knows what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck. She recognizes that even though she was able to put herself through school with the support and help of family members, it would be much harder for her to do that now, and would be extremely difficult for members of disadvantaged communities. She recognized and analyzed the financial difficulties of the middle class by reaching out to people in all walks of life. She found remedies to help level the playing field through the CFPB. The CFPB has returned over 12 billion dollars to consumers. After she identified a problem, she went to work and got into the fight. She has continued to reach out and work with minorities and less advantaged to understand issues from all perspectives. She has shown the capacity to grow her knowledge and understanding. Her life experiences portend a strong, hard working, caring president who will get the job done.
Accomplishments. The previous topic addressed some of her accomplishments including the establishment of the CFPB and her senate election victory over Scott Brown, so this section will focus on her accomplishments as a US Senator. There are numerous examples on youtube of Elizabeth grilling banking and financial executives during senate hearings. The videos demonstrate a well-prepared, thoughtful interrogator able to think on her feet and ask pointed follow up questions. Her approach is always looking out for the interests of the little guy. Quantitative statistics of her work as a senator in submitting bills, co-sponsoring bills, getting bills enacted into law, etc., are available from sites like:
Care should be made in drawing too big an inference from the data contained at these sites, since not all bills are equal and an individual number does not necessarily represent the effort/coordination required and the impact of the specific bills/laws enacted. For instance a law changing the name of a post office does not require the effort/coordination nor have the impact of a law implementing a major program. The statistics contained in the sites do, however, show Senator Warren in an extremely favorable light especially considering her tenure as a senator. Elizabeth Warren gets things done!
Policy Positions and Plans. Elizabeth correctly stated in the February 25 debate that progressive policies are very popular among the electorate. She also has clear understanding that any plans will not be able to be passed by the senate without the elimination of the filibuster that requires 60 votes to advance meaningful legislation. This is why she has repeatedly spoken out on the need to eliminate the filibuster. The detail inherent in her plans including their costs analysis as well as how to fund her programs is unique. She has relied on and has credited many others for the development and analyses of her plans. She has long recognized that good ideas come from many people. If a candidate hasn’t developed a detailed, well thought out plan, you can’t be sure what they are truly advocating. Elizabeth’s experience as a teacher allows her to effectively and clearly communicate a positive vision of how these policies work and how they would benefit society. Her career as a lawyer demonstrates the dedication to developing thorough plans and how to implement and fund each of the policies.
All of Warren's plans can be found at:
Coattails. A candidate could him/her self be electable, but could be a hazard to winning/maintaining control of congress. I included coattails in this discussion of electability because if progress on any plans of any candidate is to be made, it is critical that the democrats take back the senate and keep control of the house. For most democrats this is a critical element that makes or breaks the decision to support a candidate. Any discussion of coattails is unfortunately very subjective. It largely means whether the candidate helps or hurts down ballot candidates in swing districts. It seems to rest on the "sell-ability" of both the candidate herself and of the policies and plans put forward by the candidate's campaign. As noted above, progressive policies are popular among the electorate. Elizabeth herself is a very popular leader with little baggage. When I have canvassed people who prefer a candidate other that Elizabeth as their first choice, they most often offer that Warren is their second choice. (Of course I haven’t spoken to many Bloomberg supporters.) Warren's plans on criminal justice, election security, minimum wage, paid leave, reparations, student debt, teacher pay, DACA, defense spending, overseas deployments, and campaign finance are all to a large measure supported by many other democratic candidates. Elizabeth's experience as a teacher helps her in explaining her plans to skeptical audiences. The most controversial policy on the debate stage right now seems to be the cost of implementing medicare for all. Elizabeth has done the work to assess the implementation costs and decided a modification to its implementation was in order. Quite simply, its extremely difficult to get there from here. Biden was right, the implementation of Obamacare was a BFD. We don't want to screw up what we have in Obamacare, rather we want to build it toward the M4A vision. Thus she realized the need for and developed a transition plan to get to the end-state M4A vision. It starts with implementing a public option into the existing Obamacare programs and then transitions to evolve to M4A. This is a very pragmatic plan while keeping the vision for the ultimate cost savings to come when M4A is fully implemented. Elizabeth will fully utilize her teacher skills to promote this approach throughout the country including swing districts.
Similarly her signature "wealth tax" is an extremely popular program that will easily be sell-able in swing districts. More than anything, though Elizabeth has proven to be a good listener that can talk with people in all demographics to address concerns with any proposed plan. For these reasons, I believe Elizabeth Warren at the top of the ticket will greatly enhance our chance of winning the senate and growing our majority in the House.
Focus on the Fight. The debates on February 19 and 25th crystallizes why Elizabeth Warren would be so formidable a candidate versus Trump. Her masterful face-to-face exchanges with billionaire Michael Bloomberg can be directly extrapolated to the general election against Donald Trump. Her focus on comments about women and the non-disclosure agreements during the February 19 debate forced Mr. Bloomberg into a defensive posture. Her follow up the next day of texting him a legal NDA release form ensured the issue would not be forgotten. He ultimately directed his company to release 3 of the women from their NDAs. She then followed up during the February 25 debate with the documentation of Mr. Bloomberg's treatment of pregnant employees and financial support of republican senatorial candidates. During both of these exchanges she showed focus and tenacity, and she did it without shouting. I don't see any other democratic candidate having the ability to so forcefully make this case. Many of us are dismayed by the lack of press attention and follow up to the many moral failings of Trump. These exchanges with Michael Bloomberg demonstrate how Elizabeth Warren would approach Mr. Trump every day of the campaign and especially in any debates that Trump reluctantly agrees to. The fall campaign will likely be the dirtiest and nastiest in our lifetime. Warren has demonstrated that she not only talks the talk, she walks the walk. I frankly have not seen any other democratic candidate demonstrate the capability of taking the fight directly to Trump. This ability, in combination with the positive presentation of the progressive vision of what her plans will achieve, is the key to our winning the election in November. It is what makes me feel that Warren is the most electable of any of the candidates.
The election in November is critical to the survival of our democracy. This cannot be overstated. Our children's future is dependent on the outcome of the election. Electability is an important subjective factor that we all must consider when selecting the best democratic nominee to battle Trump. For the above reasons, I believe the most electable candidate is Elizabeth Warren. Whomever is our eventual nominee, we must commit to working hard to end the presidency of Trump.
Thanks for listening.