Americans will never elect an anti-business candidate like Senator Warren.
Michael Bloomberg is the only candidate who can defeat Trump.
Bloomberg or Trump. Take your pick.
9
@BobC
"Americans will never elect an anti-business candidate"
Well, we elected Mr. Trump. He is not a businessman. He just played one on TV.
Since Jan 20, 2017, Mr. Trump has waged a full-on war on business. With his quixotic trade wars that have disrupted supply chains, his tariffs (a de facto national sales tax), and his unpredictable policy moves that make it impossible for businesses to make long-term plans for the future.
16
@BobC I agree -- Bloomberg or Trump. Any democrats that think Warren can win against Trump are just as crazy as she is.
7
Dear Senator Warren,
Please remind the American people that you used to be a Republican. And tell them about your personal journey, and how your views changed in response to looking at facts and reality.
Remind us that you support opportunity for all Americans, as old school Republicans such as John McCain and Jack Kemp once did. (We used to share the same goals, but have different approaches of how to get there.)
And hammer home how today's Banana Republican Party no longer supports the American Dream of opportunity for all. They are no longer real conservatives.
The only thing the Banana Republicans want to conserve is the money and power of their oligarch donor-class owners (many of whom are not even American citizens) -- thanks in large part to the legalized bribery that resulted from the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.
15
She's too far left.
Listen to Obama.
9
All for naught, Trump will be re-elected.
4
Bumper sticker for Elizabeth Warren: Make America Poor Again!
9
Vox had a very good interview with her here - and so far most of the candidates. Really great questions
https://www.vox.com/2019/8/28/20726454/2020-election-vox-recode-podcasts
3
Well, I’m gonna vote for the candidate running against Trump. How about you guys?
12
I'm probably not the first one to state this but I state it anyways: The nomination of Elisabeth Warren will be followed by a landslide win of Donald Trump.
10
For some reason, you and other reporters find it necessary to put in phrases like her “soak the rich” policies. How is it that suggesting billionaires pay a miniscule portion of their wealth in taxes is “soaking the rich”?
12
I hope it stalls and dies.
She will not beat trump. She IS a woman, and shrill at that.
If you want a woman look at Amy. She is so much more level headed (and not shill). Problem is, she is a woman too.
2
I would LOVE to see Elizabeth Warren debate DjT!!
That would be entertaining.
5
Warren isn’t my candidate but repeating this nonsense about electability does a disservice to us all by giving an unfounded smear additional strength.
Obviously, the “experts” no nothing about electability bad evidenced by their 2016 judgements.
8
OK. Here's one moderate [Amy for America!] who will vote for Warren if she's nominated.
But, I doubt enough other voters, where it counts in the ELECTORAL COLLEGE will join me to put Warren in the White House.
Because,
All the rationalizations promoting M4A, et. al. amount to mere opinions, not facts.
And, too many of my fellow Americans hold different opinions for Liz to win the general election next year.
2
My family was poor. I paid for my own PHD education. I grew up respecting people who were able to create businesses and jobs for other people. I admire people who work hard. I feel it is important for people to be able to keep most of the money they earn. Warren is too busy spending other people’s money. Her “wealth tax” is not just. Wealth taxes have failed in many European countries. Her “medicare for all” plan will give Americans a medicaid like health plan. Then there is her claim that she has American Indian blood. She was hired to teach T Harvard because she said she was a minority. A DNA test proved she has no American Indian blood. How can anyone respect her? She stole a minority’s teaching job by claiming she has American Indian blood!
6
Democrats: Forget about Independents and center right Republican voters when you choose YOUR Democratic candidate. You’re honestly going cede to them that level control over your own party? Hasn’t their poor decision making been evidenced enough already? Don’t let your desperation lead you to foolish behavior. If you like Warren, choose Warren.
4
Like Dole, Dukakis, Gore and HRC, she is unlikable and unelectable. She needs to go away.
6
I love Liz! Love her! I totally understand that the campaign trail is hard. I just wish she would employ a stylist. I love her signature black with a sweater or jacket. I would suggest that it be upgraded to look a bit more professional though. I really believe she would get more votes. I am not suggesting makeup, just a bit upgrade to her wardrobe. If she were a man I would suggest the same thing.
3
I never understand why these snotty pieces never mention: 2016 showed that a lot of voters prefer anti-establishment candidates (both Sanders and Trump); Warren has more substantive anti-establishment credentials than anyone in the race; the historic 2018 elections, which produced a Democratic wave never seen before, were driven partly by a huge increase in political activism and voting by suburban and rural women; Warren has incredible appeal to those groups. Not saying Warren doesn’t have weaknesses. But this kind of horse race coverage misses what really matters. Appalling.
6
Although she has a reputation as a firebrand and one who speaks truth to power-- in truth, she's been ineffectual at altering anything.
What she has been is the final step for the rich and powerful to be semi-publicly shamed on CSPAN, right before they're granted exactly what they wanted in the first place. Yawn.
5
Tons of respect for Elizabeth Warren. She is running a really good campaign. She has put in the hard work to develop policies and convey her position with detail. I believe she would be a good operator as president.
I do not believe she can win. I believe the United States needs a candidate on the Democratic side that can have a chance to attract moderates. 
3
Boy, do I want to believe she can win. If she can moderate a bit on the darned health care ideas, she might sway the independents in just a handful of states. She's clearly as cogent as the rest of the bunch (if not moreso), but she has a fire in her belly the others don't. I'm wondering if it's too late for her to change her name to Betsy. Betsy Warren has a really accessible ring to it.
1
If Warren wins, Trump wins. If Democrats don't realize this, they deserve to lose.
5
Many working people don't just vote FOR Donald Trump, they're voting AGAINST the Democrats.
Something that Democrats, liberals, and progressives need to understand is the fact that a lot of working people, not just Republicans, vote for conservative candidates because:
1) They resent the fact that so many people have their hand out to the government, and it obliges them by giving them an easier financial existence than WORKING people...enough with the handouts, get to work!
2) We need to regain manufacturing capability and capacity. There will come a day when we regret being dependent on foreign manufacturing...It makes us weak.
3) They want our government to control our borders, helping us to control our population. Overpopulation is at the core of so many of our problems, including poverty and climate change.
4) We need fair trade deals, even if it means paying a short-term cost. Is it fair to have a 28% import tax on American vehicles going to Germany, but only 1.4% on German vehicles coming to the U.S.? We have been subsidizing the world economy since WWII...time for that to end.
There’re more…retaining gun rights, NATO partners contributing their fair share to funding, over-emphasis on LGBTQN rights (there are logical reasons to be against homosexuality)…
The Democrats address none of these issues.
6
There has been too much emphasis in the Democratic primaries on centrism vs. progressivism and not enough on pragmatism vs. idealism. At the extremes, Sanders is an idealist in his all-or-nothing vision of a social-democratic America, and Biden is equally idealistic in his belief that we can return to bipartisan comity. At first, I thought Warren would be the pragmatist's candidate, a tough leftist who understands that every gain will involve a bitter battle and uncomfortable compromises.
Unfortunately, Warren has not chosen to play that role. To date, she has tried to out-Bernie-Bernie and thereby cast herself as another idealist whose grand plans will crash against Republican intransigence and the risk aversion of the median voter. It may be too late for her to scramble back. Her M4A plan is a case in point; she stuck to a purist position far too long and her new-found realism has not convinced voters of her judgment or sincerity. Warren's refusal thus far to provide a pragmatic alternative between Biden and Sanders is what has provided oxygen to Buttigieg's surge.
Even if Trump is defeated, Trumpism will not disappear. Odds are Mitch McDonnell will still preside over a Republican senate and Democrats in purple districts will be nervously bracing for a mid-term backlash. We need a presidential candidate who can convince voters that they have a realistic game plan and the savvy to achieve it. Warren has to move quickly to reassure voters she's that candidate.
5
Last I checked, about 40 percent of the population still thinks that Donald Trump is doing a great job. Obama, Clinton, and Carter were all centrists. I wish Americans were more progressive. They are not. So how about we get just a little more moderate and avoid the ever accelerating trip down the drain with another four years of DJT. Democrats need to win the Whitehouse and Medicare for all is not going to be part of the winning ticket.
5
Elizabeth Warren is the most impressive candidate to enter the primaries for either party in the 50 plus years I've followed politics. She is brilliant, thoughtful, articulate, compassionate, caring, humble, down to earth, unpretentious, unflappable, focused, and above all, sincere.
Her plans for governing dwarf those of any other candidate. Her platform is comprehensive and philosophically consistent. She is unafraid to take strong stands on controversial issues. She is realistic and flexible enough to respond to political realities- e.g., she accepts that "Medicare For All Who Want It" is a good interim step in health care reform, facilitating transition within a few years to a single payer system where private insurance companies no longer control the lives of most Americans.
Warren is a truly inspirational figure, who inspires hope among many who had given up on our broken system. She will generate a higher turnout among younger voters and anti-establishment types. Traditional Democratic voters will certainly be drawn by her economic message.
Hearing Warren use a steady diet of the truth to combat Trump's blizzard of lies should make for a contrast in 2020 between an adult and a superannuated child. Democrats everywhere should unite behind her as the best hope for ending the tragedy of Trump's illegitimate presidency.
6
All this discussion about the preferred public option seems to ignore history--Dems don't deliver on even their "compromise" promises. Obama and Pelosi promised a public option, didn't deliver. Remember when Clinton promised card check sign-ups for unions? Didn't deliver. Proposing a compromise only gets further compromised. How about sticking to what's right for the majority?
4
Many like to claim that only a moderate can win the presidency, but keep in mind that trump made many of the same promises as did Bernie. 18 of 10 of the poorest states went for trump while 9 of the 10 richest states went for Hillary. I believe for many, Hillary was seen as not representing them, while trump was.
What is interesting is the these repub states are experiencing negative growth and yet, they keep voting repub. There is much that is difficult to understand on this issue, but I strongly believe that a moderate Dem will lose. In Wisconsin, just a couple months ago, support for impeachment was higher, but has recently dropped and WI is a state we need to win.
Elizabeth Warren seems to have peaked out, her poll numbers are now falling because more voters now realize she is probably far more suited to be a gym teacher or athletic coach that president and commander and chief. A lot of physical energy and frenetic activity for her age, a lot of flailing of arms and jumping up and down, but what she says and how she says is really scary for a lot of people. Trump risks impeachment to bet Biden out of the race because Trump thinks he can beat Warren easily.
6
This is the president America needs. The question is does America deserve her? The sheer fact that many of my wealthy clients who claim to be liberal and progressive stressed out at the thought of an Elizabeth Warren Presidency, makes me all the more confidence she is the perfect person for the job. The country must be recalibrated from uncontrolled rouge capitalism that has run amok and is destroying the fabric of our society in our democracy.What I urge my wealthy Americans to do instead of trying to undermine the necessary changes that are coming (whether you like it or not) I suggest you get on board and help with the transition that is a long long long overdue. Warren Bernie 2020
5
Senator Warren's effusive energy is obviously contagious. She's also got a sharp and quick wit, which none of the other candidates seem to have. She acts like she's having the time of her life.
But for all that, there is a gaping hole in her plan for Medicare for All. That's doctors themselves. Many doctors, often the best ones, refuse to accept Medicare.
In 2010, as a Medicare patient I was kicked out of a for-profit neurology clinic in Dallas, Texas (Texas Neurology), where I had been receiving infusions of immune globulin for 10 years that kept me from becoming bedridden with an autoimmune condition that I could also die from. Texas Neurology is to me still the gold standard for treating conditions that require periodic infusions of immune globulin (as compared to UNC Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill, Albany Medical Center, Vassar Brothers Hospital in Poughkeepsie, Columbia-Presbyterian in NYC, and NYU Langone Center, also in NYC).
After I moved to New York in 2008, I sought a PCP but was turned away more than once by highly recommended doctors who didn't want or accept Medicare patients.
How is Senator Warren going to deal with doctors, often the best ones, who don't want and won't accept Medicare patients? I don't think it's possible by law to require them to.
What's your plan for that, Senator Warren?
2
Warren is not a hero. She is a politician, and like most of the present cohort, she is divisive rather than uniting, overstating her positives while understating or denying her problems. In this election, progressive policies will backfire. The polls are clear on this and have been for years. Warren's supporters need to eschew the rallies and bubble talk, read the polls, and listen to those who don't think or vote like them. They will learn that most voters don't want what Warren is selling. Rather than reverse the electoral problems that emerged in 2016, if she is nominated her legacy will be to repeat Hillary, giving a monster four more years in office to wreak terrible damage on this country and the world.
8
I like her, I’m voting for her in the primary. If you like her, stop trying to guess if she can beat trump and just vote for her. She would be a really great president. Even if she only gets half of what she wants.
2
Voters need to hear Ms. Warren's thoughts on foreign policy. So far, we've gotten health care and economics. Okay, good. But it's not enough in this currently fragile era. She doesn't need a plan, but it would sure help to hear something from her about the Mideast, the southern border, China, N. Korea, for starters.
Warren has to start attacking the moderates and challenge them for their unwillingness to say that health care is a human right. And bring attention to the fact that Biden and Buttigieg are supporting the inflated medical and insurance behemoths that profit off patient care at the expense of the patients and other citizens that go without care. Timid policy will only hand the election to Trump. Those who say that voters just want incremental change obviously did not pay attention to 2016. Warren is right on and needs to push back on her critics harder. When Booker challenged her with the “create wealth” instead of “tax wealth” argument she should have fought back harder with bringing attention to the severity of the wealth gap and the need for a wealth tax as a corrective measure that could theoretically sunset once wealth is more broadly shared. Otherwise the extreme wealth gap will persist while the middle and working classes wither away and the planet dies. A sense of urgency on inequality and the climate crisis is needed and Warren at least has plans while the rest (except Bernie) just throw their hands up and say we can’t. We Can! Win with Warren!
1
I don’t understand why Warren, or any other candidate, is so bent on providing a detailed plan to overhaul our healthcare system. For one, the president does not have that power; Congress would be the entity that passes any such law. Policy making is sausage making—no single person’s plan wins the day. Remember that Obama once said that he thought a single-payer system might be best, but he didn’t risk his campaign on it. Aspirations are not specific, they are general. Why not lay out broad goals like “everyone needs to be covered,” or “we can get there via a variety of mechanisms” or “I will not sign any bill that does not include universal coverage”? Those are aspirational things that could win the day without the risk of getting pilloried for your “plan”—a plan that predients do not have the power to pass in the first place. It gives me concern when a candidate makes a bad choice on a major issue that they could make a total winner by changing their tune without compromising their values. It makes me wonder about their true capacity to lead change. Senators make plans, presidents lay out visions, and there are many ways to get to universal, more affordable health care. Given the state of our county a mixed model more like the Swiss model might be more realistic, and maybe we can get Medicare of all—but is that something you want to risk the whole came for?
2
She needs to say why your 401k will not suffer under her plans. That’s the real key. It needs to be convincing.
5
Someone needs to remind the NYT readers that since coming out with her Medicare for All proposal, she has dropped 7 points among Democrats and lost the lead to Pete in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that have seen her the most. I guess it has not gone over well. And I have more bad news for her fans... there is not ONE state in America where she now leads in the polls among Dems.
7
If Senator Warren really believes in her way of framing problems, she would miss the right solutions to the challenges of this nation. If her way of framing problems is for populist support, she is just another irresponsible, phony politician. Her attitude "my way or the high way" is not just limited to her healthcare proposal. Ask the Obama alumni how Senator Warren worked out for their team. The problem with her candidacy is not how far left she is. The problem is her leadership style.
5
I hate to say this as a Democrat, but if she gets the nomination, I will sit this election out. Same for Bernie.....I want a moderate in there, not someone who is giving away the house.
6
In this skeptical time, it is a little hard to realize how to assess someone with a real vision and understanding of how to do the right thing. No one has a crystal ball. All plans need to be developed and refined. But as a general idea of what direction our nation needs to be going in, no one is articulating it as well as Elizabeth Warren. The fact that "she has rarely hit back at her leading competitors with much force" is not a sign of weakness but of strength. She knows she needs all the competitive Democrats on her side after she wins the primary.
8
I consider myself a moderate democrat. I was initially neutral about Elizabeth Warren. Then I became positive when I observed how engaging she was with her audiences. Now, sadly, I am negative.
I am okay with policy ideas based on idealism. But getting elected and becoming a successful president requires a certain social astuteness and the ability to inspire others (especially critics) to follow even when they are skeptical or don't agree.
I still admire her ambition, and for sure, health care and tax law reforms are badly needed. But she has to be a lot less intelligent than I know she is if she thinks her structural changes will pass the judgment of the majority of the American voters or Congress. She doesn't seem to have the political skills convince voters otherwise.
2
Where did Warren and Sanders get the idea that the Democratic Party could return to an FDR type of party in this post-Reagan era? This notion just sort of popped out of nowhere during the 2016 campaign. It has caught on with younger people who don't remember Reagan defeating Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale but not with any other demographic group. Barack Obama won two elections. Maybe it would be a good idea to figure out why. He didn't want to return to the days of FDR. But he had some appeal that led to victory in recent years. You would think that emulating the type of party that won recent national elections, not elections held in the 1930s and 1940s, would be a logical goal to pursue with the real possibility of four more years of Donald Trump staring Democrats in the face.
13
@Bob
Sanders and Warren have emerged as leading candidates BECAUSE so many voters now recognize the profound error of Democrats compromising to death to try to win elections. Barack Obama, too, convinced voters that he was the smartest, most passionate, most principled Democrat. He turned out to be that, but still too quick to compromise. Many voters, hopefully most voters, now want a president who will reach for big, important changes--who will push beyond Obama and start to decisively take this country back from the elites--Republican elites and Democratic elites--for the average working American. The big turn toward inequality started with Reaganism and Clintonism (its compromised Democratic version), and lots of people get that now. That's why when it's Warren vs. Trump, she's going to grab a lot of his voters. Because she's actually offering what many Trump voters thought they were getting: somebody to stick it to the elites who've been looting the country since Reagan.
1
Young people do not learn any political history in school. So they don’t know socialism/communism leads to tyranny.
2
Health care for all requires the negotiating power of single payer. Medicare for All is a shorthand that everyone understands, but diluting it will not work. Trouble is, people with good employee heath care, and others with good plans, don't realize how much those plans cost. It's only when you leave your job that your costs go up and up. And many employers are now nickel and dimeing their employees to "save" money. Then there's the gig economy. Old fashioned jobs are disappearing, and the rest of us are on our own.
That's why single payer will save money in the end.
16
We now have employer health insurance, Obamacare, medicaid, medicare and some other health insurance. If the government runs healthcare there will be people who do not have to use “medicare for all”. People like our government officials: congress, unelected officials, some businesses that will get exceptions. You will end up with a medicaid like program with long wait times. You will not even be able to pay a doctor out of your own pocket for a service you have wanted months for under “medicare for all”. You will have no choice.
4
If you believe in the premise that Warren Buffet should not be paying a lower tax rate than his secretary, and if you believe in the premise that public education K-12 should be strengthened, as well as extended out two to four more years for college, and one year for preschool, then you understand Elizabeth Warren’s two cents tax. She raises revenue from those who do not pay their fair share and invest it in HUMAN CAPITAL which fosters economic growth and opportunities for an entire generation.
22
Until their is a flat tax that captured everyone, anyone who pays tax pays more than fair share.
2
It seems like Bernie and Warren are splitting the progressive vote. Any chance they could run as a team with Bernie running for president with Warren as VP? And then after four years, Bernie bows out and Warren runs for president with a different VP? I could get behind that.
10
@Galway Girl Why would we risk handing the GOP back the Presidency by electing a Dem who’d only serve one term? Incumbents always have the advantage; VPs not so much.
Bernie is way too old for even one term
2
Medicare for all will take 10 years to implement. If it doesn't start now, this country will regret it in 10 years. The cost of not having done it 50 years ago is staggering.
17
We need a choice. We now have employer health insurance, Obamacare, medicaid, medicare and some other health insurance. If the government runs healthcare there will be people who do not have to use “medicare for all”. People like our government officials: congress, unelected officials, some businesses that will get exceptions. You will end up with a medicaid like program with long wait times. You will not even be able to pay a doctor out of your own pocket for a service you have wanted months for under “medicare for all”. You will have no choice.
OK- M4A actually is not going to happen. It has ERO chance of being passed in Congress
2. All of us regular Dems will vote for warren if she gets the nod. We just do not want her to get the nod because we think she will lose nationwide.
3. Her numbers are going straight down in the polls.
4. One more thing- this is the last time that Iowa and NH will be Big Things. Who cares what two small states with te demographic profile of Norway think?
10
I've heard Warren talk of her plans, and they seem to involve one tax increase after another, the elimination of hundreds of thousands of insurance industry jobs, and generous handouts to undocumented immigrants. No thanks.
I'll be voting for Pete Buttigieg in the primary, and writing his name in during the general election if Warren or Sanders are the nominee.
12
If you choose to vote for anyone in the general election other than the Democratic Party nominee, you are really voting for Trump. Same if you choose not to vote. Don’t kid yourself otherwise. I understand the urge to sit out if we don’t like the choice, but passive action and inaction also have consequences, and in the general election, that consequence is Trump. Face the reality of the choice, then step up and make it.
4
Warren is the only candidate since FDR who wants structural change to save capitalism from itself. She is also the one who talks most about the corruption of money in politics and how it affects ordinary people. She calls this a rigged system for the benefit of those with greatest access to wealth. Since money is the blood of politics, vested interests both within and outside her party will fight to death to stop her.
Democrats to the right of her want use the current system by bringing more equity in our lives. However, the last two democrat presidents more or less tried and failed. More and more money went into politics while economic inequity continued to increase. The result is Trump.
Democrats to her left wants to throw away capitalism and go the failed path of many countries in South America, India and other places. Warren's path to democratic capitalism is a massive change but not big enough to throw our economics system all together. This is why she is the right leader for the right time for this country. America has another Rosevolet moment, let us hope we make the right decision again.
13
You can only have ONE moment at a time. This
has to be the remove Trump moment.
Warren is a socialist/communist. Socialism/communism leads to tyranny.
2
While Warren is my favorite candidate, it is clear that she will be quite vulnerable to attacks of being too radical and not pragmatic enough. I believe she can beat Trump by exposing him as a symptom of the runaway greed threatening our democracy.
Still, she should be very careful with choosing a running mate if she gets the nomination. A strong sign of willingness to work with people not as liberal as she is.
One worry is not just getting the white house but also the need to gain control of the Senate to actually govern and enable any change. Showing she is pragmatic when it comes to use the system to reform the system.
6
Billionaires living not in the US can flee to the US if they are bullied, often causing serious problems to that country. However, billionaires in the US cannot do that, no problem for the US. She is right.
3
why can't they do that?
That’s 4 more years of Trump unless you are an arrogant “progressive”.
1
I don’t believe I’m wrong saying that we’d be pleased having someone like Elizabeth Warren as Prime minister in Canada, she represents intelligence and decency the foremost virtues to deal with real people.
19
Elisabeth Warren has never evaluated what she could or could not get through Congress. As a moderate Democrat I have only one issue: "Dump Trump". I will vote for the person who can accomplish this best. The rest will sort itself out. If we retake the Senate we can go forward. If not, we will have stopped the damage of Trump policies. If we lose because Warren has scared the independents, we are still in a world of hurt. To Barbara in Boston, that's why we're moderates. We want to regain control.
7
Michael Moore would say, based upon polling, that working class people actually are farther to the left than moderate democrats. What moderates see as radical is in fact in line with what most people want.
9
It is so simple. When they ask how do we pay for it, you say:
We are paying for it right now!!
Only difference is the prices we’re paying now for procedures and meds is a heck of a lot higher than it will be when a single payer negotiates the prices
11
The issue around Medicare is confusing for a lot of us from overseas, and the suggestion that Elizabeth Warren's plan to expand it might cause an election loss for the Democrats seems unfathomable. (In Australia, you can win an election by suggesting the opposition will DISMANTLE Medicare.)
We've had it for decades and it's meant that families can no longer be pushed into poverty by medical expenses. It sounds very different in the U.S. - Professor Otis Brawley from Johns Hopkins University has been quoted as saying, "There are a substantial number of Americans who don't realize they are a cancer diagnosis away from economic disaster."
Resistance to universal health insurance seems as strange as resistance to gun laws. And given that the 100,000 shootings in America each year lead to "$2.8 billion in hospital charges" - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/02/cost-of-gun-violence-hospital-expenses-johns-hopkins-study - the sooner something is done about both, by the next Democratic president, the better.
20
I think Ms. Warren is one of the smartest, strongest, most capable and most fact-evidence-logic-based presidential candidates we've had in ages. I hope she becomes our next president.
Those who live inside our anti-fact, anti-evidence, anti-logic black hole will never see the light. Our entire democracy--indeed, perhaps our entire civilization--is in the hands of those few who live in the penumbra of that black hole, near the event horizon. Is Ms. Warren a big enough star to move them towards her light?
13
"Now comes the hard part".
Electability? Who can predict it? The presumed leader Biden is now ensnared through his good friend Lindsay Graham in an impeachment trial that may call his son as a witness. Two more candidates piled into an unsettled race. The extended bull market and economy may slow. The farmers in the Great and Northern Plains may face another year with broken records and crops that cannot be seeded or harvested, leaving more of them in the debt crisis they are already in.
What we are sure of is that climate change is happening and will accelerate if we continue to slow-walk this crisis. Inequality will continue to distort our institutions and concentrate the markets. Lack of affordable healthcare will continue to drive families like ours to the brink.
The American electorate may not be ready for the truth, but it needs to be spoken. The hard part is telling it in a convincing way.
12
We are at a stage when we need to decide on who are the democratic candidates who will help this nation the most. Trump has proven himself as the person purely focused on himself and his wealth. Warren or Sanders will benefit the country the most- best would be one of them as President and the other taking on secretary of labor or health positions. We would need a younger person as VP. Biden is talking himself out of contention. Buttigieg is unproven.
2
Back during the Obamacare debate, I remember watching a townhall in Houston hosted by former Congressman Gene Green. The people were railing against socialized medicine. All of a sudden, the congressman asked how many people in the room were on Medicare. Half the hands shot up. The concept eluded everyone who rose their hand. Medicare is socialized medicine. But everyone I know who is on it is very happy with it. I wish it could be extended to younger people as well. It will happen one day because the private market does not work. Whether Elizabeth Warren leads us their may be under debate, but it will happen.
11
Hanging over Warren's chances for the nomination is the question of whether she is too far left. Advocating Medicare for All, a wealth tax, etc makes it hard for her to win the nomination although she has qualities that would seem to make a good president, at least from the point of view of Democrats. She has backtracked a bit with her two -step plan to get to Medicare for all. That might help although it could cost her progressive votes that would likely go to Bernie Sanders, who is widely regarded by many progressives as the real deal. It would not be surprising to see Warren do a little more back tracking, particularly if her polling numbers do not pick up.
1
I will not vote for anybody but Bernie or Warren--the rest are pretty much corporate tools. The Dems had better get their left on.
15
You may post this as often as you like. The thought, and I use the term advisedly, will not get smarter.
Warren is one of the best presidential candidates to come along in a while. She is funny, natural and authentic, and has excellent ideas and proposals to tackle the most important problems in our country. Plus, she explains everything so clearly that even her wonkishness is completely intelligible to everyday people. i feel quite confident that as the campaign continues on, her considerable strengths will win out over all the other candidates in the end, and we’ll see her in the White House in 2021.
25
Understand that the three billionaires in the race, and the eight other candidates taking money from billionaires and super -pacs are not in the race to improve the lives of ordinary Americans first. Their job is to protect the interests of the wealthy, then devote any left over energy and time to improving the lives of ordinary Americans. Warren understands this. I believe she has said her first job is to push to get private money out of politics. Then the government can get down to business of helping ordinary Americans. If she wins, I hope that the 1% understand that it is not the end of the world. It may be that they have to work a little harder and that they will pay more in taxes. Just like I have under the Trump-McConnell- Ryan tax cuts for the wealthy. If instead they turn enmass to support Trump, then you will know that their only loyalty is to money.
18
It’s not summer, but Warren’s well will not easily freeze. I honestly do not believe she is data and plan driven purely for numbers. Instead, Warren is data and plan wonky, and behind those she sees very real American stories and inequity to equalize. Her next phase, I believe, is to fulfill the human side more thoroughly.
11
Warren can win if she is more pragmatic and realistic about her healthcare plan. The best approach to Medicare for All is likely a gradual approach. Lower the opt-in age for the existing Medicare to 60, then 55, then 50, etc.
At each step, improve the benefits so that supplemental insurance is less necessary. Start by increasing hospital coverage from 80% to 100% under Medicare Part A. Then bring prescription drug coverage into Medicare Part B, and negotiate drug costs. (Most seniors hate shopping for the private prescription drug plans, and there is evidence that many are not choosing the best plans for their situation.) At some point, add a vision plan.
A gradual approach is politically feasible, and will allow our very complex health care system time to adapt to changes that could be extremely disruptive if implemented suddenly.
Warren needs to publicly acknowledge that the House and Senate will have input into the final healthcare plan. She needs to signal that she is open to discussion and negotiation on this issue. That will ease people's minds enough to allow them to vote for her.
8
She has already modified her healthcare plan. Don’t forget—a president is not a king or queen. Changes in laws should go through thorough review, hammering out details, and be put up for a vote in Congress. Candidates love to say what they will do “on day one.” Warren will not simply be able to institute Medicare for All by royal command on day one. Her ideas are aspirational, and she would work with others to get things done In a pragmatic way. She strikes me as a collaborative, reasonable person who wants to make life better for people. She and Bernie both understand how many people are struggling just to pay for their prescriptions. She’ sees the widening income disparity between CEOs and people who actually do the work. Warren wants to level the playing field.
3
Warren has big plans.
But more importantly she also has experience bringing well conceived legislation to the table, working with others, and taking it to the finish line. She’s gracious, optimistic, and energetic. We need this in the White House. We need someone who can smile.
A “safe” middle of the road candidate is not going to win over a mythical cache of moderates in the Midwest and risks the loss of a Democratic base. Republicans are not going to vote for a Democrat in this election, and trying to court them is a waste of valuable time and money.
What we need is a candidate who inspires and who can bring new and discouraged voters to the polls. That is the only way we’ll win.
18
@Chickpea She has never had one piece of legislation passed, so exactly when has she been working with others? What is the “well conceived legislation “ she brought to the table? You sound like one of her campaign managers.
4
another status quo NYT piece belittling Elizabeth Warren. When will the paper and it's opinion hacks move into the 21st century and acknowledge the fact that only fundamental changes such as universal healthcare, and a new green deal bankrolled by appropriately taxing obscene the wealth accumulated by mega corporations and their CEOs, thus avoiding accountability everyone else is subjected to by lining the pockets of politicians? It should be obvious by now, that Trump is a symptom of a deeper laying disease that neither party has addressed enough when they had a chance, except few pols with enough integrity to point this out, such as Sanders, Warren, AOC, etc.
19
@Commie
From this side of the border it sure looks God has blessed America by giving it everything it asked for. It looks like getting you ask for isn't working out so well.
We invested in medicare in lean years isn't government of the people supposed to be for the people.
It may be too late for Elizabeth Warren you country has gone mad.
My father remember Reagan from when he ratted on his guild members who loved their country as much J Edgar and Joseph McCarthy. He told me when Reagan got elected America was headed down the wrong road.
2
Unless Americans forget, the U.S. didn't become the global powerhouse by inheriting money from their oarents. It was built by PROBLEM SOLVERS. Those problem solvers worked in BOTH government and the private sector.
It would be good to get back to a country that spends less time on social media and more time on building things that WORK AND LAST AND A COUNTRY STILL WILLING TO TRY THINGS INSTEAD OF SPENDING TIME DEBATING ABOUT IT FOR 20 YEARS.
9
@Larry L I would agree with you about government debating things endlessly and never doing much to improve the lives of ordinary Americans. Regarding healthcare, I think 100 years spent debating the issue, rather than 20, is closer to the truth. Roosevelt had such plans. Bismarck introduced universal insurance in Germany sometime around 1879! The idea isn’t new, it’s a question of a governments will.
4
@Larry L
George Washington started with inherited wealth.
1
If the public could visualize who Warren's VP pick would be she could win the nomination easily. One demographic judges what the other demographic will accept, realizing we are all in the same boat and weighing what will work. For example, should Warren choose Andrew Gillam, it would be an entirely new unifying visualization. I think an all female ticket, Warren and Harris would certainly dominate the news cycle everywhere and could also be a winning ticket. The race is not about ego, it is about unifying the party and winning the presidency. Warren should announce her VP pick. What we don't need is a billionaire and or establishment Democrat smothering new life in the party.
9
I will stand with Elizabeth Warren through to the presidency. Sure, 2020 will be tough to pull out, with Trump or a Republican surrogate to contend with.
Biden is starting to abandon the deer in headlights stance from the first debate. The more strident he becomes, the greater the difficulty for Liz to seize the primary. Passion masks gaffs & allows the public to forget his corporate agenda.
The more people hear Warren's plan, the less the platitudes from the contenders will resonate. A few items can be safely jettisoned with no downside. Lots of time to amend the platform.
Elizabeth Warren 2020
8
This mid-westerner does not fear Warren. I will vote for the Democratic nominee no matter who it is, which I think is the most important stance for all of us. Many people in my city are Trump supporters, who will not change their minds to support a moderate D candidate. They are absolutely stuck. When I think about the people I know, I realize they are either progressive or Trump supporters. I know few so-call "moderates." In this era of extreme political polarization, those in the middle are scarcer than usual. Let's listen to those who in our party who fear becoming too liberal and work to include them in our platform. In other words, we don't have to be 100% pure to be electable.
13
Meanwhile the California Left is pushing to eradicate gasoline powered cars by 2040 and therefore maybe it would be a good idea to just stop delivering petroleum to California all together right now (except for first responders). Then Senator Warren and Co. would have to back-pedal a bit on how this world really works!
7
Even if we implemented a nationwide ban on petroleum-powered vehicles starting in 2022, the nation would do just fine. Use your imagination.
1
@William Perrigo
A fellow commenter (I didn't record their handle) presented some convincing calculations concerning electrical generation. Currently, about 63% of our electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels.
Just to cover current uses, every person would require 33 square meters of solar panels. This would do nothing to supply the additional electricity required to power all the new electric cars, trains, industry, passenger and transport planes?!, ships...military vehicles, planes, and ships of all kinds.
1
Medicare for all. I suggest the media take a very deep dive into Medicare as it presently exists. It's rather a nightmare for recipients and providers. No one understood Obamacare and that paying for it rested on the back of the Medicare system. The government already has incredible control over medical treatment for a very large sector of the population and it wields its power in ways most people don't know about or refuse to look at. Like cash back to doctors for reducing treatment of patients by dollars. Yes, TRUE.
When Medicare is the ONLY game in town it will be an upheaval of unimaginable magnitude. And those who claim that this or that country has medical care for all need to look into the specifics. The US medical system is not set up for this. We can't just hop like we are wearing Warren's magic sneakers, from this reality to another one. We need plan that is enacted over time and that brings the whole system along. No offense but Obama stood at his podium announcing Obamacare with Big Pharma on one shoulder and the AMA on the other claiming "they have already don't their parts" -- trans: they are exempted from this.
I wish the voting public were less interested in their selfies and more interested in serious policy analysis. In that environment all the candidates would be forced to be more circumspect and more realistic. But voters don't want that. They want to have FUN and rah rah for their favorite candidate like this is Dancing with the Stars.
7
@ck It might require a proof of concept at the State level before people accept that it could work across the entire country (putting aside all the countries where it HAS worked nationally). Even in Canada universal healthcare wasn’t rolled out all at once as a federal program. It was started in just one province, Saskatchewan, by a left-leaning “socialist” Premier, Tommy Douglas. When people saw how successful it was, it was expanded federally by a Conservative Prime Minister, and then by a minority Liberal government under Pearson, with the NDP acting as the balance of power. All three levels of government - NDP, Conservative, and Liberal - had a part in making it happen. I don’t see the same appetite for bipartisan action in the U.S. sadly.
5
Yet we pay for wars and wars and wars and wars.....and Never care for the specific.
I’m a “sophisticated”voter... I know what I vote for. I vote to have my tax dollars provide for more services less killing for defense contractor profits and jobs.
6
@Eric You should submit an opinion piece to the Times. Very well stated and thoughtful. America is not like any other country on earth. And bi-partisanship is the only way that "compromises" that undermine the whole premise or various law suits and unravellings (see T-Rump for example) will not continue to roil and undercut such a system.
I pray to see universal health care in my lifetime which is fair and stable and not built like Obamacare which was created to unravel in a lot of ways. That was all he could get and that is why previous Democrat presidents refused to accept what was on offer. To avoid what we have now which is half baked. Write to the Times!
1
I'm just glad she dropped Medicare For All. I don't want to end up like a Canadian.
3
@Mark Really? You don’t want lower per capita costs and higher ranked health outcomes? As a dual citizen I’ve lived under both systems.
10
Your per capita banner can be used to hide a lot of collateral damage.
2
@Eric
The American citizenship is the only one you need. That's the one I have.
God bless Elizabeth Warren.
11
Warren will not ever be president
12
Nowhere in here--nowhere--is mentioned the REAL reason the highly qualified, extremely well-prepared, big-good-ideas candidate Warren is getting the 'she can't win' mantra--hello, it's because she's female. And bluntly, it may be true that a certain percentage of men, and a few women, will never vote for a female candidate, no matter how much they agree with her ideas. Look at Georgia, where eleven percent of black men (as opposed to 3 percent of black women) voted against Stacey Abrams and FOR the obviously racist Brian Kemp. That's INSANE. Look at how Amy Klobuchar, an experienced Midwestern moderate with years of experience, is struggling against moderate Buttigieg, a total novice whose only claim to fame is a troubled mayorship. Why, in the name of God, is a nonentity like him rising in Iowa while Warren is trailing and Klobuchar is hugely behind? These two women are infinitely more qualified than Buttigieg or the senile, ill-prepared Biden. The only explanation is sexism, plain and simple.
29
@Cyntha
I don't know...Hillary came close.
1
The democrats are like ; shush and be quiet about what you really want to do. Keep that on the D.L. We need to fool the middle of the country with "moderation". Slow and steady. We will boil them slowly like the frog in the pot. But please, dont be sincere and honest about what you really want to do. You wont win that way. You need to lie and cheat the American voter. That's the only way to beat Trump and his over powering economy.
3
Sorry should be "pushed him into the progressive stratosphere too."
I like Warren. I desperately wanted her to run in 2016. But her healthcare plan is a killer. I’ll vote for her in the general, simply to end the reign of Trump, but I won’t vote for her in the primary. Her plan is too big a shift, and it risks the livelihoods of too many people.
6
@Eric R.
If she is nominated, she will be elected. Will she be nominated? Yes, if the DNC do not choose to promote someone else.
4
I think she is smart enough to figure out how to transition the private health insurance workers to Medicare for all work AND be paid better !
2
Disingenuous of big media not to tell the truth to Democratic Primary voters, even more so of Warren. The Democratic house caucus could not pass medicare for all, that's right Democrat controlled house. Why? Because objective polls from Charlie Cook, Pew and others are clear: a majority of Democrats do want it. Not even getting to independents. The cold fact is she's unelectable, keep marching down this Dukakis redux and 4 more years of Trump with the senate in his clasp.
7
@Northcountry
She will be elected; she is the only one worth voting for.
2
It is hard for me to explain my frustration with the USA media. We invested in medicare for all, education and a solid social safety net when our people were not anywhere near as prosperous as we are now. Nobody ever thought we would be healthier , wealthier and better educated with a higher standard of living than the USA. We invested in our citizens and today we have a dynamic economy, our government has revenue surpluses and we are looking at a generation of worker shortages.
I read and listen to the bull propagated by our southern neighbour, I hear what America can't do and I know the USA the richest most powerful country the world has ever known can do whatever it wants to do. I would like to echo Elizabeth Warren who know the numbers and knows the facts. When a country is run for the glorification of its millionaires and billionaires there is NOTHING IT CAN'T DO THERE IS JUST A HECK OF A LOT IT WON'T DO.
Shame on you all!
29
@Montreal Moe Yeah. We in Australia are doing OK too. It has not sent us broke at all. America has a masochistic tendency unfortunately. Universal health care spawns an economy of its own with jobs that cannot all be replaced by AI. I have a severe disability and would be big trouble if I lived in America. I really love America- its culture and ideals- and would love to live there- but I am better off here; medically speaking
12
@Montreal Moe
@Bob Guthrie
We all know it's the Canadian and Australian military establishments protecting Western civilization.
Start contributing their, in a proportional way instead of just token participation, then we can talk.
1
Anybody, absolutely anybody but the criminal Russian traitor Trump. I really don’t care if it’s Warren or even a decent Republican or even Bloomberg. Dump Trump is my motto.
5
@GCAustin
Dump Trump, and then what ...? Four years with a wishy-washy president like Biden or Buttigieg? There has to be more to an election than just dumping Trump.
3
If I never see another Republican in office again in my lifetime, I’ll be just fine with it.
1
Warren is smart, but she is appealing to the youth who typically do not vote and not the older Democrats who come out and vote. I don't see her winning with this strategy. Frankly I do see her being far more important as a Massachusetts Senator with a currently Republican Governor.
4
@Bill
Actually, this isn't so. Bernie gets the youth vote, hands down. Warren does well with well-to-do educated liberals, who tend to be middle-aged.
4
People say we need change. By "we" do they mean the U.S. as a whole? Or do they mean other people who think like them? Or do they mean "I" but say "we" to inflate their ego?
The U.S. does need change, but saying "we" cancels the opinions of about half the electorate. Better to say "I think we need change" so other people have the space to say "I think we *don't* need change." Their opinion is important because we need them to vote Dem.
I get the whole "Warren will win by increasing turnout." That's not so much a theory or strategy as it is a hypothesis - one I'd feel better not having to test. Our chances are better if we say "I think we need change" instead of "we need change." Any sentence that begins "we need..." should end with defeating Trump and the GOP.
1
How is it possible to say she is soaring in the polls when Pete has her beat by a mile in Iowa and rapidly advancing on her in NH?
Even the polls of those who are putting down hard cash and betting on the nominee have her sinking from a 30 point lead to 0.5% today according to Real Clear Politics.
She not only will not get the nomination but she will not carry almost any states.
This is a good thing since she is incapable of carrying the midwest and a general election due to her far left ideology and my way or the highway attitude.
6
I like both Joe and mayor Pete but neither one inspires me to be my best person, to reach for the gold ring. Joe wants to smile, shake hands with the Republicans and then what, acquiesce to their demands as the Democrats have been doing since Reagan. Mayor Pete talks of his accomplishments, I have scratched my head more than once wondering what they are, firing the police chief?
I love that Warren has big plans, aims high rather than backpedals like Biden and Mayor Pete before the battle has started. Chances are high that she will not get Medicare for all, but she will get us something better than what we have now and certainly much better than trump and the Republicans can provide which so far is nothing.
And at 70 years old I am more than willing to take the risk rather than have another DNC dressed up with nowhere to go "moderate".
13
The funny thing about being kicked off your health plan (which I don’t think will happen) is everyone I know nearing retirement age hangs on at work until they can get Medicare. They want Medicare. They can’t wait for Medicare.
Is it perfect? No. What is? Being billed incorrectly 1 out of every 3 times is a problem. In any case, most doctors hate dealing with insurance companies also.
9
All these thoughts! Where do they come from? From feeling. Some people are critically pained about authority -- starting with their parents -- and will then spin planet-sized logical arguments and ideological systems against coercive authority. "Get off my lawn, don't tread on me, and stay out of my wallet." Others will feel, again from childhood sources, that we are our brothers' keepers -- for benign or malevolent reasons. And then there are the fewer eminently reasonable folk like myself who feel the former but act the latter: Authority and power are wrong, except when they're necessary.
The question is, Can Warren bring people together on issues that divide, like homelessness. In California Attorney General Becerra proves under LAPD's corrupt thumb as he refuses to investigate the "LAPD Crime-buster Vigilante Facebook" scandal. Becerra's cover-up of LAPD using Vigilante to do violence onto LA homeless so they can be arrested and incarcerated when they fight back in self-defense proves the Conservative strength of corrupt LAPD Brass who were members of the secret Crime-buster Vigilante Facebook Group. good luck to Warren with Becerra, Garcetti and the corrupt LAPD. Now can she stop the Los Angeles city Attorney's office from corrupting LA courts by prosecuting with false LAPD police reports bereft in true facts of LAPD vigilante harassment. Liz warren will try.
We Americans have been dumbed down so badly that we now ask about electability of Warren. Electability is about yourself believing in the candidate and not somebody else's. Warren is eminently electable. Get that into your mind.
8
@Subhash Reddy
The last two Presidents that the pundits and other so-called "experts" believed were not electable were Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Remember, 2016 was Hillary Clinton's election to lose and she did, to the candidate with the worst approval rating in history
2
@Deus: Well, actually, she won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College. Trump got nearly three million fewer votes.
2
Medicare for all but a requirement to have private insurance if you earn over a certain amount is a common feature in other countries. If you don’t then take out private insurance, your tax goes up - it’s a simple way of dealing with the issue. It also assumes a brake on the extreme medical charges. Apart from that issue, Warren is just too far left and isn’t electable. Bloomberg has the appeal to swing voters and moderate republicans which is needed to get elected.
A good first step would be to commit to telling the truth. Now about her kids who she sent to public schools . . .
8
MEDICARE FOR ALL! It can't be sold just because she says so! Right now she is opening a huge hole for her detractors and the mud to rip her live. Looks more like self destruction!
She has to be tought on that! If she says MEDICARE FOR ALL she must engage the mud with proven NUMBERS. Voters need to see a comprehensive plan why she come out with that plan. So, she can be understood and win.
@velocast She has already backtracked.
1
Please save us money!
Please RAISE OUR TAXES and save us money.
End medical insurance companies. End our payments to them.
Insure everyone and save us all money.
End extreme militarism. Cut military spending in half. We would still be paying far more than anyone else. Cut military spending and SAVE US MONEY.
Tax the wealthy again and send our children to day care and our young people to college. Because THEY NEED THE EDUCATION - so as not to be as stupid as their Republican parents.
There are only two kinds of Republican: rich ones and dumb ones. But half the Democrats are actually also conservative Republicans - unable to see the light.
2
Open the borders and spend the money we would have saved. Ha ha ha
3
Voting for Liz Warren is what the country needs now. As Trump said " what do you have to lose"? Rome was not built in a day . So it may take more than one term to get results. But to execute it is the first step.We have to start somewhere. The journey is sometimes more important than the destination People who are bothered about workers in health insurance being jobless if Medicare for all comes into effect. To them I say life is dynamic and we need to adapt to changes ,otherwise we perish. People are not getting health care and many are getting sub standard care because of complex and costly insurance plans. And we are concerned about jobs for those in health insurance Co when people are going bankcrupt by sky high prices. Vote Warren 2020. No president works alone. They delegate jobs to smart people and real genius'(and not "stable genius").
7
@HP Agreed. But you forgot to mention the unmatched wisdom.
1
ANY democratic candidate will do. Thank you very much.
For those in Wisconsin or any other fly-over states for our beloved domestic oligarchs tend to rule, they may want to secede from the union and join the greater soviet empire under Putin.
3
@Erik van Dort The Russia train left, Erik. Good thing you don’t need a conscience or brains to vote for “any Dem”.
2
Pie-In-The-Sky and A Chicken-In-Every-Pot is a nice pipe dream but it won't get EW elected. To many voters she sounds kinda crazy, and her style is not pleasing. Democrats need better than this.
12
@Antoine
Biden and Buttigieg believe they will unite the country and that Republicans in Congress will compromise with them. That is pie in the sky. How did that work for Obama?
7
Why is Warren the only candidate where we have to discuss 1) likability 2) electability? Let’s talk extreme competence. Her plans are a starting point, a stand for the future. More changes to come in the sausage grinder we call Congress.
In any case, let’s talk about wealth tax. The middle class pays a wealth tax already. It’s called property tax! If most of the middle class’ wealth is their home, it’s taxed (for the most part) except in California. So it’s not a foreign concept.
10
@Rob Property tax exists in California, it’s just tied to the purchase price of your house. That’s great if you bought a house in 1975, not so much if you bought a house in 2019. Cities, counties, and school districts also add bond measures and parcel taxes to your bill every election cycle.
2
You know what "Liz" Warren isn't doing? She's not tip-toeing around the elephant in the room or denying it altogether. She understands the sources of the gross inequality most of us can only cope with in personal ways.
No, Senator Warren has the traits most employers look for in someone they'd want working for them. She compliments her wonderful intellect with a "can do" attitude worthy of a fine soldier.
I'd want her in the foxhole next to me anytime.
16
I hate to seem so partisan but I just love her candidacy. She has made the effort to identify most of the major national issues. But 35-40% are focused on undocumented immigration (and they should with 1 million trying to enter last year). She must have a better response when the opposition shouts, Pelosi and Sanctuary Cities. With just a little common sense on this issue, she or the Dems might stand a chance.
6
The 800lb Gorilla in the room is 1) 270 electoral votes worth of ppl will not vote for free stuff for all, including otherwise illegal aliens and 2) it doesn't address a GOP Congress which would be the consequence of her nomination. OK, there were two of them.
I would like a fleet of warp speed capable Galaxy class starships. Can we fund that tomorrow?
Anyone can fantasize about utopian wish list items. Fantasy and reality cannot occupy the same space at the same time!
6
@Walt
Fair enough. But Mr. Trump promised a free lunch to Americans. And now we have $1,000,000,000,000 annual deficits as far as the eye can see. (And at a time of economic prosperity. It is not raining today. Now is time to pay our bills.)
So Mr. Trump is the most guilty of the free stuff you call out. And yet the benefits of Mr. Trump's free lunch go almost exclusively to the most fortunate among us.
I do not believe in a free lunch for anyone. But if I am forced to choose between two free lunch candidates, I will choose the free lunch that benefits the majority of Americans, rather than benefiting the few who don't need it.
3
And fantasize about being a minority for personal gain . . .
I would rather see four more years of the current buffoon in the White House than to elect another milquetoast, “moderate”, middle of the road DINO (Democrat in name only), who in this day and age is actually a model republican from the 1980s. It’s time we have someone who believes big, plans big, and goes big. Enough pandering to the middle and the “undecided”! Really? How can ANYONE possibly be undecided with the orange menace and his minions in power? He HAS to go, but we don’t need another Republican in Democrat’s clothing to take his place and propagate more of the same pander-to-the-rich and corporate greed that’s been the defacto position of both parties for decades.
Go big. Or go home. It’s time for real, substantive change. Not change you can believe in. Change than actually happens. Warren or Sanders all the way...
7
Neither Sanders nor Warren can beat Trump. Only Joe Biden can.
3
@John
"I would rather see four more years of the current buffoon in the White House"
Then you support Mr. Trump, a traitor to the United States of America.
Thanks for throwing our country into the dustbin of history, my friend.
3
Dear Democrats,
Some of you are considering the canard of "electability" regarding who you will support in the primary. I want to dissuade you of that notion. Don't make your choice on who you think other people might vote for. Instead, please vote your conscience in the primary. And then vote blue, no matter who, in the 2020 general election.
I made this mistake in the 2017 Atlanta mayoral election. And I regret it to this day.
The leading candidates were Keisha Lance-Bottoms (our current mayor) and Mary Norwood. I did not want either to become our mayor. There was another candidate, Cathy Woolard, who would have been a great mayor in my opinion.
Based on polls, and who I thought others would vote for, I voted for a decent candidate named Peter Aman, a millionaire, in the Atlanta mayoral primary. I thought he would take votes away from Mary Norwood, and could defeat Keisha Lance-Bottoms. I didn't think Cathy Woolard, my first choice, had a chance.
Boy was I wrong. Aman did not make the run-off election. And Cathy Woolard came in third, and would have made the run-off, had people like me voted their conscience instead of voting tactically (based on bad polls and foolish decisions). I was wrong to try to game the system with my vote.
To repeat, vote your conscience in the Democratic primary. And vote blue, no matter who, in the 2020 general election. That is how democracy works.
9
@MidtownATL: Yes, all of these folks who try to second-guess what other people are going to do, and then adjust their voting behavior accordingly are merely taking potshots in the dark. They don't know what is going to happen any more than anyone else does. Read the comments that appear in the NY Times daily, written by people who darkly warn of utter defeat for the Democrats should (Bloomberg, Biden, Sanders, Buttegeig, or whoever their favorite candidate is) not be nominated. They all can't be right. Only one person is going to win this nomination, and it will be the person who appeals to the majority of primary voters. And nobody is truly able to tell us with one-hundred-percent certainty who that will be, because no human being is able to accurately predict the future. I quit paying attention to the fortune-tellers among us after the 2016 polling debacle, and will simply vote for the person whose ideas are most closely aligned with mine. That currently happens to be Warren, and I doubt any other candidate is going to change my mind.
4
I am contributing to both Warren and Sanders and hopefully they will together get to 51% of the primary vote and prevent the corrupt big-money "centrists" from getting the nomination. America cannot afford two big-$$$ corrupt parties.
The GOP is corrupt to the core and needs to be destroyed electorally but the Democrats cannot continue a GOP-lite form of big-money corruption favored by the "centrists" against existential threats to democracy and the planet.
8
This time the headline IS an accurate summary of the article, but I'm jaw-dropped at the premise.
The hard part is NOT to get out of the gate fast - esp. now that "the season" runs 18 months or more.
The hard part is definitely putting some distance between oneself and "the pack," especially whoever IN the pack is the "toughest" competitor, however defined.
Obama and H. Clinton certainly did that - and one can point to many others in both parties. Common sense they have generally been our Presidents or the folks - however talented - that the US citizenry sent back to private life.
Ms. Warren has run a strong campaign - not nearly as flashy as some, but that's "fine." But the article does a good job in layout out her very nasty choices - now or soon -
Does she "take on" Bernie or Joe or Pete ... and in what order and when?
Don't think that the punches she's taken in the last month or so have not taken a toll.... On the ideas front, she has to find a way to back off from M4A without looking craven.
She has to counter-attack without looking "witchy," i.e., like Hillary. Those are monster challenges, both of them. I'm sure she could keep going and maybe win if she handles one of them well, but I'm afraid I don't see that happening. How does someone who's always been the smartest person in the room back-track on a very sound idea? ... And - heaven, how unfair it is - but only a woman, probably, who's served 4-8 years as VP is going to pass the "likability" test.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is smart, attractive, and perceptive. However, Warren's rhetoric pushes a dissolution of American citizenship, nationality, state sovereignty, and decreases safety and well being for Americans. To downgrade the violation of crossing the border from a criminal offense to a civil offense by default eliminates the border. I believe Ayanna Pressley sees Warrren's abolishment of student loans pledge as a issue which will motivate African Americans with student debt to show up to the polls. Yet, there is a bargain Warren wants us to make - if not she will call us homophobic.
1
Many working people don't just vote FOR Donald Trump, they're voting AGAINST the Democrats.
Something that Democrats, liberals, and progressives need to understand is the fact that a lot of working people, not just Republicans, vote for conservative candidates because:
1) They resent the fact that so many people have their hand out to the government, and it obliges them by giving them an easier financial existence than WORKING people...enough with the handouts, get to work!
2) We need to regain manufacturing capability and capacity. There will come a day when we regret being dependent on foreign manufacturing...It makes us weak.
3) They want our government to control our borders, helping us to control our population. Overpopulation is at the core of so many of our problems, including poverty and climate change.
4) We need fair trade deals, even if it means paying a short-term cost. Is it fair to have a 28% import tax on American vehicles going to Germany, but only 1.4% on German vehicles coming to the U.S.? We have been subsidizing the world economy since WWII...time for that to end.
There’re more…retaining gun rights, NATO partners contributing their fair share to funding, over-emphasis on LGBTQN rights (there are logical reasons to be against homosexuality)…
The Democrats address none of these issues.
8
@Raz
It is beyond me how any working American could ever vote for Donald Trump. Mr. Trump has never done an honest day's work in his life.
He was born with a silver foot in his mouth, and inherited nearly half a billion dollars from his daddy. And he managed to lose more money than that over a decade, by including the losses of other people's money. That is truly a remarkable feat, bigly. He is truly the worst businessman in the history of the United States. (I suppose he did work hard at something -- losing other people's money.)
Donald Trump has never worked an honest day in his life. He is an entitled trust fund baby, a failed businessman, and a world-class loser.
Tell me again why any working American should give him the time of day, much less vote for him?
3
@MidtownATL
I think I made it very clear, and he has acted on those issues I described.
3
This quote from Warren “I’m not running for president so I get to try on the outfit” represents what is bothering me about her: She often comes across as arrogant and condescending. If other candidates don’t share her view, she implies that they are just going through motion and doing nothing and that she is the only person trying to do the right thing.
This comes from a female, minority, liberal democratic voter. I would vote for her if she is the nominee but I wonder how many voters feel similarly and will not vote for her.
7
@JGM
There are at least a few candidates in the race who have never demonstrated any passion for any particular issue. They see being President as the final step in their careers, and it’s unclear what they would hope to achieve in the position. It’s not about anyone disagreeing with her.
4
I wish Democrats would quit harping on "we need to beat Trump". That is the first and foremost job of any candidate of any party...to beat the other guy. Tell us something we don't know. Obviously, most of the Democrats running cannot beat Trump because they cannot even win their own party's nomination. Yet, there they were on the debate stage the other night going after each other.
The Democrats have no idea who they are or what they stand for. They are all over the board from hug a tree, to give everyone a $1,000 per month, to go backwards to Obama, to a guy who changes his party affiliation almost every election, to a "Russian asset". The only consistent thing I hear from Democrats is that the people running can't beat Trump. Its been said of everyone that was on the stage the other night by this paper and everyone who comments in these pages. If the Democrats can't beat Donald Trump with a muppet, they need to dissolve their party.
7
The perfect candidate -- if such exists -- will combine a clear understanding of how difficult the challenge will be to reorient system governance from institutional corruption and tackle the massive challenges facing the country; have a credible plan for getting the job done that takes into account political and structural realities without being overwhelmed by them; and clearly communicates the courage and integrity needed to face elitist hostility without sinking into the mire of anger and blame.
It's a tall mountain to climb, maybe an impossible one. But
Warren seems willing to attempt it and has made a decent start. Her strongest suits are undeniable courage and integrity, the intelligence and energy for understanding difficult problems and devising credible solutions to them, and at least a reasonable capacity for engaging in this battle without undue rancor.
Warren's pragmatism is now being tested. The message from nervous centrists is: yes, your ideas sound good in the abstract, but they will never get enacted and nobody knows how to pay for them.
It is perhaps time for Warren to move on from her scattershot approach. She has issued more plans, largely disconnected from one another, than can be achieved all at once. It is time for her to establish priorities and lay out a logical step-by-step strategy for working her way through a coherent governance scheme.
And if climate chaos truly poses an existential emergency, then it must be the obvious starting place.
3
I wish the centrists were so through my with their candidate. For example, shouldn't Biden explain why the public option was not passed when he was VP and the Congress was Democratic? How come that the health plan he helped to adapt makes the healthcare unaffordable because of high premiums and unusable because of high deductible? Why should we believe he will be much more successful this time around when he could not even define what is 'public option'?
4
Warren is the candidate of big plans and sweeping programs to benefit those who are happy so long as others are paying. She has an underrated sense of humor, though, in claiming to find the one useful thing in the country's otherwise benighted past to reclaim: the high marginal tax rates of the 1950s.
3
@Frunobulax But America did really well in the 50's
4
Now that Obama has started to articulate his views on the primary and is making an argument for moderation Warren faces even more problems than before with her laundry list of progressive proposals and most critically her claim that the economic system needs to be reordered. The debate between the center-left and the progressives was already getting pretty heated before Obama entered the fray. How much influence Obama has with Democrats is hard to assess but he does seem to be the most highly regarded Democratic politician. With Warren's precarious position Obama's argument for moderation may be enough to knock Warren off the track toward the nomination.
2
It does no good to nominate a candidate who pads the vote count on the coasts. We need a candidate that can win back the Obama-Trump voters in the battleground states.
I’m not seeing that candidate in the current field.
And the Democratic rhetoric trends wildly too left to get the job done.
5
There's a lot that's likable about Warren, and I've come to like her a lot more over the past several months. But I can't help reaching in a panic for my wallet whenever a politician says "I have a plan for that," which were also the six most dangerous words of the 20th Century. As we've seen with her wild estimates of the sources for her mutli-trillion-dollar health plan, she's a lot better in thinking up great ideas than in how to implement them, or how they'd end up in the very flawed, haphazard real world.
6
Ms. Warren does need a better response on the big question as to how she would defeat Trump. Part of it might include words to the effect that it will be a war and no general reveals the battle plan to the enemy. However, she does need to be highly convincing on this crucial concern.
It is now obvious that to be president a candidate does not require intelligence, experience, honour, plans or reading ability. It might be that possessing such traditional qualities is now a handicap to be overcome.
2
@DAC: I don't see how anyone can explicitly detail how they plan to "beat Trump." Beating Trump depends upon a huge array of factors, all of which are constantly changing, and over which no candidate has control. The markets, the unemployment situation, the bankruptcy rate, credit card and student loan debt, the actions of foreign countries, crucial judicial decisions, random mass shootings, the effects of impeachment, acts of terrorism, corruption, the mood of the country -- any and all of these things, plus many more factor into presidential elections. There is no clear path through this political thicket, and I think that expecting a detailed answer to this question is absurd.
1
The hardest part will be trying to come off as unobnoxious and not grating on the hearing apparatus. In this I don't expect her to succeed.
7
Isn't Warren's only constituency educated professionals?
She even has to split this small group with Bernie.
Some of this elite prefer Warren and modest changes to the status quo; though they often claim to be pragmatists, ignoring her very limited, nationwide appeal. Then there are the Bernie supporters who want a more ambitious, political revolution - not just a "revival". They, on the other hand, are well aware how popular their candidate is among the working class, independent and non-affiliated voters and even some republicans. (This takes a little research, since polling numbers for general election options were under-reported in 2016 by mainstream press, as they are once again.)
6
Making white paper gravitas look hipper? Unless you think socialism is somehow cool, which it isn’t. Why can’t the MSM see the obvious? Her white-paper gravitas would send America down the road to serfdom.
10
@Art Hudson
"Her white-paper gravitas would send America down the road to serfdom."
I've read F.A. Hayek's book.
Your president, Mr. Trump, is the biggest socialist/communist ever. He is buying Midwestern farmers' votes through his subsidies (bribes) to counteract his failed tariffs and trade policies.
By the way, F.A. Hayek supported universal healthcare, administered by the government.
How do you like them apples, my friend?
Donald Trump is neither a conservative, nor a capitalist. He is simply a crook.
4
@Art Hudson No it would not. Northern European countries with similar policies established for decades is doing rather well. We have all the Warren-esque rights in the antipodes (Australia and NZ) and we have wealthy looking relaxed surfers- not serfers. Never seen a serf only plenty of surf with surfers who if they get a whack on the head from a wayward surf board don't have to mortgage the family home to get medical treatment. I love America; how can you not love Bessie Smith and Hoagy Carmichael and Georgia on my mind? But as a sympathetic outsider it is so obvious that you have been conned with the magic word "socialism". A pollie (Aussie word) in the USA just has to say not abracadabra but "socialism"... whoaaa... and its like Superman getting exposed to kryptonite y'all melt in magic submission. Call it "capitalism plus" instead. You are in an American bubble and see things as far left that are normal here. We do NOT have the legions of poor here and hardly any people living in trailers. Everything Thin Lizzy offers, we already have in one form or the other and we live to tall the tale. CAPITALISM PLUS.
7
I'm so exhausted by the cynicism - what's wrong with every Democratic candidate, why they might lose. Have we seen what is happening in this country? It makes me cry if I think about it for more than a few seconds. I, for one, am excited about the Democratic prospects. They give me hope. They are all intelligent, well-rounded in their careers, and seem to genuinely care for this country and its people. While I certainly have my favorite - okay, I admit it, it's Warren - I'm proud to be a member of a party who puts forth its best, instead of its most corrupt. Though I will say, I wouldn't mind a bit of dirty play from the Dems - we are unfortunately already in the mud. As the saying goes, "Republicans fall in line; Democrats fall in love." Dems need to appreciate the fact that each of their candidates, at the end of the day, are not even on the same planet as this monster ruining the country every second - in-fighting and nitpicking will undoubtedly assure both an overall loss and the loss of the country as well.
17
I like Elizabeth Warren, and have a great deal of respect and admiration for her. I believe she genuinely wants to help all Americans, and provide a platform upon which everyone has the opportunity to succeed.
Furthermore, I will vote my conscience in the Democratic primary, and then vote blue, no matter who, in Nov 2020. (I voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary, and proudly stood in line for two hours to vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election.)
That all said, if the Democratic primary were tomorrow, I would vote for Pete Buttigieg.
I genuinely believe in his policy positions, and I believe he will move America forward, and work to bring the American people back together, and would be a president for all Americans (unlike the current occupant of the Oval Office). I believe he will be practical about what we can achieve legislatively through Congress, for the benefit of all Americans, and providing opportunity for all.
If Elizabeth Warren (or anyone else) is the Democratic nominee, I will enthusiastically support her or him in the 2020 elections.
15
@MidtownATL
Cheer up.
Pete is going to be the nominee.
He is crushing it in Iowa and almost at the top in NH.
He will be the next and best president.
Also, the first Maltese-American.
3
@MidtownATL 2 hour wait to vote? There is compulsory voting here and its only 5 minutes wait. It is held on Saturday. $20 fine if you don't show up. Over here they actually WANT you to vote.
Sounds like they don't really want you to vote in America as in Dodge City where they shifted to booth to outside town to lesson the Hispanic vote.
3
For all of their lofty credentials and emotionally dazzling plans, I find it discouraging that none of them has proposed doing something “better.”. I mean nobody likes the guy running the show now yet nobody has anything better? Now that’s a sad state of affairs.
1
@Economist
What are you talking about? Every single one of the Democrats running for the nomination has talked about doing things better. In fact, that's just about all they are talking about. Every proposal, every "promise", every statement of principal is about making things and doing things better. Warren has stacks and stacks of policy proposals designed to do things better. You may not agree that they will make things better, but that is different than saying they are not proposing anything to make things better.
4
It doesn’t count if it doesn’t work, and in this case, none of it works, therefore it fails to meet the threshold of “better.”
2
@Economist: It doesn't work? Good grief, the country hasn't even bothered to try something else. We just keep doing the same old things, over and over, and they most definitely haven't worked for the majority of the people in this country. The poverty in rural areas is grinding, our cities are flooded with homeless citizens, and people like you, who are unwilling to try anything different, just sit there predicting that new ideas won't work. What an Eeyore.
3
Who does the DNC want for its candidate? That's all that matters - just ask Bernie.
11
She is what we need and if she reaches for the sky on M4A she will need to plow through both parties who constitutes may want to keep their insurance. Nothing is etch in stone and if one person says I want to keep my insurance that doesn’t mean they will have a job the next year or with the same company or same pay. She is looking at the big picture and that picture has over 30 million people without health and dental insurance. It is time for a woman president, and as a woman we all know what we are capable of, these men have polluted our water, soiled our air, and killed the middle class they just have to go.
6
Honestly, I don't understand moderates. You're not gonna vote for Elizabeth Warren because she wants Medicare for All? Really? The country is facing its worst threat since the Civil War. I will vote for ANY Democrat even if there are aspects about them or their platforms that I detest.
Elizabeth Warren is not radical. She is returning the Democratic party to its FDR roots. And for the all the people worrying about employer health care - just wait til you get REALLY sick, and then you lose your job, and boom, there goes your health care. Medicare works. It works well. There's no reason we cannot join ALL of western Europe and Cuba in providing healthcare that does not gouge patients to enrich insurance company executives.
But I would vote for Biden - who stuck us with Clarence Thomas and still thinks he can work with the Republicans who obstructed a supreme court justice vote, refuse to protect our elections from foreign interference, and lie every time they go on television. He thinks he can work with people who call Democrats the enemy. I think he's deluded, but I will still vote for him if he is the nominee. The survival of our nation as a republic is at stake.
722
@Barbara. Agreed. And the take-away from your comment — and the views I hear expressed by virtually all Warren or Sanders voters — is that you will vote for Biden if he is the candidate, despite the positions he’s taken with which you disagree. But I’ve seen so many moderate Biden, or Buttigieg or Klobuchar voters who indignantly refuse to reciprocate if Warren or Sanders is the candidate. I guess they really don’t mind having Trump in the White House.
120
@Barbara
You honestly don't understand moderates...but you would vote for Biden? I think you do understand moderates!
(It turns out that honesty has very little to do with presidential elections.)
4
@Barbara Without a doubt, Medicare for All will lead to taxes on the middle class. I am fearful of Warren as I make over $70,000 a year. I know that without a doubt Warren will raise my taxes to pay for Medicare for All. I have no doubts that I will pay extra fees, copays and taxes to support Medicare for All. I now pay over $1100 for an individual ACA plan that is essentially a Medicaid plan (HMO plan, small network of providers/hospitals; 2 hours away from NYC yet no chance to go to Sloan Kettering if diagnosed with cancer...)
15
In the last debate Cory Booker was all over Elizabeth Warren about the wealth tax. He made dubious claims about what Americans want in taxation. He also stated that wealth tax did not work in Europe so it won't work here. In so doing Mr Booker revealed a lack of knowledge of the US tax system and why a wealth tax is more likely to succeed here. I want a president who know that the US taxes citizens and green card holders on world income. I want a candidate who takes the time to learn and to make proposals based on knowledge. That candidate is Elizabeth Warren.
6
@DeeL I would like to see analyses of the costs of the proposed health care plans the other candidates purportedly embrace. Other than Bernie Sanders, none has attempted to describe his or her alleged plans in any detail, much less provide the country with estimates of cost. As just one example, I read recently that Kamala Harris' "plan" would be significantly more costly than Warren's plan, but to my knowledge, not a single media personality has asked her to explain the plan in detail, provide an estimate of its costs, or compare those costs to Warren's plan. Nor have I seen anyone else's plans analyzed by the NYT or any other mainstream publication. That kind of journalism would be much more valuable to the voters than the premature popularity contest coverage provided here.
4
"slinging buzzy plans"? How dismissive. Spare me the negative spin.
2
Why does the NY Times cover something as serious as the U.S. presidential race as if it were a match between rival sports teams?
Please, NY Times, do better.
13
It's hard to avoid the disaster of 2016 ending up voting for someone the media is pushing for.
1
The question is, who will kick Trump to the curb where he belongs?
If it's Warren, I'll vote for her.
If it's Biden, I'll vote for him.
If it's Buttigieg, I'll vote for him.
If it's Sanders, I'll vote for him.
If it's Harris, I'll vote for her.
If it's Bloomberg, I'll vote for him.
If it's Yang, I'll vote for him.
If it's Booker, I'll vote for him.
If it's Klobuchar, I'll vote for her.
You get the picture. Vote blue matter who.
18
Well, of course not. None are vicious greedheads.
@Jules
Why not vote Socialist?
Shucks, they are no longer on the ballot.
But at least Warren/Bernie come closest.
1
@Jules I want this on a t-shirt!
I think warren is smart and well spoken and i would certainly vote for her however he stance that the wealthy are all that is wrong with America is off putting and disingenuous.
1
A lot of comments about structural change. Would like to make sure we all understand EW’s top policies.
Medicare for all - means no more private insurance eliminating 550,000 jobs and $500 bill in stock market value from just the top ten health insurance companies. Hope you’re not one of those 550k people and do not have any funds in the stock market.
Elimination of college debt and free tuition. How does this possibly get paid for. More importantly, what is wrong with paying for college. It has worked for the past century.
Unrestricted immigration and decriminalizing illegal immigration. And, all immigrants receive Medicare for all. How does this get paid for.
Her wealth tax construct will not work. Why not just raise taxes?
Yes, she has many plans. I am waiting for a good one.
86
@Brian
Agree with you, but let me also state the positives about her.
Her ascendency if it happens would be a fascinating story given her biography of being born with a wooden spoon. She would then bring back decency, goodness, basic trust and sheen back to White House.
Her efforts that led to Consumer Protection edifice is a great contribution. Her new set of policy prescriptions that you listed goes against the grain of this effort.
Wish she embraces the consensus on free market capitalism and works to create better checks and balances to strengthen the bargaining position of weaker stake holders in the economy, instead of seeking to nationalize those free enterprises. Wish in her policy stance there is a sense of awe, gratitude and respect for great contributions our free enterprises have made to US and World economy.
11
@Brian
Actually the number of people employed in the health insurance industry was 2.7 million in 2018 (www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-industry-overview). A good number may find government employment if MfA is established. Depending on the details of cost coverage in MfA, there may be a need for additional private gap insurance as is the case with the present Medicare for retirees, which cover up to 80% of costs. So some jobs could be saved in that sector if it remains private. However, there will be additional job losses in just about every major business and private organizations because of lay-offs in their human resource departments. Net job losses may thus lie in the 1-2 million jobs, but with no guarantee as who remains employed in the industry and at which location. This uncertainty will cause significant emotional stress on all directly or indirectly involved in health coverage, most of whom are voters concerned about their employment future.
5
My son who is 52 years old is currently working. He works every day— he never takes a vacation, because he works in the gig economy and has no health insurance from his job. He is employed by contract. He’s highly skilled but it’s cheaper for his employers to let him work this way. He pays taxes and he sending a child to college. Sorry Medicare for all sounds really good to me!
32
All of the Democratic candidates want all Americans to be covered for their health needs. This is the major difference between GOP and Democratic candidates. It is disassembling to say Warren or Sanders want to take health care away from Americans. Those who would no longer be covered by their employers' health care coverage would still be covered, just with a different "employer," the Government. Costs associated with a for profit versus a non-profit or not for profit employer would have a lower administrative cost as the profit is taken out of the picture. Multi-million dollar C-Suite level compensation would be longer to attached to costs.
3
I like Warren and wished she would have run in 2016, but she seems to have missed one of the lessons of Clinton's campaign: a blizzard of plans is less powerful than one big message. Trump had no plans, but he had a message. Warren needs to get back to simplicity.
9
Those not dependent on Medicare, I believe have a romantic view of the program. We need private health insurers, if only to insure us all against a monopoly of health care provision whose decisions cannot be appealed. There is a reason why even Medicare beneficiaries go abroad for care.
Medicare desperately needs better policing. Fraud - especially by providers (the consumer fraud is pennies, comparatively) - is hemorrhaging tens of millions of dollars yearly that should be devoted to patient care.
Warren's enthusiasm needs to be backed by exhaustive research on these issues. I hope that if she benefits from this and makes a frank apology for her earlier plan, she will still be the candidate we need for 2020.
2
My husband and I are Medicare payers (not "dependents") who don't need to go abroad for care. He was deathly ill earlier this year and received world class care within 15 minutes of our North Jersey home at virtually no cost. (And yes in NJ not NYC.) He is almost 80 and has paid into it since starting work at age 18, as have all of us.
5
Correction: my husband has been paying into the Medicare system since his mid 20s, when it took effect under LBJ. My Social Security paperwork shows I've paid into the system since my first job early 1970s, when there was still a lower minimum wage for women.
2
More and more I question Warren's veracity, commitment, and authenticity. She now proposes a two-year “transition” period, in which Americans would be able to opt in to Medicare. Put another way, Warren now calls for the same sort of public option as her “moderate” competitors. I have a feeling this "transition" period will become permanent. And her background stories have been marred with contradictions and corrections, the latest being that contrary to her response to a question at a rally in Atlanta, her son did not attend public schools, but in fact attended a $17,000/year private school.
9
@Chatte Cannelle
Why don’t you ask your representative and Senators what they think of her healthcare plan? She can’t enact legislation by herself.
2
It's simply not reasonable for Warren, or Sanders, for that matter, to think that she can unseat corporate America from its hard-earned position. Corporations want to do the right thing, and if they are treated well, with business-friendly policies, each individual American will have more money in his pocket to buy the services that Warren wants inefficient government to provide. When will Democrats learn that it's only by coming together that we will be stronger, and that treating corporations and their lobbyists like villains is simply going to cost us trillions of dollars and get Trump reelected.
3
@Eric S - "Corporations want to do the right thing..."
Do you believe that Jeff Bezos, richest man on earth, is doing right by those men and women working in the wharehouses to deliver the packages of the other corporations overnight? Do you believe that the Walton family (owners of WalMart) are doing right by their employees who need Section 8 and foodstamps in order to open the doors next week so the U.S. can fight over the last televisions on sale? I could go on all day.
10
@Eric S I would like to see an example of this so-called corporate efficiency you speak of. Have you, for example, visited a for-profit hospital lately? (A nightmare). And remember, it was the government that bailed out the banks and provides subsidies to Walmart workers whose paychecks don't cover basis costs.
3
@Eric S
This is some pie in the sky thinking and lack of understanding of introductory microeconomics. Businesses exist to earn profits. Their leaders are not concerned about anything else, including “do[ing] the right thing.”
3
This article illustrates the huge institutional problem we have in the United States spending so much time, money, and energy on the Iowa caucuses. Iowa has less than 1% of the American population, extremely unrepresentative of Americans and unrepresentative of the Democratic Party. Voters in the caucuses
have to spend all day on they day they vote, so that the voters in the Iowa caucuses are extraordinarily unrepresentative of the entire American electorate. It could not be more undemocratic for the candidates to spend so much time and energy on the Iowa caucuses.
3
Nobody in this primary campaign has worked harder than Elizabeth Warren. From developing fact-based plans to solve some of our huge problems to those endless selfie-lines. You can tell she has a mission and it's not photo ops with the world's dictators or making her family rich. She is asking ordinary, workaday Americans to dream bigger than a paycheck that barely covers the necessities in an economy where the wealth their labor creates flows to the top. She is challenging them to stand up for themselves and reclaim the power of their government to make their lives a little easier. I have great respect for her.
9
Warren wants to restore and strengthen the middle class. Seems like a winning strategy to me.
12
@jaco
Not according to the numerous experts she has consulted when developing her plans.
6
Dear Democrats,
Vote your conscience in the primary. And then vote blue, no matter who, in the 2020 general election. This is how democracy works.
Don't think about "electability." Don't consider who you suspect other people might vote for. That is a fool's errand. It's really very simple. Vote in the primary for the candidate you think would make the best president. And then vote for the consensus Democratic nominee that emerges from the primary in Nov 2020.
Do you think, for one fleeting second, that Republican voters considered electability in the 2016 primaries? If so, they would have voted for and nominated John Kasich. Look what we got instead.
11
She doesn't have a chance if she doesn't change her position on the private health insurance option.
6
I remember when I heard for the first time the speech that then the presidential candidate Obama gave. I actually cried, I was so moved. Then I remember waiting in a really long lane to vote for Obama. The lane went around the block. In my waiting lane there was a pregnant women and an old black men in a wheelchair, and down the lane there was a great variety of people, and nobody walked out of the lane. Perhaps I am spoiled. I would want the same experience from the new presidential candidate. I am not saying that EW is not good, and perhaps there will never be another Obama, but I still hope for the inspiration presidential candidate Obama provided. And I do not get it from EW.
2
@V. G. - I remember that Hope and Change. And I waited, and waited, and waited for him and Biden to close Gitmo and end the war in Afghanistan which is the only reason I voted for them. Instead? They spent the first two years acting like young Republicans, increased war, and made record weapons sales across the middle-east. Never in my life have I felt more deceived by any politician that Barack Obama.
3
Uh, oh---Now comes the ' Harder Part'. Guess leaving millions of citizens without access to affordable health care would be the easier part!
Uh, oh. "Rank-and-file Democrats have raised concerns.....they smirk ...they worry about blowback from her soak the rich platform...etc."
Typical main media stuff on Warren or any candidate who tries to move the US into the 21st Century---or even into the late 20th C by standards of other modern nations --on health care, taxes, tuition,etc---and basic human rights for citizens of all income levels.
The Times and other main media will write anything negative they can think up about Warren's proposals. They want to create suspense, conflict and drama to attract readers. And they want to NOT look too liberal, also to attract readers. And not bring forth charges from FOX/GOP that they are 'left wing' media.
Thus the media doesn't explore the full possibilities of reforms we badly need. We never learn how dozens of countries finance HC for all, for generations. This keeps the US public uninformed and vulnerable to right wing GOP put downs of needed proposal by progressives. Our progressives would be seen as centrist, middle of road politicans in most other capitalist democracies.
Americans have been conditioned to be afraid of laws that help their own lives, security and well being. Our corporate mega donors successfully set the limits of our lawmaking.
All legal and blessed by the Supreme Court.
Money/media work together.
3
She's done. The Dems need blue collar Americans to push them over the top. Unions are a key to that. They've fought hard for health benefits, often sacrificing wages in exchange. Lost the unions and blue collar Americans and Trump eases into his second term.
6
I think it’s important as voters for us to share what we like about the candidates and what we actually know. I suspect from reading comments all over the internet that many voters haven’t really taken the time to learn about what the candidates would like to accomplish, and instead engage in debates about things like electability, looking presidential, best candidate to beat Trump, and so on.
Warren has done an excellent job at making her aims transparent and readily available to discover. She may not want to do all the things you would like a president to do and she may have proposals you don’t like, but most people seem to compare candidates to a person that has never existed beyond our hopes and dreams.
The far reaching positive impacts of a whole country with healthcare should not be underestimated.
2
Ms. Warren is my preferred Democrat presidential candidate, especially now that she has shown flexibility on medicare for all. I remain concerned about electability and particularly her ability to withstand and respond to the withering fire any Democrat candidate will receive from the Trumpist Party (the GOP having essentially ceased to exist).
I would like to hear more from her on international affairs, including economic treaties and trade. I would also like to hear more about defense and the environment, including climate change and natural resource protection.
Medicare, college educations, and billionaire bashing have made a good start for Ms. Warren, but in fact action on these other issues may be more accomplished more readily and immediately were she to become president. More on them is therefore necessary.
2
Warren’s greatest political strength is she has a story to tell, leaving voters with an emotional reason to vote for her. Hillary didn’t have a story nor does Biden.
That being said I think she’s boxed herself in with her Medicare 4 All proposal. Many Americans do like their coverage and receive excellent medical care. Too many do not. So why seek to abolish private insurance? Why not offer a public option and let time tell which is the best way to deliver health care?
2
I am not sure how many people love their insurance, or have nice experience visiting doctors. The papers are full of article about the surprising bills and medical bankruptcies, if the personal experience is not enough. Premium are high, deductible are high, and medical care, maybe, excellent but who can afford? Let's have M4A, and those who love there insurance could always buy one. If there are many those who love their insurance, I am sure they will glad to take your money.
6
you can't in good conscience actually say that Warren has a story and neglect (like much of the MSM) Bernie's story... he's been committed to the things that are center stage today for his entire political career... it's a compelling story that millions of people appreciate and are committed to honoring
2
1. Get tough on illegal immigration.
2. Find your music, your soul and your sympatico, and show it to African Americans
3. Say medicare for all is the goal, strengthening Obamacare your first priority.
Please, for the sake of us all.
5
But how do you strengthen Obamacare? More subsidies, that will increase cost for everybody? Bring back mandates? I am sure people will love to be penalized for inability to buy useless insurances.
5
All she has to do is say one very simple thing, and both the nomination and the presidency is hers, but she refuses to say it.
“You can keep your private health insurance. But our public option is yours if you want it.”
I’m amazed she refuses to do it.
143
I believe it is an issue of funding the plan. Economically for it to work I think it must be all in or insufficient funds.
36
@Prestes - Because private health insurance only benefits insurance companies & continues to stymie any federal government efforts to negotiate lower prices. As long as this option is still available, it draws out the benefits & freedom as well as positive end results which Medicare for All would have for all citizens. Just like slowly breaking up with a boyfriend/girlfriend is much more destructive than an initial clean break-up. No need to drag out the whole process in an effort to please the other person.
30
She can't because that is exactly what Joe Biden is saying, and she needs to differentiate herself on something both simple and memorable.
7
Warren has faded this fall because the NYT and other establishment Democrats have undertaken a tacit but systemic campaign to malign her and her ideas. The snark and cynicism in this article underscores this dynamic.
9
it's the owning/ruling class vs the working class... Bernie and Liz Warren are representing the latter which is why we have seen little or only negative press regarding their campaigns
5
I like her. She’s smart. She persisted. But she shot herself in the foot with M4A and she cannot walk that back. Besides, she has very little minority support. NBC/WSJ puts that her at 11$ black support. Biden is at 44.
It is going t mposible to ignore the views of black voters as to the nominee. The fact that white liberals do not see that is troubling, to put it mildly.
4
@Lefthalfbach
The fact that many Black voters are unaware that the CFPB has enforced anti discrimination laws related to lending is troubling. If they prefer politicians who don’t work for their interests, then they deserve the politicians they get.
4
Based on many podcasts from NPR politics I’ve heard nothing but that the African American’s votes are crucial and highly sought after.
@Lefthalfbach - One would think that if all that is needed is the black vote, Harris or Booker would be in the lead. Yet I heard Booker practically begging for help to make it to the next debate and Harris is all but broke.
1
It’s hilariously depressing to watch anti-Warren folks miraculously become electability experts to justify their sexism and cognitive dissonance.
6
I don’t think it’s easy to justify the assertion that everyone’s uncertainty about Warren is related to her gender. Personally my uncertainty is solely based on the quantity of wealth transfer that she’s interested in implementing. I love her otherwise. Forgiving college debt? I don’t want to fund that and other plans of that nature. I’d love subsidized interest rates for students however. But reducing Trump’s debt radically will be important to free up future spending.
@E. Miller
My guess is that the republicans will be the first to elect a female president. Because they won't have wasted their time misguidedly believing identity was all mattered.
8
@Bertram
I’m not saying the only rationalization involves sexism, cognitive dissonance is equally at play. Do you think you may be experiencing this phenomenon when you say you don’t want to fund college debt forgiveness? Unless you’re insanely wealthy (and even then) such a program would have an imperceptible effect on your life if you don’t have such debt while injecting growth creating capital into the economy and reducing stress levels for a currently lost generation.
Trying to be half of a progressive is a terribly dissonant experience, especially when we stand at the threshold of, dare I say, actual change. Teddy did it. FDR did it. It can happen again if we are bold in these darkest of days.
This reporting is so dubious. Basically you’re reporting all the things that make her a likable person and great presidential candidate and then saying, “but some people have their doubts.” It’s like US Weekly. Your next article about her could be, “Warren too chipper with flu? Not-so-likely-future-president may be faking having fun for the electorate.” Bad faith reporting - dog whistles for “we wonder about this woman” when not straight up saying it.
2
I like Elizabeth Warren. I believe she raises many of the most important issues for the American people, and she genuinely wants to help people.
I will vote my conscience in the Democratic primary, and vote blue, no matter who, in the 2020 general election. In 2016, I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary. And I proudly stood in line for two hours to vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election.
2
@MidtownATL - I can't believe people still stand in line to vote. I voted at my desk late one night, sipping a mocha, wearing my fuzzy slippers, while listening to Zappa. It took a while because of all of the local levies on the ballot. I had to look online to research them, read who was for and against, read all about the person for or against, who financed them, etc. And no pressure whatsoever to hurry up and vote because people are standing in line to get in.
@MidtownATL So voting for any Dem is voting your conscience?
@tom harrison
" I can't believe people still stand in line to vote."
I support voting by mail (as you have in WA), and all efforts to increase voter participation and enfranchisement.
I made a choice to stand in line and vote in person in 2016, for the pomp and circumstance of the ceremony. That said, my state does not make voting by mail easy.
2
As happens with many progressive proposals, they sound great until you start examining them closely.
Warren is suffering the same fate. Upon closer examination, she's not quite appealing enough to democrats. The term, "electability" obfuscates the fact that Americans are not going to vote for someone with such extreme progressive positions.
5
It is maybe true, that is why we have unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable education, stagnated salaries, housing crisis. But if we will not try someone progressive in the office, will never improve our lives, and we can not agree. We may not win, but if we do not try we will lose for sure.
2
@AACNY - They voted for a guy claiming he was going to build a wall and that Mexico was going to pay for it. Don't underestimate what Americans will or will not vote for.
I’m sorry, but I’ve totally grown yo despise Elizabeth Warren and her supporters! Yesterday when I tried to point out in my comments on the Working Party posts, trying to clarify that her Medicare for All, was going to be a disaster, her supporters actually started cursing me, wishing I would get cancer! When I pointed out that I’d already had two bouts of cancer and paid for my own chemo at 11,000$ a shot out of my employer insurance, they got even more aggressive! This is the nature of her supporters. The opposite side of the Trump supporters with the same viciousness! As a cancer survivor, I don’t want to lose access to my providers and be put in a holding corral for my health care. EW has no idea how that would actually work in practicality. I had to go down to the Social Security office with a question about benefits. The line was around the block. There were the sick and the poor begging the clerks for consideration of their medical benefits. We’d be at the mercy if these clerks. The billionaires will take their money overseas. We won’t be able to tax them. Wall Street will crash. And we, the poorer less than 75,000$ p.a., earners will suffer the most! There go our retirements! I wish she would just go away. It seems to me that the people most wanting her are those who don’t want to work and have handouts, like the woman yesterday, wanting me to pay for her insulin, when she contributed nothing towards my health care or my children’s education.
8
I wish that people with wonderful employer- provided insurance could understand that not everybody has such employers. Just because they have sugar daddy who pay for them, every Americans has one. Moreover, employer-based insurance makes healthcare more expensive for all of us. I don't see Medicare recipients hurry back to the private insurances. In my personal experience, left me angry on the private insurances that are confusing and changing rules every year, beside being expensive. Good thing I am healthy, but I don't want to deal with them, if God forbid, I'll become sick. I don't know about Warren's supporters but you do not sound very open -minded either. 'I wish she goes way' - is not nice way for political discussion.
6
I liked Senator Warren and thought she was the real deal, then she adopted Bernie's Medicare for all and I winced. Now her supporters on line are saying that Medicare for all is really an aspirational goal, not something she really thinks will happen. If that is true she should say it.
I want every American to have an affordable health care choice with sufficient safety net for when things go wrong, like you lose your employee health benefit.
The further to the left she leans the less likely she will be able to help the Democrats win the Senate, and the more likely she could help lose the House. I think she needs to take a deep breath and reconsider her Health Care Plan and move toward Biden's health care for all, with public options.
112
@Joe Barnett When she came out in support of Medicare for All (in the first debate, I think), I was shocked at her change of position on this, because it seemed that she had sought the middle path before. Then she released her plan. I agree with a lot that she says in it but don't see it as feasible because, based on what I've read, the wealth tax is very likeky to be declared unconstitutional. She has backed away from this, making it more aspirational, by posting her transition plan for her first term in office. (It's on her Medium website.) But I'd really like to see all of them look at other models for healthcare delivery, such as the Kaiser Permanente system. Non-profit models like Kaiser can be another way.
5
@Joe Barnett Canada has had universal health care since 1959. It delivers it at much lower cost than the US. It also has a lower infant mortality rate and a 6 year longer average life expectancy.Hospitals re not for-profit. Drugs are cheaper and there is sliding scale pharmacare dependent on income. Insurance companies offer additional coverage for things like private hospital rooms, dental and eye care.
What is so awful about that?
37
Biden had the chances to push his plan through Congress that was Democratic at that time, he was not able to do. I think it is time to let Warren to try hers. Beside, I am not so sure what the Biden's plan but he never defined what is the magic 'public option'. He never estimate the total cost of healthcare under his plan, because if it costs 50 trillions, and only 1.5 trillions come from rolling back tax cut, who is paying for the rest 48.5 trillions? I suspect -I and you in form of higher premiums and higher deductibles.
9
America finally has a good candidate for president. The real test isn’t whether Warren can win, it’s whether Americans are capable of making the right decision.
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@617to416 As everywhere else in the world, including Canada, that will depend in large part on what the press tells them to think. As ever, the NYT will attempt to convince Democratic voters that the most talented and electable candidate is not electable. In 2016, they reliably ignored the results of numerous polls showing that swing states, like Michigan, favored Sanders over Clinton while consistently trotting out polls that showed Clinton's advantage over Sanders in red states like Georgia, which the Democrats were never going to carry in the general election. And, as ever, their dupes will be voters over 45, the only age group that gave a majority of its votes to Donald Trump in 2016. I love my well-meaning, intelligent Boomer but every three years she'll explain her decision NOT to vote for her preferred Democratic candidate because the nabobs at the NYT are infallible and therefore I must be wrong no matter what evidence I present or how cogent my argument is. The NYT is Putin's useful idiot and they weren't chastened by the prominent unwitting role they played in Trump's 2016 "surprise" victory.
21
@617to416
This is the height of hubris. Do you seriously think Americans are incapable of deciding what is best for them?
15
@AACNY
You’re the same person who claims people took on loans they couldn’t afford to pay back and that caused the financial crisis. Did those people make the best decisions for themselves?
12
At 67 my most profound disappointment with my generation is the "vote for the least bad candidate" mentality that we gradually accepted. It is so clear that this only results in bad candidates. Liz Warren, even more than Barrack Obama, is a candidate that defies that logic. When she says run to make changes --not just deny the other side a win-- she means it.
Gives me hope.
714
@KCox Agreed! She really does HAVE the answers. From her budget, to her mapping the USA's future. she is the candidate to lead this country into the 21st century. Everything is explained on her platform site. People should learn how to look at that and find some answers!
81
@Dawn Marie
Well, not sure she has all the answers. But, what I respect is her analytic approach that sets goals based on core values and isn't afraid to modify tactics as evidence presents itself.
51
@KCox Agreed. Warren like Obama is giving Americans hope for a better America and better days ahead.
26
@Richard Frank “Electability” is just a thin veneer of false objectivity that allows the pundit class to avoid defending their bigotry and unpopular policies, which are almost always the actual reasons why they are critical of a candidate. I am completely disgusted with the Democratic Party elites for pushing this propaganda, and disgusted with so many Democratic voters for seemingly falling for the ploy. Elizabeth Warren is doing everything to elevate this primary to the height of American idealism, and her establishment opponents are doing everything to drag it down into the base depths of empty, irrational political performance.
6
Ya, now she has to contend with Mr. Bloomberg, who should have put $30Million toward the 140,000 homeless school children in his city rather than toward electing himself and keeping the children destitute. This country is so screwed up!
3
When asked how she will beat Trump, she should say, “I’m going to beat him because you’re going to beat him, and we’re going to beat him together, every single one of us”
4
Warren platform summary:
Do you have any money, in excess of your monthly expenditures ?
If so I hate you, you are the enemy of everyone, and I will enact policies to confiscate your extra cash and give it to whoever I please.
8
@Objectivist Randian Objectivists -- owning one of the adamantine dogmatic systems of the twentieth century -- need to grow old, burn out quite a lot and see the nuances of life.
@Percy
Well, if I were an Ayn Rand follower that would be meaningful, but I used it because the moniker: Objectivity was already taken.
Do enjoy your sarcasm-for-one party, though.
Elizabeth Warren is a nice lady and if she found a wounded 4 legged creature on the highway, she would stop, take it to a vet and perhaps adopt it/.But she's fighting a losing battle against a president who has presided over a booming economy,advocated policy of immigration based on merit, concurs with fact that sanctuary cities r a threat to our sovereignty, and above all speaks up for America and its citizenry rather than embarking on an apology tour , apologizing for American exceptionalism. He will have a case to make in the Senate on previous admin.'s efforts to undermine his presidential campaign and his presidency. ABOVE ALL,WHY WOULD AMERICANS WANT TO VOTE AGAINST THE GUY WHO GOT US HERE,? To the peace and prosperity we enjoy today and no Americans are being killed in the M.E. or elsewhere!
7
@Alexander Harrison
This anti-rich rhetoric is the only tool democrats have to try to turn this good economy into a bad one.
As is usually the case, it doesn't pass the "own two eyes" test. Americans can see with their own two eyes that the economy is very strong.
According to the Editor of the Economist, Warren's "plans" would affect 50% of all American businesses. Why would we EVER elect someone who could so negatively impact our economy?
5
@AACNY You have made a cogent point and you don't have to like Trump, since after all life is not a popularity contest, to feel safe with his policies, and all those c.e.o's who are for The Donald are not going to vote for him because of his hair style, but because his policies produce positive results.MAYBE the economy would have been strong regardless of who was in office, maybe Trump benefitted from policies initiated by Obama, but fact remains he is the one in office when economic stats., market is at his highest, likewise for g.d.p. growth are occurring while he is in the driver's seat.Stick with the person who got us here!
2
Dear Elizabeth Warren,
All you need to do is learn how to turn some of the poetry of your candidacy into the prose of your speeches and comments.
All the rest of the criticisms wouldn't be levied at you, "if you were a rich man."
You can do it! Persist!!
2
Softballs, Softballs, Softballs. Why doesn't the NYT be forthright and just ENDORSE her? Then at least Bernie, Pete and Joe's supporters could respond with "consider the source?"
1
it seems the left wing can't remember that warren has a long history of fraud - the false job applications, false indian lineage claims, etc. Her so called "policies" are on par with that background.
4
She did good in progressive circle before any definite policy proposals came out. Even democrats are balking at her tax proposals. Her 50 Trillion $ spending spree is a pipe dream. 100% of the 1%’ER’s wealth would not fund it for 2 yrs. Its a joke. Now saying she would tear down Trumps wall with taxpayer money, which is not just ridiculous but serious Trump Derangement Syndrome. If you just look at her past: Republican then Democrat, pro business then socialist, liberal then progressive, white then Indian (until embarrassed after DNA test), then Indian to white again. She lied on job applications and about being fired while pregnant. These are symptoms of a seriously confused person. Trump will eat her alive head to head, and the Rust Belt, battleground states, business’s, etc won’t vote for her. I hope y’all pick her!🤣
7
It's not like we have any candidates who are *more* likely to succeed. Why not support what we really want, rather than guess what other voters will want in November, 2020? Make no mistake, I'll vote blue no matter who: Any of them would be a far better choice than the incumbent or anyone else the Republicans are likely to nominate. But the idea that the winner will be the lowest common denominator of the candidates is precisely what got us to where we are today.
3
After 40 years of supply side economics and progressively worsening inequality,it's time for a recalibration of the type proposed by Warren. We'll see if America is brave enough to embrace her vision or acquiesce to the status quo plutocracy!
6
She cannot beat Trump. Is that not all that matters? Why can't Cory Booker get more support. I would really like to know. We need someone moderate to WIN. Bidon is stumbling constantly. He will be annihilated in any debate with Trump.
What amazes me is that people like Biden and Buuttigieg are willing to work with Republicans but they are not willing to work with progressives like Warren and Sanders.
5
I really don’t understand the people who think that Warren is so extreme people will end up voting for Trump instead.
Warren wants to tax the rich to give free child care, public college, college debt write off, and wants to level the playing field for African Americans, Native Americans and minorities, empower the unions, end the power of lobbyists, break up big banks and regulate big Tech. She plans to lower the age for Medicare to 50 and the prices of drugs. Without raising taxes on the middle class.
Trump wants to have an electrified fence at the border. Separate babies from families. Kill Obamacare. Cozy up to Putin, have a love affair with Kim Jong-un, weaken our NATO allies and destroy the two state solution for Palestine. Give a tax break to millionaires and corporations. Give pardons to felons. Destroy the environment and kill the CFPB. Trump wants to submit the press to his will and has launched an all-out war on truth itself...
Who are these people who think Warren is so extreme that they’d rather vote for Trump???
Why in God’s name should we listen to them? Instead of calling out what they really are and what they are motivated by: racism and sexism.
10
Simply put, if the NYT and centrist Democrats nominate the bungling Biden or boring Buttigieg, I will sit out the general election. I will not enable ill-informed electability judgments of centrist Democrats anymore. Anyone who stays home in 2020 effectively votes for Trump. I will simply rebut that by asserting that to nominate Bungling Biden or Bland Buttigieg is a vote for Trump. My question to centrists is, Were you not chastened by the results of 2020? I voted for HRC in 2016. I also predicted that Trump would win the electoral college. Want to know how? The primary polls consistently showed two things: (1) Swing state voters in Michigan and other Rust Belt states favored Sanders and (2) HRC outperformed Sanders among primary voters in states which either (a) Dems were going to win no matter who the nominee was or (b) Dem were going to lose no matter who the nominee were. You'd think that after 2016, Dems would no longer accept as gospel truth whatever the NYT tells them.
3
Do any of th andidates have a clear, easy ro understand, plausible plan that specifically addresses how to beat Trump? Does such a simple cookbook formula even exist? Is it not unfair to hold Warren to this standard and to not press the other (old, white, male) candidates on this issue?
1
Tr taWe know whWarren needs to start discussing her plans for Iran, Israel, North Korea, Turkey, Syria etc. What will she do? What are her plans for immigration enforcement? How will she slow down the economy to prevent inflation? When will she say “I plan to repeal and replace Obamacare and your employer provided healthcare insurance benefits? How will she prevent jobs from leaving the US? How will she deal with the theft of intellectual property by China? Will she allow California to set the environmental regulations for the country? What are her plans to deal with homeless Americans? Is she in favor of hospitals revealing their prices? Will she issue a Presidential Directive that abortion’s will be legal and readily available throughout the US for any reason? The list goes on and on.
"Allies have long believed that if voters could see her as Betsy from Oklahoma, and not Liz from Harvard, she would have a fighting chance."
I like Elizabeth Warren, and I agree with the above sentiment.
She needs to tell the story of her roots in Oklahoma and Texas, and the evolution of her own personal beliefs.
- "I used to be a Republican. I used to believe what you believe. But when I looked at the facts, I discovered ..."
- Empathy is a powerful force for persuasion.
4
I am a middle age women of color who has worked in the medical field for 20 years. I have seen our citizens die due to not having access to preventive care. I can close my eyes and see all the different ages, sexes, genders, ethnicity and different religious backgrounds become victims to death due to not having access to health care. I understand we live in a country that’s priority has always been to protect the established wealthy white males. I understand that there is fear that the only ones who will benefit from universal health care are the Other’s. Well Tell that to the poor white child who has lost their protector (their parents) due to drug abuse. Tell that to a child from one of the First Nations who just lost their Aunty due diabetes. Tell that to the mother who is sitting on her son’s bed wishing and praying she could have stopped her teenage son’s suicide. Tell that to all our people who have lost some one due to not having access to preventive care because we as a nation believe that only The Other’s will benefit. Death and destruction is a Spirit that No One is immune too.
278
@Moya Gaines
God bless you and the work that you do.
31
@Jerry/ Moya- If only the church goers (meaning they must be "seen" in church), here in the South could hear you! One can be sure you won't appear in the Southern evangelical churches (the preachers dare not!) around here nor on Fox News. Most southerners have changed little since their view of slavery. That is, those who are less than we don't deserve it(heaven will compensate for any conceivable injustice). I lament the culture that last led to this blind, myopic mindset.
18
Elizabeth Warren is the REAL DEAL. Let's do this, America!
6
I think that there is one mention of Bernie Sanders here. Somewhere around paragraph 25. The writer doesn't even think it is worthwhile to tell us that he too is running for President.
1
Sad to say I think she peaked. She presented her plans and now she is being buried under the ridiculous ways she explains how she pays/implements then.
4
@marrtyy - Why is it that no one who voted for Trump asked the same about him & now have no complaints about him blowing up the federal budget even though Tea Party people & the Freedom caucus were so worried about this issue under Obama? Why is it that people are so worried about her supposed "ridiculous" plans although have no problem with corporations paying zero taxes. She has explained in detail how she would pay for her health care plans. Plus, the power of the federal government would have huge benefits of containing health care costs as well as negotiating low pharmaceutical & medical device prices. Why is it that folks with good health insurance don't give a hoot about the rest of people who are literally dying without this fundamental human right. Why isn't there more outrage about people dying in this country due to lack of medical treatment while there are multi-millionaire & billionaires spending millions of dollars lobbying for denial of this basic human right for fellow Americans and buying off politicians to ensure that they continue to pay less taxes than their secretaries?
5
Warren and Sanders' unwilling to call out the antisemitism of Omar, Tlaib, and Sarsour is indicative of their constituencies. They represent at a minimum 30% of Democratic party voters. If the tables were turned, and there were two major Republican presidential candidates unwilling to call out the racism of a Richard Spencer or Steve King, representing at a minimum 30% of GOP voters, the NYT readership and editorial board would be apoplectic with good reason. Think about it, and please, no apologetics for Sarsour et al.
6
EAT THE RICH.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Let's all live in log homes with solar plates and get water from the stream.
3
@KJF - This is a good plan except the water from the stream is likely already polluted from Trump's deregulation & destruction of the Clean Water Act. If you've read any dystopian fiction, you'll notice that the entire landscape is devastated & the protagonist is always fighting against zombie like individuals with guns driving huge Mad Max type vehicles roaming the land dangerously attacking innocent moral people. This is the future if nothing is done to stem climate change or seriously rein back the sale of assault weapons & refusal to take seriously the life or death issues of disenfranchised people in America.
1
In the 1967 movie The Graduate Dustin Hoffman get one word advice: “Plastic”. My advice for 2020 candidates has two words “Climate Change”.
When my house is on fire I will ask the help of the neighbor who has the water hose even though I really like the one with the bucket.
Wake up Democrats! We don’t have the luxury to be picky. Bloomberg has a track record and the means to fight Climate Change and Gun Control.
3
@Zuzka
But that was meant as parody.
1
“But if you abandon your big ideas,” Warren suggested, “what have you won if you win?” Well, you’ve won back the White House from the Corrupt One. That’s plenty for most Democrats and certain voters not affiliated with a party. As for her plateau, it started when she was at a widely covered LGBTQ conference some weeks ago and equated anti-same sex marriage with men. Just men. Men, she implied, who might not even be attractive enough to get married themselves. She chuckled along with the foot-stomping laughter and cheers. It felt an awful lot like a set-up question from a set-up reporter delivered to a set-up audience at a trump rally. How does that help her campaign? It doesn’t. It stalls it - for looking like just another candidate. But a plateau is not a flat line. She can win with an overwhelming voter turn-out from the base of women, youth and the demographics of diversity. On-a-hot-streak political scientist Rachel Bitecofer and Michael Moore are convinced of it. We can only hope whoever runs against trump, he or she wins decisively. Otherwise, we will need a crow bar and an army to get the wanna-be Putin and his sycophantic crime syndicate of a party out of the White House. The Constitution is clearly not enough. The Constitution has been the American Dream all along.
1
Can I repeat the obvious? She is a Harvard professor with a leftist agenda from a liberal northeastern state who cannot win Michigan Wisconsin Pennsylvania North Carolina or Arizona and therefore cannot win the presidential election. New York Times readers are an extremely biased sample who thinks that she or Bernie can win and keep saying so despite data published in the New York Times recently that says otherwise. Think McGovern and Dukakis for example. Hillary did not lose because she was a moderate. She lost because she was Hillary. Dear Progressives, it's time to take one for the team.
141
@ron l
It feels like progressives are always asked to take one for the team - but then the team loses anyway.
68
@ron l - Is this reverse discrimination. Does every presidential candidate have to dumb down discourse in order to win or, like other democracies, could the electorate appreciate the intelligence & education achievement, especially of a female candidate. I mean, gosh, she is a product of the American dream who worked her way up from the daughter of a janitor to becoming a Harvard professor to now running for President of the USA. Is this not more representative of the American ideal than an American billionaire born with a silver spoon on 3rd base someone that the average American think he's someone to have a beer with? This type of thinking is the reason that the USA is losing its prominence as a world leader among other countries that value & respect educated leaders.
45
@ron l
Let me get this right; she is a non-starter because she has a good education and experience. O.K. Got it.
25
"Medicare For All Who Want It" seems like a much easier sell, not only to the electorate, but Congress. Probably accomplishes the same goal, too.
2
Anything else the NY Times can do to cast doubt on Liz and Bernie? They do it every day. Also, it is true that they dont give Bernie the coverage a consistent front runner should receive but we sure get a lot of articles about a small town mayor and a bumbling VP and a billionaire who hasn't even declared yet. NY Times-your biases are showing.
26
Except St. Bernie is not a consistent front-runner.
An important trait of a person with power is their ego. The larger their ego, the less likely they are to take other's opinions into consideration when making decisions.
Abraham Lincoln had one of the smallest egos of any of our presidents. He didn't even enter politics because he thought he was the best qualified. He just wanted to help others.
Elizabeth Warren is a lot like Lincoln in this regard. Her primary desire is to help others. This is why she entered politics, not because she thought she was better than most others.
Many of the other Democratic candidates have much larger egos; "vote for me! I am the best qualified and will do the best job!"
Lincoln filled his cabinet with the most experienced and best qualified people, regardless of their political affiliation. He listened to their proposals and when he disagreed, and was unable to persuade them that his was better, he supported theirs.
This is how Warren will approach her job as president. This is why she is the best candidate for the office.
It is worth noting that in her closing statement she did not attempt to explain why she was the best candidate, she took this opportunity to be thankful to have had the opportunity to be a member of the debate and for being considered as a candidate.
I will happily vote for any of the other Democratic nominees, but believe that Warren will make the best president.
16
I like Elizabeth Warren’s energy and enthusiasm. But that’s not enough. Change in America, especially change that stands the test of time, requires I win, you win; not I win, you lose. Warren has structured her policies around the latter. And the potential losers (big money donors and the likes of Michael Bloomberg) will do all they can to stop the Warren candidacy. Moderation is not a bad thing if Trump is to be defeated. Pragmatism is the operative word
5
@Karen J.
So you don’t believe her work on the CFPB was pragmatic? How about looking at the candidates’ records, rather than relying on debate moderators and the media for substance?
6
@BK These people will believe whatever the NYT tells them regardless of the facts. In some ways, they are as credulous as Fox News watchers. Their credulity was a factor in electing Trump. Remember Hillary Clinton's "Blue Wall?" I do.
1
I think that she is great! I see Warren as the great policy candidate. She will plow through massive amounts of data before formulating her direction: this is a bit different from what we have at present. I agree that to convince others we need to show more of the transitions such as from a system that denies most coverage to 1/3 of our population to coverage for all.
We must show how insurance companies are only behind casinos in how little they payout from the revenue they garner. Show the wealthy how the streets will be cleaned up, for healthcare for all must include a roof over all heads. Also a money saver for it is easier and cheaper to house an individual than pay for continual ER visits and police presence. It is cheaper to provide a diabetic with insulin now than to care for the blind-legless person that results from denying coverage.
No one system is perfect we need to blend the capitalistic system and the socialist. Create systems of checks and balances that add more of one when merited. We must show corporations how they will benefit and banks (healthcare number 1 reason for bankruptcy). Warren cannot do it alone. She needs others to help explain and stomp for her.
9
The fear of Warren as president is a driving force behind the support for Trump. When people are asked whether Trump should be impeached and removed, the clear question is who would replace Trump as president? Millions of people who do not like Trump nevertheless support Trump because they fear Trump's replacement would be Warren or the likes of Warren, and they are
supporting the Devil they know. "Better the devil we know than the devil we don't know."
2
@David Evidence?
When I see Elizabeth Warren I think of a tag line on a mug my daughter gave me. It is “She said she could...and She did”.
Warren said she could take on the big banks during he 2008 Financial crises and she did. Warren said she would take on PayDay lenders and she did. How did she do this?
She designed and brought to fruition the Consumer Federal Protection Agency.
And it worked beautifully until Trump and his Administration got their hands on it.
She is electable if you vote for her.
10
Elizabeth Warren is facing a biblical proportion David vs. Goliath slime campaign against her organized by moneyed interests including lobbyists, Wall Street, powerful corporations as they fund the current war on the middle class. I highly recommend that she set up a link on her campaign website dedicated to addressing any & all points that her detractors' hurl against her. For instance, she should point out every distortion that appears in pundit's op-eds, corporate media minimization & instead emphasize research which supports how her plans would help everyday working people's lives. She should, in my opinion, also refrain from pandering to traditional Democratic groups, instead emphasizing the economic impact that her ideas & policies will have on potential voters.
She should emphasize the importance of investing in our country's infrastructure, improving the transit system including airports, highways & bridge improvements, stressing the benefits of clean energy transformation in battling climate change, ban corporate PACS, getting money out of our political system including banning countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia & Turkey from contributing to political campaigns. Stress quality healthcare for every Americans as a priority.
The media has a vested interest in bringing Elizabeth Warren down as she threatens the status quo. She must dedicate her campaign website to bringing the truth to light while remaining an upbeat warrior for justice, respect & equality for all.
9
Her "electability" plan is to represent and serve the needs of
the American people.
10
I know y’all ain’t gonna believe me even though I’m obviously right, but if you think rank-and-file union members will vote for a candidate who proposes to yank their current health plans, kick 600, 000 people out of their insurer jobs, give them a government plan, and raise their taxes, you are out of your mind.
And no, telling them to count the dollars won’t mean a blessed thing. Because they’ll count the dollars, all right—and then they’ll say, “Hang on...you want to take the $15 grand I’m getting from the boss for health care, put me on a government plan, and raise my taxes?”
And then, they will vote for trump.
90
@Robert I'm a lawyer at a union and I completely disagree with this judgment. "Rank-and-file union voters" as you call them, understand that either a public option or M4A will give them the same security their defined benefit pension plans give them: a guarantee.
55
@Robert: You clearly haven't read her plans or bothered to go to her website or read about it, either. Once you educate yourself, come back with a more informed opinion. BTW, it's the primary season and a lot of wrinkles get worked out between the primaries and the general election, and then once again she become president and works on compromises with the hopefully Democratic super majority Congress.
29
@Robert
Trump won't be running. The oligarchs are pulling him out. It will be Pence and then the DNC will anoint Biden, handing it back to the GOP.
10
The problem with Senator (give her her title, please) Warren's campaign is not Senator Warren: it is corporate media giants like the NY Times and MSNBC that keep running these neoliberal takedowns of her successes, her plans, her viability. That's obvious from the headline that damns her with faint praise (she's done the "hard" thing but now has to do the "harder") to the sometimes flippant, sometimes skeptical tone of this mansplaining article. Meanwhile your publication continues to focus its hopes and attention on Buttigieg, and even Bloomberg with rarely a mention of Sanders, too. Obviously the Warren train has left you behind, worrying about your 401K.
13
When attacked by Trump as "Pocahontas," Warren responded by...taking a DNA test?
Talk about a major fail right out of the gates.
Contrast with Buttigieg who was viciously attacked by a (liberal) magazine for being gay. He ignored the attack.
Hardly any politicians have practiced the hard lesson that Trump should have taught all: Never wrestle a pig, you only get dirty. And besides, the pig likes it. (G.B. Shaw)
2
That’s right. And this paper has helped make sure of that.
@Freak They still haven't accepted responsibility for Trump's 2016 victory. During the primary, they consistently trotted out polls showing that HRC edged out Sanders in states, like Georgia, which Dems had no chance of carrying in the general election while consistently ignoring all the polls showing that Sanders edged out HRC in swings states like Michigan, which ultimately went to Trump in the general election. These swing states were the so-called "Blue Wall" that HRC could take for granted.
Pleasantly surprised to see NYT readers generally acknowledging the danger of her candidacy. I’m a moderate Republican who is dying to find an alternative to Trump, and she, along with Bernie, is among the few candidates that I could NEVER support.
All of my Democratic friends fear her nomination, hoping her star fades soon ... so perhaps these long campaigns actually serve a purpose?
101
@Chuck why are you still a republican? the real ones went out with Milton friedman.....time to get on the right side!
22
@Chuck: So, you and your friends are afraid of traditional Democratic policies that worked in the past to create and maintain a strong middle class, well paying jobs, well funded schools, and great infrastructure? Oh yeah, and send us to the moon in less than ten years even with the Vietnam War going on?
43
@Chuck
We are at a serious juncture. Either we continue the current oligarchy or we challenge it. Yes, he is including poison pills in her platform but we can't just fold to the control of private equity firms, 6 media companies, a prison industrial complex, and corporate oligarchs.
20
This is an animated Opinion about the animated candidate, Elizabeth Warren. While her strengths and the perpetual question about her 'electability' are well covered, at least one more question looms. Much is rightly made about all her plans, but I think she hasn't pulled her vision for all Americans together. What's the big picture of how her presidency with effect the economy and various groups in the country: those struggling, anti-government residents in rural America; workers and communities displaced by the loss of manufacturing jobs; the many citizens in need of affordable housing; the demands and support for a much improved public school education; how and what her plans for infrastructure will touch us all as well as how attending to climate change will engage everyone as it adds jobs and expands the economy. A clear and exciting future would be far different than what Trump and his Republican cohorts have delivered. The big picture; how improvements in crucial areas lifts the lives of others. There is a bit too much fight in her presentation. Without altogether abandoning it, I think Elizabeth Warren would move forward more convincingly with an overall vision and somewhat less of the US against THEM stance.
1
Warren is the girl who planned my prom, had a committee for everything, had people stay to clean up. She visited me in the hospital, asked about my dog. She won every academic award, she cheered every game. Her daddy was not rich, her mama was not good looking. I didn't want to ask her out; she was out of reach. A tad distant. But she remains the cerebral, indefatigable, thoughtful, righteous lady I respect for her ingenuity, authenticity, and genuineness.
If you want a hot girlfriend, watch Fox and stay out of this. If you want excitement, watch a ball game. But for goodness sake, enough of this "she is not exciting enough" nonsense. This isn't about you getting excited; Warren is not looking for your approval as a movie starlet, she is just the most competent political manager you'll every encounter.
This self-absorbed, self-centered, self-destructive skittishness of American liberals and centrists is killing us. We have a tyrant in charge taking us to a banana republic situated in eastern Europe. I will thank you all for shutting up and not enabling tyranny anymore. Shut up, sit down, show up, and vote for Warren. Thank you again.
401
@Kalidan
And yet she persisted!
My thoughts exactly, I just could not express them as elequently as you did.
I love your comment and perspective!
Please keep up the good work.
36
@Kalidan
This strongly worded letter was better than cocoa with Jack Daniels: please write a book so we can keep reading!
33
@Kalidan @ron l Dear Progressives: you have to win the election first! Then you can move left and enjoy the revolution.
But it won't happen if the Democratic nominee does not win in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Trump could lose the popular vote by 8 million votes, and still win the Electoral College if he won close elections in the mid west states.
Remember when James Carville said "it's the economy stupid"? Nowadays, we should probably be saying, "It's the Electoral College stupid". I hate it, but it's reality.
14
“If you abandon your big ideas, what have you won if you win”?
The unseating of the most monstrous and evil individual to ever occupy the Oval Office.
3
The hardest part for the most capable candidate is withstanding the steady drumbeat of hit pieces published in the New York Times. This is just one more. Why?
9
@beaujames Afraid of a woman in power?
1
@Barbara Flute, Possibly. The NYT did the same hit job on Hillary while nominally endorsing her. While I haven't seen the ferocity of effort aimed at the other women seeking the Democratic nomination, it could be because they're not close to the top of the polls. And there hasn't been any comparable attack on Biden or Sanders.
3
Wow, what an absurd propaganda piece. Instead telling us about her dog’s name and her folksiness, how about dwelling a bit on her plan to
1. Nationalize 20% of the economy and outlaw private insurance plans
2. Use tax payer’s money to send direct payments to her own supporters in the disguise of “college debt” payments
3. Decriminalize illegal immigration and provide border criminals with free healthcare and quickly invite a massive migration from the South
4. Destroy private innovative companies like Google, Apple and Amazon because she feels that they are “too big”
5. Implement massive tax increases, especially on private business which will result in a quick and painful recession
This on top of her dubious lying about her background and wobbly transition from a free market Republican to a full blown Socialist very late in life, which reeks of pure opportunistic ambition rather than a core belief in anything
5
Policies are all very well but they only get you so far. Presidential elections are based more on emotion than policies (many of which can't be implemented nowadays without complete control of Congress). Obama, for example, won on the basis of "Hope" and "Change". Trump also won in 2016 to some extent on the basis of "Change", by appealing to specific sections of the electorate in the right places. In 2020 "Change" will also be a major factor, the change being "get rid of Trump". However, specific policies may be counter-productive if they aren't acceptable to large sections of the electorate.
1
Yang - that’s it
4
@John Hill,
As much of a longshot candidate as Yang is, he is my preferred choice as long as he is in the race and is one of the few candidates that "gets it."
1
Once again the New York Times is poised to become Putin's useful idiot, promoting the narrative that the most talented and popular candidate in the field is not electable. Sanders voters are Warren voters. Sanders supporters are not going to migrate to Biden or Buttigieg when Sanders drops out of the race. In fact, if the soporific Biden or the bland Buttigieg wins the nomination, these voters, who would have turned out in droves for Warren, may stay home in numbers sufficient to surrender swing states to Trump.
9
The reason I am supporting Warren is for her ability and determination to push the liberal agenda. Sanders may introduce Medicare for all bill on day one, what good does it do. Will it go anywhere? Medicare for all is a long battle and people should see and convince themselves that is the way to go. That takes long sustained effort by the leadership. Right now it is all talk based on other nations are doing. The so called moderate Democrats are same as compassionate Republicans, express sympathy for poor and middle class but keep entertaining lobbyists. I think Warren is the ideal candidate and can be one of the best presidents of recent history.
19
You think that Warren, who’s rich and a Harvard professor, has never rubbed elbows with the wealthy and the powerful?
Good grief. That’s practically what Harvard is FOR.
2
@Kodali
Actually, Sanders has already sponsored such a bill. Additional healthcare coverage will go no where with a Republican Senate. Yet people, due to media coverage, are obsessed with this issue.
2
President is supposed to serve the people, solving their problems, and improve their lives. It is not a job for being "media commentator".
But why do they want some one to beat Trump? Beating him is not the qualification for becoming the president, nor will it improve people's lives.
To serve, you need ideas, policies and ways to get them done. We are not voting for a "person", we are voting for the polices to improve our lives.
Donald Trump got elected because it was the exact same problem of voting for some one for the sound bites, not the policies. And look the kind of mess we are in now!
6
Vladimir Putin is afraid of Elizabeth Warren.
He has turned his propaganda machine on her focusing resources second only to what he's using against Joe Biden.
If you're super-rich and love your money more than you hate Trump then, of course, you're against Warren and will end up voting for Trump regardless of how liberal you pretend to be.
There's a part of the Democratic Party that has been talked into the notion that Warren can't win a general election, but most of us wouldn't be surprised if Putin's propaganda machine helped talk them into that view.
That is what Putin and some super-rich people want you to believe.
Don't be fooled.
She continues to poll ahead of Trump.
Keep your eyes and mind open and be on the lookout for Putin's propaganda machine.
It's just getting started.
10
@S Butler What proof do you have that Putin is afraid of Warren? Why would anyone be?
2
@Jackson The proof that Putin is afraid of Elizabeth Warren is in the amount of resources he has committed against her which are second only to what he has committed against Joe Biden.
Putin wouldn't go after someone to this degree if he didn't believe that she would defeat Trump.
Conversely, his propaganda machine says nice things about Tulsi Gabbard someone he doesn't consider a threat and someone he hopes to use to split the Democratic Party.
Gabbard has done nothing wrong but she's being pushed by Putin.
3
@S Butler
So when Warren fails to get the nomination, it will be because of Russian interference?
3
If you take as context the last forty years of Koch brother Reagan-esque Libertarian/Corporate Dystopia of "I don't have to pay taxes or look after my fellow Americans or invest in education or infrastructure because our country will always be the best no matter how willfully ignorant we become" -
- then you can only conclude that one candidate is realistically taking on the challenges we now have.
Warren 2020.
9
Epithets like “socialist” aside, neither Warren nor Sanders will win if they run on taking away the private insurance of 170 million people. The logic and the details don’t matter. (We) liberals must realize that you first have to have the power before you can enact radical change.
7
@Doug Lowenthal Do you honestly think that the soporific Biden or the bland Buttigieg will generate the enthusiastic turnout we need in swing states to win the electoral college? As Obama used to say: what's YOUR solution?
3
@Doug Lowenthal
Do you believe a President can outlaw private health insurance without any action from
Congress? If not, what are you doing to inform other people of this?
2
The argument can be laid out for replacing what those 170 million are getting for something better. I am one of them, and the cost of drugs alone is killing us even if we have insurance.
3
Warren is the best candidate in the race, with the strongest ideas and the most-thought-out pland. The monied elite -- both Democrats and Republicans -- are afraid of change, because the status quo is working for them, and they are smart enough to realize that implmentation of Warren's plans would strengthen government's ability to regulate capitalism, redistribute the country's wealth more equally, and increase oversight of runaway criminality and corruption among the current ruling class. At this point in time it has all of the country's money and most of the country's power, so why would this class of people want any kind of serious reform? They own all of the media outlets, as well, and they are, of course, going to attack her with everything they've got. This is where the NY Times needs to think seriously about its privilege and its duty. Are you going to help promote doubt and fear of systemic change? The monied elite are running scared, and "electability" is a scare-mongering tactic. You guys are clearly looking to gin up drama to sell newspapers. Trump has been very profitable for you, offering everything from sex scandals to political corruption on a silver platter. Are you going to be seduced by the profits and growth you've realized since the 2016 election, or are you going to realize that it's time to support the middle class and champion economic reform, even if it means having fewer scandals to peddle?
12
Every vote counts.
Democrats have a real problem.
If Sanders is not nominated, 10% of Progressives are going to sit out.
If neither Sanders nor Warren are nominated, 20% of Progressives are going to sit out.
If Buttigieg is not nominated, at least 10% of gays are going to sit out.
If a Black is not nominated, at least 10% of Blacks are going to sit out.
This is what you get for playing identity politics.
8
@True Observer
Republicans are much luckier. They have mature and reliable Evangelical voters, who don't cut their noses off to spite their faces and sit out elections because they didn't get everything they wanted.
1
@True Observer Tis a little silly to decide this ahead of time. I voted for Bernie, then Hillary Clinton, in 2016 and would again if necessary. Vote for what you believe in the primary, vote pragmatically in the general.
2
Well, thank gawd that Trump never play identity politics.
As always, the theory is that straight white Christian guys are the zero on the thermometer, the Greenwich meridian of the world, the invisible standard by which all is measured.
That way, Trrumpies can race-bait, thump the Bible, yell about second Amendment remedies, scream that only coal matters, wail about gay marriage, whatever, and it’s not identity politics at all.
Oh, my, no. Because you, and only you, are True North.
2
The telling part of the reaction to Senator Warren’s campaign success sounds an awful lot like worry that no woman can defeat a misogynist who hasn’t yet been thwarted.
In many ways, this sounds like the whines about the ERA in the 70s, when conservatives told us that we would all be sharing bathrooms with people of the opposite sex.
You know, like you did at home.
But it convinced enough moderates, especially women, to vote against their own interest.
Reading that anyone thinks they cannot vote for Senator Warren despite being in agreement with her positions, solely because of someone’s perceived sense of what qualifies as ‘electability’ seems to overlook the same comments about our most recent presidents.
Better that the Senator should ignore this concern, and continue being herself on the campaign trail.
2
The question of electability is a false narrative of the fact misogyny is still rampant in U.S.. When Trump starts the Pocahontas attack, Ms. Warren should respond by stating she would be proud to be a Pocahontas if Native Americans approve her and she will work for them.
3
Elizabeth Warren has a credibility problem. She has lied in the past, and continues to this day. She says she has a plan for many things, but when it comes time to discuss the details, she punts. Elizabeth Warren is not trustworthy and voters can see right through the false promises. Sorry, but Warren is not the answer.
7
@G G Who has presented plans as detailed or as credible as Warren? Exactly. This is primary season where candidates broadcast to voters what their values are. Most of them don't have the courage to embody those values in concrete policy proposal that they then present to voters DURING the primaries. You know who thinks Warren's plan is serious? Paul Krugman. Will M4A pass the senate? No. And neither will gun control or any other centrist piece of legislation.
4
@AB That Medicare for All won't pass the Senate is obvious because there just won't be 60 votes. Bernie is not being honest about that. The value of passing Senator Warrens' interim plan is that it allows progress forward with only 51 votes through budget reconciliation (possible if Dems take the Senate). Worth trying! I like her pragmatism.
1
It’s great that she’s not running for President just to try on the suit. But whoever wins is almost certain to name two Supreme Court justices who will replace two elderly liberals. That alone seems a reason worth trying to WIN rather than just pontificating about ideal policy solutions- which can never be enacted without progressive democratic majorities in both houses.
2
For those commenting on here that they love Elizabeth Warren, but they cannot risk voting for her, I wish you all the luck. Voting based on our fears is exactly what will become our own demise. The Democratic Party is a mess and has lost its way.
I love a healthy debate about moderate versus far left politics, but as a party when we vote from our fears, we are already defeated. When we vote on our values and what we really want without caring what the other side thinks, that is what will win in the end.
Tell me a time when any republican has ever said “well, we better consider those liberals before we decide on our candidate?” They never have and they never will. We need to do the same.
8
You ain’t the only one voting on your values and principles, you know. And we ain’t the only ones who might be voting out of haste and fear.
If anything’s going to re-elect Trump, it’s this fantasy that everybody secretly agrees with St. Bernie or whoever, and will roll down America’s streets in a Mighty Wave if we only run the politically-correct—sorry, but that’s the only phrase for it—Hero.
You missed the point entirely. Of course I am not the only one voting on my values, and you should and everyone else should do the same. The audience of my comment was directly to people who love Warren, but who are scared to vote for her. You vote for whoever you want and so will I. But if people love Warren they should vote for her, period.
1
There is only one number that matters in 2020 : 270. It will not matter if Warren wins the popular vote with big margins in blue states if she loses the electoral college, as is likely. There is nothing more important that getting Trump out of office in 2020.
1
It doesn't help that the Democratic Party establishment still believes that we should show up to a gunfight armed with only a butterknife. Anything more might "frighten people off." This century, Gore, Kerry, and Clinton opted for campaign styles of the blandest centrism, and all lost. The lone Democrat who won the presidency this century, despite governing as another bland centrist, campaigned as an ideas man and a candidate of change.
Centrists of the party talk a good game when it comes to their stated worries that a progressive campaign might turn off swing voters. What they really mean, yet refuse to concede in their usual indirect way, is that they themselves are opposed to a progressive platform. And the reason they're opposed is because most are quite comfortable with their economic standing in an increasingly unequal country. Don't rock the apple cart, they think, since they're fortunate enough to be sitting near the top.
One can hear Elizabeth Warren beginning to retreat a bit in response to the establishment's attacks. If she doesn't find her footing and forcibly push through this wall, her campaign is done. And I would submit that if her progressive impulses aren't robust enough to push through, then it's just as well that she didn't win. But if Warren can regain the spirit of the fight, a deep conversation with the Sanders campaign needs to happen. Separately, they can't defeat the centrists, but as a coalition they might....
2
According to research by Commonwealth Fund, among 11 countries studied, the U.S. ranks last in Access, Equity, and Health Care Outcomes, behind Canada, Australia, England, France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands and New Zealand. And the US ranks next to last in Administrative Efficiency.
https://interactives.commonwealthfund.org/2017/july/mirror-mirror/
For our poor outcomes, we spend twice the money. In 2018, health spending across other wealthy, developed countries averaged 8.8% of GDP annually, while healthcare spending in the U.S. averaged 16.9 % of GDP. Per capita healthcare spending in the US was $10,586, while the average of other wealthy, developed countries was $5287.
https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2019/07/how-does-the-us-healthcare-system-compare-to-other-countries
Because we have a unique disease treatment for profit system, we spend twice as much money and have poorer outcomes than other wealthy, developed countries.
Why not actually study what is working in other wealthy developed countries and draw on those experiences to develop a better system?
I, for one, am ready for a change. Elizabeth has my vote.
12
@Carolyn We should learn from other countries, but remember our doctors go deep in debt while many of theirs get a free medical school education. A problem that took a half century to create is going to take several decades to undo. We might lower Medicare by two years every year, which would give people time to adjust their private insurance and for the government to collect sufficient funds to pay for the change.
1
If you’re that ready for a change, I’m sure that those countries, would be happy to have you. We live in the US, we are capitalists through and through. While people in other countries are happy to give a large portion of their earnings to pay taxes to fund social programs, the reality is that most people in the US are not. We work hard for our money and struggle to pay our bills and put money away for retirement. All of the free stuff that “progressives” tout, has to be paid for somehow and if anyone actually thinks that it’ll be the wealthy and corporations that are going to pay for it, well, I have a bridge to sell you! The middle class will be hit hard and be forced to struggle even harder and most likely have to work until we are dead. No thanks.
1
@Carolyn, in addition to what @Joe Barnett said, two more points for consideration. First, neither Canada nor any of the other countries held up as examples by progressives have the out of control tort system we have. The malpractice premiums are staggering. Yes, negligence victims deserve compensation but there ought to be some sort of review or arbitration panel first. It won’t happen though because the trial lawyers have a firm grip on the Democratic Party. Second, have you been reading at all about the issues at the UK’s NHS? No thank you.
Elizabeth W. has lived through the valleys & hills of life....the triumphs & the setbacks. She obviously works hard & has stamina and she is SMART. And articulate. And she can take a licking & keep on ticking. I don't agree with all of her positions but she is intelligent, tenacious & committed. As such, she is open to altering her ideas, to compromise & able to form coalitions. I don't think she's in this fight because she feels entitled or wants the fame; she could rest on her laurels & enjoy a happy retirement. Her goal is not financial enrichment via public office. Despite disagreements with some particulars of her plans, this is enough for me. She is an accomplished woman & it is past time for women to lead the country. Count me in.
If she selects a VP candidate who doesn't come out of the traditional politico mold, she will give Trump a major challenge.
We are better off as a country if we have a leader who knows first hand what is to earn your way in life & has experienced hardship.
13
Warren triggered a political nuclear fallout with her medicare for all plan that takes $20 trillion from those who provide jobs and possibly running them out of the country.
A nuclear winter has now set in on her campaign.
2
For decades, I've actively worked for universal coverage, yet have been skeptical (at least) about "Medicare for All" or its variants.
Yet, I support Elizabeth Warren and have contributed to her campaign. Why?
Because we have big, structural problems.
It's not always the specifics of Warren's plans that pull me in. It's that they represent her grappling with those big, structural problems. Democratic candidates who do nothing but criticize someone else's plans and/or temporize with their own either don't get the scope of our challenges or they begin by negotiating with themselves, never leave their defensive crouch, and never accomplish much.
Even beyond, Trump, I won't even bother with Republicans. Over the last 30 years, on domestic policy, they've become nothing but negative; nothing but destructive. And, on foreign and defense policy, they've followed Trump in turning belly-up to Putin and any other right-wing authoritarian that's handy.
Sure, it would be nice to be able to return to an era of "civil" politics, when we could have polite debates with people we disagree with. Will Republicans stop voter suppression or gerrymandering because an accommodating Democrat is elected? Hardly. So don't choose a candidate based on that delusion. It will take at least a generation to push such Republicans off the field.
Though Warren has refrained from attacking her Democratic rivals, I have no doubt, she'd at least metaphorically punch Trump in the face. That's what we need
10
Fair enough. But i disagree.
@John I think refraining from attacking her rivals (Democrats) is core to her value of loyalty to the party she's chosen to join, while steadfastly fighting for what she believes, not personal attacks. I wish the other democratic candidates were as principled.
1
I believe that her plan for "Medicare for All" will be her undoing. Why not build upon what exists, the ACA, instead of alienating an entire class of society? I've heard billionares (I'm not even close) admit that they should pay more in taxes than their secretaries! Stop treating them as the enemy and engage them in the effort to ensure that all Americans enjoy their right to healthcare, irrespective of their ability to pay for it.
3
Money is power, and power is addictive. So how will the rich stop Warren? I expect that there will be millions of comments on Facebook and the news media sites, seemingly concerned about Warren's electability. I expect that there will be millions more posts about how the Republicans are hoping and praying that they get to run against Warren. The same overseas firms paid to cast doubt about Hillary will be paid to case doubt about Elizabeth.
Warren's the real deal. Smile every time you see ads, comments or editorials casting doubts about her electability; that means that they're scared!
6
@Bill She is the rich.
1
There's that saying "Man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for?"
Same concept for universal health care; We need a big idea that has room for all the possibilities. It's easier to trim, to remove, to alter than it is to paste new stuff on once the concept is seen.
This is the country that dawdled about slavery for generations 'cause there were always those to appease----look where that got us.
We are the one and only advanced country that does not actively provide access to health care for its residents. Our mortality rates for preventable and treatable diseases are climbing people spend oversize amounts of their income on the care they do get and many of us get no care at all.
So, why don't we stop arguing about the color of the registration form for universal health care and start focusing on the system itself. Yeah, it's a snarky joke.
2
Actually, Warren did the easy part.
She painted herself as the younger, more energetic, more articulate, female version of Bernie.
Now comes the hard part. Getting a “socialist” elected President of the United States.
Good luck with that.
5
Her whole demeanor is difficult to absorb. Her hyperactive behavior, her rapid fire, superficial responses to complex issues, and a lack of apparent thoughtfulness to name but a few. She looks likes she is trying to rush to an end, just as she starts. She comes across as a con trying to get to the next topic before she gives anyone a chance to reflect on what she is saying. And the body language is equally "non presidential". It is more like a cheer leader at a football game. Also half the voters, maybe more than half are men, and she cannot resist throwing digs at men every chance she gets. I feel offended as a male every time she speaks. That really stands out as a male viewer. Her play acting with the fake tears for wealthy people is immature and detracts from her integrity, which is already on shaky ground. I would rather stay home than vote for her on election day.
5
Still giving Sanders the silent treatment even after he tops the latest national poll.
He garners 44% of the under 30s in the NBC poll.
He and Warren are both forces to be reckoned with. Together they would be unstoppable: much to the horror of the DNC who are not having Sanders--even at their own expense.
We shall see.
4
America's Electoral College will decide who wins.
The popular vote is more of a beauty contest vote that does not always reflect the views of the majority of the people.
Correct?
1
@On a Small Island
No, not correct. The popular vote, by definition, does reflect the views of the majority.
1
@GMooG
Quite right. What I meant was that the one that receives the majority of the popular vote does not always become America's president. That is, as I understand it, is determined by the Electoral College. Sorry about any confusion.
We recently had the same issue in Canada in October where Trudeau did not receive the majority of the votes, but still becomes PM due to our First Past the Post antics.
1
It is correct to say that many of us hoped and dreamed Barack Hussein Obama would become president.
But - the idea that a black man could become president was seen as farfetched.
And, in the post 9-11 world, the Republicans constantly made illusions to the lies that he must be a Muslim with that name - certainly not a Christian. And of course, insisted that he was not a citizen of the United States, and we should all inspect his birth certificate.
A black man becoming president was stretch, now a woman as president is seen as a stretch.
Some see a bland white man as a "safe" bet to defeat Trump. I strongly disagree. Give us someone - like Obama - to passionately believe in, and follow, someone to excite us to believe that we can be better than we are.
I am old enough to remember President Kennedy's speech about going to the moon, wherein he stated that we choose to do the hard things because they are hard. We did those hard things because he made us believe in ourselves and the seemingly impossible dreams that we could accomplish as a nation.
This is why I support Warren and will do all I can to help her become the president of the United States.
She makes us believe - as Lincoln said - in the better angels of ourselves.
8
I love her. But as has been said a zillion times, it’s not who gets the most votes but instead who wins PA, WI, OH, MI and FL. And I don’t think she has a chance.
2
@GC
Take a look at the 2016 primary results in Midwest states, which included Democratic and independent voters. Then determine who is likely to get the best turnout.
2
She has the aura of a farmers daughter suddenly awakened to life off the farm. If it takes 2-hours to plan the sowing of an acre field, 3-hours to plan repair of the pig pen and a couple of hours to sort timing of the dairy herd milking routine, why shouldn't it be entirely normal to be just as easy and take about as long to plan the fixing of the nations healthcare, student debt and wealth inequality?
1
Warren illustrates the problem with the Democrats and they seem to have even corrupted Joe Biden. The Democrats have moved too far to the left and as a result will lose in 2020. If you look at what President Trump has accomplished there is no reason to elect Democrats. We have record lower unemployment especially among minorities. The stock market has everyone's 401K golden. The Democrats are making this a personally race because that is all they have.
3
Wow- I didn't know being peppy and really smart and plain spoken at the same time was such an odious state. Plus she was married more than once! And to be 70 years old makes it so unseemly! You can snipe away all you want, but the real story is all about the money. Senator Warren's proposed two percent super-super wealth tax is really , really scaring the oligarchs and they are already pouring in tons of money to 'mayor pete" and others to try to prevent Warren from taking the nomination. How about a column that honestly analyzes her two percent plan relative to her proposed social programs, instead of snide comments about what she wears to rallies?
3
I support Sen. Warren. But I worry about her being stretched too thin. She is pursuing a campaign that seems more heavily dependent on her personal energy than most other campaigns. Perhaps she needs to recharge a bit and pause to reflect about the current state of the race, making adjustments as needed as to priorities and emphasis? No doubt she has established herself as not just a credible candidate but a top-tier one. I think she has set the agenda for the party. But eventually we need to see -- or be able to imagine -- how she would govern. We need help to envision her as our next president. I think she can distinguish herself from Bernie in this way, if she helps us see her as more than just a crusader. If not, perhaps we are looking at a Biden-Warren ticket?
7
This is coming as the pool shrinks. The conversation will become a lot more substantive once there are only a handful of candidate left. And no she does not need to take a break.
1
Warren and Bernie supporters run the risk of forgetting that its the electoral college that will decide this race. Its not enough to be right, unfortunately. You have to win elections in order to make policy. And electoral math does not respond to coastal passion, however justified.
If Warren and Sanders can't find a message that demonstrably resonates in swing states, they cannot win the general election, even if either win the primary. That proof is not based on good arguments or spin. Its based on polls of voters we ignored in 2016.
So called "centrist" voters are not timid, they just want to get Trump out and see "progressive" hubris as a threat to that central purpose.
By all means support the candidate of your choice. But if we forget that the race in November 2020 is not the popular vote but the electoral college, we will have 4 more years to sit and sulk while the same Republicans that enable this corruption now will appoint RBG's successor, appoint hundreds more federal judges and set environmental and immigration policy through 2024.
We must come together with at least the same focus and resolve as the MAGA hats who WILL be there in 2020, no matter what or who.
25
@MIPHIMO
We know Sanders can beat Trump at his own game. The critical voters the Dems need are where Bernie is strong. Warren would be a fine VP.
3
@MIPHIMO
It's tough to find a message when the normal channels for so doing—economy, jobs—are unassailable.
Trump has been battered so hard and so continuously, folks don't care—they're so sick and tired of hearing about it.
What's left is to promise the world.
2
@MIPHIMO
Well stated, the electoral college issue is what many voters ignore. In addition I have the grave concern that none of the present candidates has as yet demonstrated the charisma or phenomenon label necessary to have a substantial coattail pull to swing the Senate into democratic hands, let alone of getting a supermajority necessary for passage of most of the progressive programs. Sanders and Warren are particularly concerning on this issue, as the needed anti-Trump swing voters likely hold their noses while voting for them, but will not reward them in the congressional races. So we may likely end up with a progressive president and a split Congress, with McConnell throwing everything into the gears of progress while avowing making Warren or Sanders a one-term president. She/he can accomplish some things by executive order, but most of these will be challenged in the courts, and we know where and how these will end up. Trump through his judicial appointments seriously tilted the table on which the Democrats will have a tough time staying effectively on top of for decades to come.
1
People need to change their predictive perspective. The concern about losing moderates because of too far a leftward lurch is logic, not fear. Consider the Republican VP candidate being Nikki Haley. I think it’s inevitable. It changes the calculus.
11
@Lenny Kelly
The Right will not change.
The Left will not change
The center has to choose a side.
Intesteringly Mrs Warren has not presented any of her plans on foreign policy. Commander in Chef of the worlds most powerful military has not been in the mix of her platform. The press also seems to have skirted foreign policy issues during the debates. The American electorate deserve better.
14
They never ask her about this in debates. Strangely the moderators always skip her during the foreign policy section and come back only for the healthcare and economics portions, but her hand is always up.
2
@Pepperman Unfortunately, primaries and general elections are won on national, economic issues - along with special individual abilities. She is concentrating on the economics/health care issues that will matter. If she were to win the presidency, I have no doubt she has the intelligence to straighten out American foreign policy - AFTER the current administration. What a job that's going to be.
2
@Pepperman
Warren hasn't said a single word on the campaign trail about defending America from Russian attacks... why not? Because, like most on the left, she simply doesn't care about national security. We can't afford to be defenseless against our enemies.
1
I want Trump out of the White House on 20 Jan 2021. It will not, unfortunately, happen any sooner. But if it's Trump versus Warren or Sanders, the departure date will be 20 Jan 2025.
Medicare For All will not happen for many years. How many is many? I don't know, but it's going to be later rather than sooner.
Warren or Sanders will not be able to tell those union members in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that their hard fought medical benefits are going to be taken away from them. It is not going to happen. And if even some of those union members decide to sit out the election or, God forbid, vote for Trump, we are all in trouble.
Medicare for those who want to switch, a public option, is a fine idea. But all of these something for nothing ideas like Medicare for everyone, even if you don't want it, free tuition, guaranteed wage, even if you don't work or want to work, are all ideas from a far left section of the Democratic Party that means another four years of Trump.
And this country cannot afford four more years of a man no longer constrained by having to be reelected.
16
@slime2
Sanders was supported by many of those union members in the 2016. He won the primary contests in Michigan and Wisconsin.
2
@BK Primary voters are those voters at the far ends of the political spectrum. Warren and Sanders have the far left voters and Trump has the far right voters. Those are NOT the voters that will determine who wins on Election Day 2020. It's the middle 50% that will determine this election. And I doubt if more than 50% of that 50% will vote for giving up their health insurance.
@slime2
1) Most union members are Democrats, not Republicans. 2) He also received support from many independents.
I know it’s become normal to pretend that facts don’t matter, but you really don’t know the Midwest. I lived there for most of my life.
1
I think that when people worry about the electability needed to beat Trump, they are thinking mostly of a surprising 2016, less of today's realities, and certainly much less of the world of 2020.
Instead of all the political calculating in the hope that mediocrity might beat awfulness, I recommend simply supporting the candidate who speaks best to you.
9
I'm still having trouble getting my mind around why people would vote for Trump, the person who endorses bad air, bad water, Putin's progress, and all around corruption. So anyone else in the Universe is better. Warren may be stunning the electorate with too much intelligent discourse but she has clearly thought through a lot of issues and is very sharp. I hope she can find a place for Yang in her cabinet.
7
@Elwood They voted for Trump cos too many folks disliked Hillary Clinton.
I feel terrible because I love her energy and feel she could take on Trump. But she boxed herself in a corner with M4A, and forgets that this entire election rests on six states who do not want her extremism.
13
Please Warren, don't mess with my Medicare. Stay in the senate or go back to the classroom. As a Veteran, I would not want you to be a commander in chief. What Democrats need at this time is a very strong moderate to lead my party to victory over Trump, if he is not kicked out of the White House.
11
The most compelling idea in this article was: who understood that Barack Obama was a phenomena at primary time?
Part of me agrees with the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" concept, and I certainly will!
(A tree stump would be more intelligent and ethical and make a better president than Trump.)
But the important question is : who will make the best president? I think the answer is clearly Warren. She will fight for us -- the middle class and poor.
I have read several articles that the rich and banks are frightened and marshalling forces and money to defend their billions. Well, isn't it amazing that the idea of equality scares them to death?
12
I’d love to see Warren stay in the Senate or head the Consumer Protection Bureau she helped bring into existence but she should not be president. I don’t think she can bring the country together behind her proposals and the backlash would bring on yet another wild swing of the pendulum. Moreover, her foreign policy ideas remain sketchy and undeveloped. “We should get out of the Middle East” . Really? Not exactly deep thinking. If she is the nominee I will of course support her but I think it would be a guarantee of Trump’s re-election if she is.
6
@Michele
Who is going to bring the county together? Do you recall the Tea Party and how Republicans in Congress obstructed Obama? This is pie in the sky thinking. Even Hillary Clinton, while appearing to be more moderate, knew that you could not trust Republicans in Congress to work with a Democratic President. People need to get over this delusion. There will not be political unity in this country after Trump is gone.
3
There is no perfect candidate. There is no sure fire savior who is going to walk on water to the nomination and the White House. There is no candidate whom you will agree with 100% on everything. Ultimately "electibility" depends on us, the voters, and if Trump wins again it will be our fault.
7
@jim
Vote Blue, No Matter Who!
1
@jim
Actually it depends on the voters in the few states that are likely to affect the result. The rest essentially have no vote. If you want to ensure Trump doesn't win go to one of those states and help get out the vote for his opponent (whoever it is).
1
Team Warren!
Well, I doubt that the author of this piece is an Elizabeth Warren fan. At every opportunity, a dig was logged against Ms Warren. It was a (not so ) clever way to pretend to write an unbiased article about Ms. Warren's ability to be elected, all the while undermining her ability to run the country or even her "electability - thus she be female".
Elizabeth Warren is intelligent, savvy, trustworthy (wouldn't that be a nice a change in the WH), compassionate and tough. She gets my vote.
8
Having watched all the debates so far and a number of "town hall" and other interviews it seems to me that the candidates that are most likely to appeal to a large cross section of the country are Klobuchar, Biden and Buttigieg. Their programs seems to be most doable and acceptable in their moderation.
Both Warren and Sanders have "dream programs" as opposed to realistic ones especially if the Democrats don't win the Senate.
Guess we shall see!
6
@JB
Biden Buttigieg works. Biden Harris works and Buttigieg Harris or Harris Buttigieg works. The Buttigieg Harris combination gives us darker skin color, the immigrant experience, the Asian experience, and homosexuality and financial savvy. You can put the entire Democratic party under the same umbrella.
What does the NYT have against Elizabeth Warren? She has actual plans for the most important issues that affect middle class Americans. She has been working on these issues for decades. Middle class voters and those who aspire to become middle class could do well to look after their own interests and get behind her campaign.
12
Elizabeth Warren has a power base dominated by white liberals... those aren't the voters who are going to decide the outcome of the 2020 election. We should all be asking ourselves: is Warren a stronger candidate with swing voters than Hillary Clinton was in 2016, or is she a weaker one? In my view, Clinton had broader appeal than Warren does, and she would be president today if not for the headwinds she faced from the Russians and also from the Democrats having held the White House for the previous 8 years. I don't need Warren's self-described bold ideas... getting Trump out of the White House is bold enough for me, and i don't believe Warren is the candidate who is the best bet to get that done.
8
@Richard Ralph
Clinton did not get some of the white working class voters in the Midwest who voted for Obama. In addition, Black turnout in the Midwest was less for Clinton in 2016 than for Obama. In contrast, Sanders won 2016 primary contests in Michigan and Wisconsin, which included independent voters. So it’s clear where voters in the Midwest lean. They don’t prefer a centrist establishment candidate.
4
Wordy and esoteric.
Warren imo has at least two things going against her.
1-Identity Obsession. While not as bad as Hillary ie I am a woman, my time of anointment has come and the era of the white man is over campaign that was lethal to her, nevertheless Warren still puts her foot in her mouth with comments like when asked a question of how does a woman get elected. Instead of saying by uniting all people and offering programs for all she said by acting as one tough woman.
2-Progress comes slow and with private enterprise as a partner. Medicare for all, not keeping the private sector involved, wiping out employee medical at once etc. etc. is going to be lethal to her like in was with Hillary in the 1990s. Americans don't like our current de facto republican criminal pre ACA system but also do not like socialism.
Learn from Obama, he went slow with ACA and united all people. He did not run as an angry young black man.
6
@Paul
She had influence in the creation of the CFPB. That’s not radical. She has already demonstrated an ability to make significant positive change.
3
@BK thank you for you reply. Platitudes and being a "good" person doesn't cut it anymore.
In 1860 when the country was at is next greatest peril ie the Civil War they choose Lincoln a. moderate progress next a radical republican.
Same here, you need a moderate progressive, not identity obsessed, not platitudes, not technical plans for everything, not something that is vaguely related to socialism.....stay the course with obama, vote for Biden unless three doctors declare him senile.
The future of America depends on it if you don't want to give Trump another term.
1
@Paul
Obama was all platitudes. Hope and change. If you don’t want someone who is full of platitudes or a technocrat, then you won’t have anyone left.
2
the key is for the dems to get %100 behind whoever wins the nomination. period. stop with all the accusations of "socialism" and fear of "too far left". don't hold back. trump must go. warren is a person of integrity and real depth. I hope everyone wakes up. too bad every year we have to depend on rural white people of Iowa and New Hampshire to have their outsized say into who gets to run. altering the primary order of states is one way to begin to make the structural changes needed. next eliminate the electoral college.
2
Trump is the essence of government by billionaire. I believe he and Jeffery Epstein have permanently tarnished the ruling elites. Warren is a risk but there is always great risk at an inflection point in history. I like Warren because I believe she is honest and will not use the presidential office for self enrichment. Neither would Bernie so I like him too. Our democracy is broken, as is the world—broken by corrupted oligarchs. We have nothing to loose at this juncture.
3
Another piece trashing Warren. What is the beef? Is she too radical? The plans result from her thinking hard about the serious problems in the country particularly health care. She's obviously smarter than the rest of the candidates. Is it because she's a woman or too angry or too strident? These things were always forgiven for men but I think most democrats and independents and even some republicans are ready to put aside these old biases. Then we come down to the issue of electability. Can she beat Trump? Why is she less electable than Biden or Buttigieg? The real beef is that she can't predict the future. She can't guarantee that she will win.
10
My Grand Parents weren't afraid of FDR, We shouldn't be afraid of Warren.
13
@Milliband
Quick - who ran against FDR? Exactly - that's the point.
@GMooG Hoover, Landon, Wilkie, and Dewey. Within five seconds. Is that fast enough? All were solid candidates with a lot to offer.
2
Like Donald, Elizabeth panders endlessly.
None of her 'plans' will ever be enacted without 60 Democratic seats in the Senate. That won't happen in 2020.
I don't know if she'll be the nominee and if nominated, I don't know if she can win. I hope she will, because Donald Trump must be soundly defeated.
But she really should stop promising MfA, free college, new cabinet departments and trillions of dollars in new spending.
Because doing that in the wake of Donald Trump's wreckage sounds unhinged.
8
Elizabeth Warren wants to make sure everyone has health insurance—and that it costs less. Sounds like a good idea to me, scaremongering about extremism notwithstanding.
She isn't trying to force change down people's throats and, in response to people's concerns, has proposed a phase-in for the change she seeks, with further steps contingent on public acceptance of initial steps.
She understands that compromise is how our system works and is willing to compromise when necessary. She's the right person--experienced, smart, informed, etc.--to negotiate whatever compromises are required.
Is she out to destroy capitalism? No. Admit it though, the system isn't working as well as it could and needs a tune-up. Stop scaremongering for political gain. That's how Trump operates.
Hope she continues to be herself. Her conservatism is real, and people will see this as the campaign intensifies and she is authentic in facing opposition. She is pragmatic and her proposals are based on common sense, not left wing ideology or clueless idealism.
The best way for Democrats to beat Trump is to nominate a woman. Trump’s authoritarian, White supremacist, xenophobic bullying and his malignant narcissism (in other words, his toxic masculinity) worked for him last time but can work against him now. Nobody's fooled by Republican disinformation at this point. Women hold the key to this election.
7
@jamiebaldwin Thank you.
No taxes on the middle class. Warren can't carry out any of her policy changes without taxing us over and over.
No to Warren ( made her bucks as a republican lawyer) and no to Sanders (wife made a mint bankrupting a college).
No to wolves in sheeps clothing.
6
@CA
What is a “Republican lawyer”? She never worked for the RNC. She made most of her money as a professor and selling books.
2
@CA
You want a civil society?
You pay taxes.
By the by...Jane Sanders Golden parachute was less than $200K. A mint...? Yeah, not so much.
3
Mr. Flegenheimer writes with the same bounce and irreverent energy that his subject displays in her campaign. No matter your opinion on Ms. Warren, this was a fun article to read.
Let’s remember that all Dem.candidates (many of whom are quite fabulous) agree on about 85% of topics, perhaps more, most importantly, matters such as: It is good to take care of the planet & stop, not encourage, pollution which leads into - it is good to take care of all people, to try to help people lead healthy hopeful meaningful lives.
Let us please remember that trump does not believe in these things, he and his cohort believe in dishonesty, in greed, in harming others, and the planet, as often as possible. They are in love with hatred, stirring it up daily. They do not believe in democracy, in liberty and justice for all.
Please vote for whomever the candidate is, be it Warren or Biden or Buttigieg or Bloomberg or Klobuchar &c. You need not love them, you only need to love our country, and really, the world.
3
Warren is smart and has a real record of pursuing legislation aiding the general good. All qualities Trump does not share, thigh he pretends to.
It is a real possibility that in a debate with Trump, Warren could make him look ridiculous and completely uncomprehending. To make that a certainty, she could bluntly engage Biden and Buttigieg and demonstrate their complete failure to grasp issues and solutions. No histrionics, just a few simple clear sentences that will show her opponents floundering in verbiage and vague conceptions.
So far she has deliberately avoided such confrontation; maybe it is time to get across that brains and real thought have force.
3
End result: disenchanted voters will sit this one out and Trump will be back.
3
She is electable. She went from being a janitor's daughter to a Senator. That tells you everything about her intelligence, abilities and drive.
The media has had a field day trashing her.
Democrats are afraid of losing their Party to Warren or Sanders which is why Obama and Hillary have been calling for more moderate tones. In other words, panning Warren. Very disappointing.
Biden has been particularly hateful toward Warren with his typical misogynist views on women. A move he will regret come primary time.
Americans want change. The middle class has to be rebuilt if this country is going to survive.
Warren is the person for the job.
She hasn't done anything outrageous as Senator. She will compromise to get legislation passed. She won't tolerate corruption or status quo.
11
@Gus
She endorsed corruption and the status quo last elect.
Voting for Trumps bloated MIC giveaways is outrageous.
She's better than Trump.
2
I adore her. She is FIERCE. I feel hopeful when she speaks, and I dream of an America that holds the super rich accountable, one that finally sticks it to the Silicon Six, the modern-day robber barons who currently rule the world.
But I also dwell in the ugly reality of middle America, where racism and sexism are still pretty obvious fixtures in everyday life. Why does Bernie poll better than her in places like Georgia? Sexism. Why did Bernie voters in rural South Georgia vote for Trump over Hillary? Sexism.
She’s carrying VIRTUALLY THE SAME message as Bernie, but she has the added hurdle of misogyny. It’s one all women have faced. I was sexually harassed in the workplace by a Southern Baptist deacon. Guess who else in my life is a Southern Baptist deacon? My dad, the guy who all my life protected me and stood up for me. But guess who the rest of the good ol boy Southern Baptist deacons protected instead of doing the right thing for me? And guess who’s dad didn’t stop being a Southern Baptist deacon after that happened?
The misogyny that characterizes ALL of our relationships will in fact reduce a woman to tears when we really sit down and think about it. I will probably always feel hurt with my dad for continuing to represent something that I view as vile and hateful and sexist and totally hypocritical, and he will probably never fully understand how I feel about it.
This experience is unfortunately how I know that Warren cannot beat Trump in our current world.
Yes, I will vote for whomever the Democratic candidate is as it is inconceivable to me that Trump should ever win a second term instead of a lengthy prison sentence. However, having said that I fear that we are again showing that we are a nation of misogynists. First we had a highly intelligent, compassionate, and not-ready-for primetime black man beat an highly intelligent, compassionate, and deeply and widely experienced woman in the Democratic primaries. And now we have a highly intelligent, compassionate, and not-ready-for primetime gay man possibly beating a highly intelligent, compassionate, and deeply and widely experienced woman (maybe even 2 of them) in the Democratic primaries. Is it because of the men's blackness or gayness that people are able to cover-up their covert misogyny with otherwise feel-good voting? Why do I have the sinking feeling that this is deja vu all over again. And if I were to be proven wrong in the primaries, is it a stark reality that in the general elections, Americans will be stupid and misogynistic enough to allow Steven Miller, I mean Trump, to be re-elected and to continue their destruction of our Constitution and of democracies everywhere.
2
"But if you abandon your big ideas, she suggested, what have you won if you win?"
You get a madman away from the nuclear codes--that's what you win.
The main goal for Democrats should not be to "win." Instead, it should be to not lose.
2
The complaint that questions about electability are a sexist trope is tired and lame. Gerald Ford pronounced in early 1980 that Ronald Reagan was unelectable. We know how that turned out.
1
As usual, the pundits are ignoring the latest polls(Emerson in particular) in which Sanders is now tied with Biden for first place nationally and Warren has slipped to third. Sanders is also outpacing the pack in campaign donations by a "country mile" and has 4 MILLION donors.
Then again, NYT, you and the MSM don't want to deal with the reality of what is really happening in America.
7
Elizabeth Warren is the scariest candidate for president. Jumping up and down, flailing her arms, a lot of physical energy, an answer for everything except her DNA tests and opportunism
with American Indians.
Totally unvetted in executive positions, and in my opinion temperamentally unsuited for the presidency.
8
@David
How about Secretary of Commerce?
The question of electability is a trap carefully waved by the right wing of the democratic party to avoid the question of taxes and inequalities. The question assumes that we already know the result of the election before it happens. They are telling us: we know a woman, even an intelligent one, will never win because Americans are too dumb to ignore their prejudices.
It is a deeply dark and undemocratic vision coming from people who believe they know and we don't. The right does not trust Biden, who is seen as not so professional on the campaign trail, so another white male billionaire comes forward to tell us that he knows and we don't. No need to think!
This patronizing attitude must be defeated if we want to save democracy. All Warren needs to do to win is to bring more people to vote for her than for her adversaries. Considering the number of people who did not vote in the last election, this is a real possibility. This will be done by convincing Americans that they can still have voice to influence the future of their country, and that they should know better than blindly follow billionaires on their way to oligarchy.
1
So Warren has been "slinging buzzy plans"! "Buzzy"? Not the detailed, carefully sourced, fully financed, and desperately needed plans for change that I've read.
8
And let's consider why she appears to be at a "plateau" - it is because establishment Democrats, rich bankers, and the New York Times itself - have continued to scare voters and basically tell us not to support Warren, that she won't win, she can't win, etc. So I don't consider her to be plateauing - rather, she is remaining strong despite all the attempts, especially by the Times, to bring her down.
3
The problem's not that it isn't Summer anymore. It's that practically every day the media attacks her with the usual coded language: She isn't electable, is she really likable, isn't she too radical, why won't she answer the tax question, isn't the "Pocahantas" thin really bad for her. The problem's that the country is still sexist and is afraid of electing an intelligent, hard-working, complex woman. White men are esp. "concerned" about all this. At a time of planetary crisis, she is the best option since FDR. You go girl.
2
Warren is paying the price for having proposals that might discomfit the Democratic establishment. They pine for the days of 800 superdelegates that could rein in anything beyond Trump is evil. Since the US election system has been seriously harmed by the US Supreme Court's Citizens United decision billionaires are vitally important to getting the money necessary to pay for presidential campaign. Its easy to see the crazy environmental suicide of the laisse faire zealots for Trump's rule of the plutocrats but the Democrats hunger for the safety of Clintonian triangulation.
2
Warren will be the McGovern of the Millennial generation, if they push her onto the ballot. It will be a disaster for Dems.
That said, the problem now is that nobody in the current field looks that great for the General election, despite the poll numbers. Biden is looking less electable as the months and flubs wear on. GOP will do everything they can to smear him in Senate trial, unless Justice Roberts upholds a Dem objection to calling his son on grounds of relevance, which is how a real trial would work.
Patrick might have a chance, but he's very very late to the game and lacks $$ that others have or have raised.
“slinging buzzy plans”
Finally the NYT gets it. Ms Warren has had laudable intentions all along – no one is disputing this.
Her problem is that – in spite of her years in DC as a banking guru – she has utterly failed to recognize political reality.
2020 USA is not 1945 UK. Medicare for all cannot be put in place at the stroke of a pen. The upheaval to 150 million Americans now on company health plans is unimaginable. What of those now employed in HR departments, in insurance companies etc? They’ll be picked up by newly formed government agencies?
We’ll never know, as Ms. Warren’s “buzzy” plan would fail in the Senate, leaving us exactly where we are today. Better to recognize that much progress can be made by working to improve the ACA. And even that’s not a slam dunk; it’s going to require a lot of effort from our lawmakers.
So the lady with the plans is now exposed as the lady without plans that could be implemented. So her momentum stalls.
83
@Mike Edwards
It appears that many are not aware of her plans and are simply replying on short answers to debate questions to draw their conclusions about candidates. Her plans include better enforcement by executive branch agencies of existing laws. No new legislation is required for this. It’s unfortunate that people do not make better efforts to inform themselves.
20
@Mike Edwards: And yet we managed to finance a war and send men to the moon in less than ten years, while creating Medicare and Medicaid? SMH.
19
@Mike Edwards
So Mike did you ever hear of “desperate times call for desperate measures”? Well these are desperate times in case you did not notice. Which means we need bold ideas and a Democratic House, Senate and a President with bold ideas. That would be Warren or Sanders.
We can no longer live under the almost oligarch society that the Trump Administration and the Republicans have brought us. It is robbing us of our Democracy.
22
I support Warren, and I also have concerns about whether she is electable. But not only because she has yet to connect with African American and Latino voters, but because the powers that be are afraid of her, and the knives are starting to come out.
Once Warren became front-runner, and Biden began to falter, wealthy donors started casting about for more dynamic moderate. Enter Deval Patrick and Michael Bloomberg. And the media have not been kind, either bashing her proposals or constantly questioning her electability.
Warren can be elected if everyone who understands the danger Donald Trump poses to this country decides to vote - and maybe even volunteer for - the Democratic nominee, even if that person isn't their first choice.
But to make sure people aren't turned off to the process, it needs to be fair, and the candidates need to avoid attacking each other. One of the things I like about Warren is that she refrains from criticizing other Democrats and retains her good humor when her own ideas are challenged.
She's a happy warrior, and we could use one of those right now.
Warren 2020.
5
@catstaff
I always though electability meant the individual with the most votes(although not always in America) wins the election? What actually does electability mean?
For the record, the last TWO Presidents who, prior to the election and weren't considered electable were Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
2
I keep hearing about getting the moderates. The problem with that is that you don't excite people to come out to the polls by more of the same. We saw it with Jon Ossoff here in Georgia. Moderate, Republican-light isn't going to do it. What is that old expression? "Between the Republican and the Republican, the Republican will always win". Think of our most successful Democratic president, FDR. Many of these ideas are the same.
5
She is clearly the smartest candidate running this cycle. Although I am as progressive as she is I don't think the average voter can see how MFA is actually much better than our current healthcare delivery mechanism.
2
The problem with the coverage of Warren has been relying on issues raised by debate moderators to frame the discussion of the entire campaign. There have been no stories of exactly what the CFPB has done. Are people aware of how it has changed what credit reporting agencies have done? When the agency began operating, credit reporting agencies were often failing to correct reporting errors, which negatively impacted consumers’ credit reports. Since then, there has been significant improvement in this area. This is an issue that affects people at all income levels, except maybe billionaires.
14
We are at the hand-wringing stage of the Democratic primary.
Everybody body wants to know what is unknowable at this moment: Who can beat Trump ?
I'm voting for Elizabeth Warren because of all the choices I think she will be the best President.
64
@William Jefferson
Ha ha ha- you are correct - but only about it being the Hand wringing time!
The thing that strikes me about Liz is that she is genuine; this is who she is. She is in politics for the right reason, to help ordinary Americans who have no voice, and she is right; nibbling around the edges isn't enough. The rich and powerful have had their way for 40 years.
The Democratic Party has been at its best when it has fought for big ideas. From the New Deal, through the Great Society, to Obama care, their big ideas have made peoples' lives better. It's time!
32
@Frank Purdy
The thing that strikes me about Liz is that she's a wealthy person pushing liberal ideals that personally she doesn't embrace. Anyone like Frank who thinks she genuine should look at her Native American ancestry- she's a joke people. And only the lack of substance of the entire liberal movement has allowed her to become a candidate. Looking good for Trump here.
7
@Frank Purdy
She is also, the clearest evidence so far, that someone can be genuine and also a radical left wing lunatic. The two are not mutually exclusive.
It's more than a little ironic that so many of the pathological Trump haters here carp so much about his "dictatorial" tendencies, and then, in the next breath, express support for someone like Warren, who has made it clear that she will invoke dictatorial practices to force her will upon the nation.
Nothing inconsistent there, though. Ideologues are impermeable to reason.
3
@Frank Purdy
"The thing that strikes me about Liz is that she is genuine; this is who she is."
This must be sly parody. A DNA test was needed to show her who she really is, remember?
2
I'm seeing people here declare that they dislike Trump but could never vote for Warren or Sanders.
I have to ask them this question:
If you and your friends would rather see Trump in office than vote for candidates willing to address this nation's deep and long-lasting deterioration in the quality of life for millions of Americans, then are you just fine with Trump's policies and only wish they were headed up by a president who spoke in complete sentences?
41
It occurs that your extremes are meant to cover up the real problem: a lot of us would expect to happily vote for either in the general election, and then sit back with a nice glass and watch us get whupped.
Wall Street Democrats won’t vote for Warren or Sanders anyway. There are two ways to build a coalition, either reaching out to socially liberal but economically conservative Obama to Trump voters (Booker, Biden, Buttigieg, etc) or reaching out to socially anxious working class who tend to be culturally conservative.
If Warren can pull off a right turn pivot on social issues (immigration, etc) while staying on course on her soak the rich / blame free trade / extend Medicare vision she is by far the best placed to beat Trump. I just don’t see a Wall Street Democrat beating Trump.
@Pdxtran At the very least, Warren naysayers should see that her radical notions will hit roadblocks, while Trump's henchmen and sycophants will continue to grow his juggernaut of hideous policies, and enable the most toxic personality ever to infest the office. Please just vote for a Democrat.
1
That Bloomberg will spend millions on top of what other candidates spend on advertising and the fact that combined these campaigns generate huge profits for the NYT and other media companies tells me all I need to know about whom to vote for to save our democracy from big money.
The media will never give fair coverage to any candidate that threatens their paycheck with Campaign Finance Reform, be it Warren, Sanders, Yang, Gabbard, Steyer....
And just the fact that there are so many true progressives not corporatists running for president tells me that despite the lack of fair coverage, Bernie's bold leadership has paved the way for others to come forward and offer their progressive ideas for our future. I thank him for making that possible.
19
I've started to think recently that we've all been overthinking this too much. The outcome of the general will largely be decided in battleground states, and voters in those battleground states seemingly are attracted to populist, white males. They don't care about nuanced policy opinions and they are often unaware of what's going on in the world outside of what they are told on TV. They can be equally be convinced to vote for a wealth tax as they can for tax cuts for the rich, depending on how it's framed and presented. Given the chance, they'll once again vote for the angry, white male, since that's something that they can emotionally get behind. We should thank our lucky stars that the Dems have an angry, white male with the policy positions that our country needs.
Warren has many good plans, and she'd be an excellent president. But she has an elite background (a plus in my book), and she's a woman (again, a plus in my book), but the battleground voters don't view those things as favorably. I hope that changes someday, but let's remember that we live in a country that has Trump as president and which almost half of the country thinks he doesn't deserved to be impeached.
3
Has it occured that this is EXACTLY the kind of sneering at working guys that working guys quite properly get tired of, and that you’re basically arguing “set a white guy to catch a white guy,” despite millions of voters who aren’t, you know, white?
Cripes, and people wonder how trump got elected, and why st. Bernie can’t attract African-Americans.
1
@Brad While I agree that only a small slice of the country will decide the next election for the rest of us, the anger you mention is not an end all. Even Hitler knew that you can't win on that alone. Showmanship is an important part of it. (Think of the Nuremberg rallies.) Right now I think Warren is competing well in showmanship although I don't see her getting into the pagentry side of it owing to her down home messaging.
I don't think Sen. Warren is looking through any kind of "bubble." I noted her clear-eyed economic analysis before she ever ran for any office. She has the right combination of head and heart to be a good president. Forget "tone" and "body language" issues, concentrate on her ideas.
16
It's intriguing to me that Warren's taxation plans often mirror those we saw during FDR's administration. A period widely credited as bringing prosperity to all segments of American society, and something the Republicans have actively been trying to dismantle for years.
And yet, when faced with reimplementing these taxation models, democrats turn to the open arms of...a 37 year old mayor who hangs out with Zuckerberg and Tom Ford?
Warren is the right candidate. It's time for Americans to realize we all need to pay a little more to have a more civilized society. Oh, and I'm a high school teacher. Squarely "middle class."
14
Her prevarications about the cost of her "plans" to the Middle Class did not go unnoticed.
She's just another 1%'er lying to the Middle Class.
I must admit that calling me names to my face, while picking my pocket, is a bold move.
8
The Democratic Party is doing what they did in 2016- splitting just enough to allow an opening for an authoritarian/reactionary candidate.
In an odd way the candidate that is least responsible for this is Elizabeth Warren.
On the Left you have Bernie- inconsolably in bed with his young Progressive supporters- if he ever took a position they didn't like- I would be shocked. He conveys his polices with a certain inflexibility and righteousness that suggests he is more activist than politician.
On the more Democratic Right you have Biden, Buttigieg and the rest- more than happy to nicely eviscerate Warren and Sanders- to gain a few points in the Iowa polls. And Obama and company- with their pleas to moderation- further eroding the credibility of the those who think it is OK to do the right thing- instead of the most expedient. Mr. Obama- if you believe Medicare for All is wrong- just say it- don't treat it as a political gambit and not a moral imperative. The Democratic "Right" attacks it- yet is grotesquely not candid on why it is being proposed in the first place.
Warren to her credit- has not attacked boldly. Her positions, like most of Sanders are correct, fair and compassionate. They are ambitious and hence subject to criticism and REVISION- but they are directionally correct. She is the best of the bunch- brilliant, sincere, compassionate and persuasive.
Does she have a chance?
7
I admire Elizabeth Warren very much.
I agree with her 90% of the time.
My concern is about priorities. Every President has to establish priorities. Warren has a blizzard of proposals on so many different matters. But what is most important? Is she thinking that we are naïve enough to believe that all her plans and proposals can be enacted at once or are equally important? All of American political history says otherwise.
Buttigieg has said that we must lead off with meaningful reform of our political system. That makes sense to me. It puts the horse in front of the cart. Our hopes and dreams for economic justice cannot be achieved in the present Citizens United world. Common sense and pragmatism are not dirty words. We need a leader who is willing to be disciplined enough to establish priorities and stick to them.
1
The sheer number of low-polling candidates on the stage knee-caps Warren's and Bernie's ability to present their policy positions in full and with voter informing discussion. Now we have the newcomers--neither of whom should be allowed onto the stage by virtue of their tardiness.
It seems to me that this might be a deliberate strategy of the DNC. They have demonstrated abundantly that they do not wish for the nominee to be either progressive. What better way to lead the convention into a super-delegate vote count when no candidate emerges as a clear winner from this crowded field.
If this is their strategy, it will be a loser for the DNC, the candidates, and most important: the American people who need to have access to enriched policy discussion so they can make up their minds.
2
@Ed B
If you noticed, with the recurring appearances of the "same old, same old politicians like Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, who have proven they have no chance whatsoever the party still wishes to drag them out onto the stage as if they did.
2
Elizabeth Warren has the charisma and intelligence of Barack Obama. She has a fire in the belly and enthusiasm to withstand a grueling campaign. The country is looking for change and hope once again after almost three years of non-stop verbal abuse from a President who is not only unfit for the job, but is in way over his head. With Trump's election, I was stunned to find how thin the veneer of progress in civil and women's right was in this country when Trump was elected. The underbelly of hatred he has unleashed has shaken me. The country we had in 2016 is not that country anymore.
Given that, IMHO, what I think is in many people's minds is that we have to get back to square one before we can move forward once again. We are going to have to "settle". We have to rebuild what has been lost. The ACA is hanging by a thread - it needs to be shored up with an eye toward universal healthcare. It was a yeoman's task to get the ACA passed when we controlled the Presidency and both Houses of Congress. If Elizabeth Warren is to be the "one" then she has going to have to shift further to the center. We first have to regain power in order to push for progress. This doesn't mean she gives up her principles, it means she becomes realistic with what can be achieved given the current political climate. Give people hope, but be honest about what is realizable. We need to "...accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference".
6
@Diana Elizabeth Warren has the charisma of Barack Obama? Really? Maybe folks in Cambridge and Berkeley think so but the voters in South Carolina and elsewhere appear to have a decidedly different definition of charisma.
2
Warren is shallow and is not able to argue in a one-on-one debate with anybody. Her temporary success is due to her evasiveness. Is it possible to continue to "fight" only in her speeches? Of course not.
4
It will be more than sufficient and hard enough for the next president who is not Trump to restore the dignity of the office, to reclaim trust in the American president and presidency throughout the world and to undo as much as possible the vast sweep of damage done by the malign Trump administration across every aspect of national, federal and international policy.
Sen. Warren and every other Democrat should focus on that clear and present fact and make nothing secondary to it.
The 40 percent of the American people and voters lost in the abyss of the Republican Party's abject surrender to fear, ignorance and hate needs to be educated and e-educated by the next president who is not Trump about what the American presidency is about, how it is supposed to look and sound and govern - govern not rule with malice toward all and charity for none, absolutely none.
All the plans in the world, incapable as they are of being enacted into law even by a Democratic congress, cannot be attempted much less accomplished before trust and decency and traditional, necessary decorum are returned to the White House and until the myriad of bad rules and regulations imposed by this creature in the White House and his creatures is reversed entirely.
In any case, the primaries and caucuses are not going to bring forward a nominee. That decision is going to the convention on a third or fourth ballot - something the political press and pundits have yet to appreciated.
1
Someone needs to remind the Senator that you don't win elections by threatening to take something away from people that they're either pleased or content with. The Republicans tried that with the Affordable Care Act. They lost the House last year largely as a result of that fiasco. So now Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders want to eliminate private health insurance for all Americans. Never mind the cost involved, it's a tone-deaf if not wholly irrational proposition. They might as well try to ban dogs, cats and religious institutions. Joe Biden and a public option are plenty progressive for me.
7
@stu freeman
I suggest you do a little research, the public option is the usual corporate donor approach which, in reality, keeps control of the healthcare system in the hands of the for profit system and as the industry "cherry picks" its "customers" among the youngest and healthiest, it will leave all the rest to the public option which will actually make things worse than it is now.
3
@Deus I don't know where you're doing YOUR research but the public option I'm referring to is a government program that's either Medicare itself or something very much like it. Those who are unable to pay the usual Medicare premiums would become eligible for Medicaid. I see no reason to believe that our private health-care system would be permitted to "cherry pick" its clients any more than it is presently able to do under the Affordable Care Act. Up there in Canada, you good folks aren't accustomed to the range of health care choices we've got down here in the States. That may well be a good thing but the point I'm making is this: Americans typically don't want to give up what they've already got and are largely satisfied with. Universal affordable care is the key factor: people here want what they want, don't wish to have their choices limited by government and change is primarily looked upon as something you used to get back from a dollar.
1
I'm surprised she has gone as far as she has having lied to gain advantage. Is this really what we have to settle for in a candidate? If she is the pick I'll sit it out.
5
Medicare for all is a deal breaker for me. Also, all the rubbish about free college etc.
Where’s the money going to come from? We can hypothesize that if US stops spending $ on wars, we can pay for these programs. Engaging in wars is in USA’s DNA. So, paying for these programs by not spending on wars is not an option. Taxing the ultra rich and rich is another option. Ultra rich will avoid taxes creatively. So, that leaves people who see themselves as upper middle class (who by the way already contributing quite a bit).
Most of us spent years at schools, delaying buying houses, having kids, vacationing etc. We took jobs anywhere we could get (to build a solid resume) even if it meant having long distance relationship with your loved ones. Now, we need to save for kids college, retirement etc. So, paying more tax is not something I can embrace.
While I agree that healthcare is a right especially for a developed country like ours, we need to have a better solution than Medicare for all. May be a two tiered system, where no one goes bankrupt, but those who can afford a better system should be allowed to keep that insurance.
Republicans can get my vote if they embrace climate changes , become less jingoistic and with less talk about God. We all know that’s not going to happen.
If Warren becomes the nominee , I will vote for her, but hope that Trump wins. In my liberal city, my vote won’t count anyway.
2
@Bogey Yogi
You hope that Trump wins? It would seem then that you will then accept "Fascism and the destruction of your democracy"?
1
While watching Ms. Warren during the latest debate, it struck me that college kids could make a nice drinking game out of her speeches. Every time she said "plan" they would have to chug a beer. But then I realized that even for college kids, this would be too much. They'd all be under the table in the first fifteen minutes or so. It's gotten so bad that sometimes I have to mute her.
4
Oh, poor Lizzy. Is she electable or not? I think I’ll go with the “nots” on this one.
First, I think that Lizzy is the most intelligent of the whole crowd currently running for the nomination, but she is far from the “smartest”. Elections are won and lost what the voting public perceives as their benefits that will be gained as a result of a particular person’s election.
Ms. Warren has done a tremendous job of laying out a series of plans for change in America. Lots of those plans are flawed, but even with their flaws will entice a particular segment of the public to vote for her.
Breaking up “big tech” will resonate with a number of voters and will be a turnoff to a larger segment of the voting public.
Medicare for all will again resonate with some voters and be a big turnoff to others.
Lizzy and the rest of the Democrats have proposed nothing about fixing the infrastructure – a task that could employ millions of workers for a very long time.
Agriculture is hurting – a program to restore family farms and make farmers profitable would again be a touchstone for a large number of voters.
Turning “Made in America” from its present meaning of “assembled in America” backing to Made in America would gain thousands of voters.
But Lizzy is too intelligent to foster any of these ideas and as a result she is a sure loser.
2
Lizzy - really? Her name is Elizabeth. Give her the respect she deserves for trying to drag us out of the mire we find ourselves in.
2
@Maureen Kevany
Sorry I WOK you, I was just having fun using a subtle reference to her real world immaturity.
Elizabeth Warren radiates goodness, intelligence, and grit.
How she does in these elections is going to be a test of how much our democracy values these qualities.
10
I admire Warren, but she will need to convince the practical-minded to vote for her. Much is made of the "make-it-or-break-it" power of black women voters, but they are not monolithic in numbers and will either vote Democrat or not vote.
The decisive faction is white male swing voters who don't like the Republican agenda but who, increasingly, see themselves erased from the Democratic party priorities in recent years. Many will voter where their "voice" still seems to matter. Duh.
For the Democrats to win, they need to bring a sizable part of independents into the tent.
This will require two things to happen: 1) Trump's behavior reaches the point where it is no longer tolerable; and 2) Warren and her policies are not contrary to the interests of independents.
These are not necessarily unrelated. Indeed, the lack of traction that impeachment has achieved among the public even in the light of revelations of the impeachment inquiries is due in part to the policies of Ms. Warren and the Democratic Party.
No one but the most ardent believers seriously believes that the rich are going to pay for all of this. It is as silly as the idea that cutting taxes will increase revenues. At least the latter doesn't impact take home pay for those who actually do pay federal income taxes. A lot of Trump can be tolerated.
2
I like Senator Warren in the primaries and I will support any Democratic candidate that wins the primary.
5
Warren was rising when WaPo NYT MSNBC and CNN and other centrist liberal outlets where pushing here hard whole summer. I don't know why they where doing that. Maybe they fought her rise will lead to fall of Bernie Sanders that is unacceptable to those big contortions? And at one point they realized that she is also pretty much unacceptable also, Bernie isn't going down and between two of them and with expected fall of Joe "records player" Biden this may hand out the election to one of the progressive candidates. So now everyone is attacking her and promoting Pete Buttigieg in hope he will be the savior on of Wall Street, Big Corporations and the Billionere class. And as Warren support comes from affluent liberal whites that tunes into those outlets she is losing some of her support to Pete.
1
The only reason Warren even talks about medicare-for-all is because Sanders brought the idea into the mainstream. In fact, most of her policy proposals are just variations on Sanders' and yet this fact is never mentioned, and he never gets the credit he deserves from outlets like the nytimes. The obvious bias towards Warren from the media is completely transparent.
7
@Jack
Maybe that is ok?!
The latest Emerson National Poll has Bernie tied with Biden @27%, Warren @20%. Same poll has only Bern beating Trump.
http://emersonpolling.com/2019/11/21/november-national-poll-support-for-impeachment-declines-biden-and-sanders-lead-democratic-primary/
Bernie beats biases.
3
The logic of electability has siezed an outsize role in this race to the nomination solely because of the corrupt, vile, and criminal nature of the trump "administration".
Were Warren or Sanders promise to nationalize all banks, sieze private property, and place every cough, fever, broken bone, and root canal under federal jurisdiction, he or she would still command enough votes to make it close against trump because no voter in their right mind would believe any of this. Besides, the Congress would never get near it.
The point is that whatever a President Warren would do or try has some foundation in law, science, logic, and coherence; this in complete opposition to trumpworld.
2
It just seems to me that moderates would never have built the Hoover Dam, Golden Gate Bridge, or the interstate highway system if they decide to do this completely piecemeal. You have to have big ideas. Where do you want the country to go? To be excited about some big ideas is the essence of a campaign. You also have to be able to fight for what you can get in the short term but never ever give up the fight for the big picture. I think Warren will be like that. And as far as Mr. Trump goes, let's hope that my party comes to its senses or collapses into a regional small minded party. Yep, not all Republicans are Trump supporters. I need more smarts and sanity than the current president regardless of party.
5
Count me among the skeptical progressives. I believe both in her ideas and her intelligence, and know she’s earnest, but having lived most of my life in the middle and the south, I simply don’t think she has a chance—particularly in the era of Trump. The risk is simply too high, the costs of idealism potentially being 4 more years that will likely doom this nation (and the world) for generations to come.
I just can’t gamble my future on this bet, no matter how wonderful the rewards might look.
87
@Art123: So let's stick with the status quo and let liars and grifters run our governments and the oligarchs pull their strings? Yeah, that sound like a great plan - NOT.
13
@Art123
The next election is more of a gamble if we end up with Trump and the Republicans in charge. Warren is the real deal. She is an FDR Democrat. Which is what we need right now
18
@Art123 Which southern states can a centrist candidate carry, prey tell?
14
Both Warren and the actual unspoken front runner, Sanders, have to overcome the DNC, the barricade of corporate media negative coverage when and if they get it at all. Then there is the big money like Bloomberg's $30 million in recent ad purchases. Meanwhile, media blackout aside, Bernie has shaped the debate and continues to gain support as the candidate with the most integrity and the greatest public support.
4
@Al M
neither Warren nor Sanders are going to be the Democratic nominee. We can't afford 4 more years of Donald Trump, and the party will come to its senses.
Many critical comments about Ms. Warren are expressions of fear: she is too radical, she alienates swing Rust Belt voters, we only want "moderates." But the reality is, climate change is already pushing us toward radical change, whether we like it or not. It's going to take national unity to face more fires, floods, storms and disruptions while switching our entire economy off fossil fuels. There is no moderate approach to this crisis. So I urge people to face their own fears and choose a leader who will address rapid change with courage and honesty, and welcome everyone to join in the effort.
12
@Michael O’Brien
Many of us middle class folks are supportive of Warren's policies; however, we rightly fear the coming middle class tax increases should Warren win. I live in a high tax state and cannot afford to pay for Warren's objectives.
1
@Michael O’Brien
Climate change is a serious problem, but not nearly as serious getting Donald Trump out of the White House ASAP. Warren's nomination equals Trump's reelection... the Democrats can't afford her grandiosity.
I live in a supposedly "low tax" state, but I can't afford to pay for privatized services. I track everything I spend on spreadsheets, and we are being nickel-and-dimed to death. The costs of paying monthly bills to the individual for-profit entities that operate nearly everything in Texas, from healthcare to education, including our roads (all of the new highways are toll roads paid for with federal tax dollars, but administered by four separate private corporations) far exceed what I would pay annually in federal or state taxes for similar services. On top of that, they starve our public schools and prosecute a lot of poor people to feed into the maw of the private prison system. Texas is also content to let people who can't afford privatized healthcare die, while at the same time trying to limit women's rights with their hypocritical, false narrative that equates abortion with murder. This is a toxic state that is willing to literally kill its non-wealthy citizens, but hey, we have "low taxes."
2
I'm a Bernie supporter. I admire him for getting the message out four years ago about Medicare for all and the vast income inequality of our nation. I watched him on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report even before he ran to be the Democratic nominee and liked what he was saying. I remember when Bernie was asked what the greatest threat to our
nation was in a Democratic debate four years ago and he replied Climate Change. That's what I wanted to hear.
It seems to me that Buttigieg is gaining in the polls because Biden is slipping.
It seems Warren might only rise more in the polls if support for Bernie wains or if Bernie drops out. If Bernie drops out, I'll support Warren. But until he does, I'm with Bernie.
14
@Galway Girl I support Sen. Warren but I give Bernie the credit for getting the message out four years ago. (I voted for him in the primary.) I think he has moved the party in his direction. I can't help but wonder though about his age and whether he has the temperament to serve as our president. In addition, I have some reservations about some of his past comments concerning foreign policy, the details of which escape me now.
2
@Galway Girl: I admire Bernie and voted for him in the primaries. He has done a lot to shift the political debate needle back toward the center left. But his age is of great concern. In most people there is a huge physical difference between seventy and eighty-five. Younger folks who don't spend much time around older ones may not perceive this. I know I certainly didn't when I was younger. I lumped "old people" into one big category. But just as we all know there are vast developmental differences between an eight-year-old and a fifteen-year-old, even though there is only a seven-year age difference, large differences exist among older people, too. Bernie's had at least one heart attack that we know of, and has been hospitalized. That's when reasonable people would cut back on their activity, acknowledge their physical limitations, and cede the quest for power to younger folks. He should serve out his senate term and be there to help any new government led by a Democrat, but the job of president is stressful for anyone, regardless of how fit they are to begin with. Even Trump, the healthiest man in the world (according to him) has been showing signs of physical wear and tear, and he's only seventy-two. Every day, my husband wakes up and asks me if Trump's had a heart attack yet. So far, the answer's been no, but he replies that there's still hope!
2
@Galway Girl
Agreed.
3
Importantly, she seems to be the real thing — someone from a decent, working class family who did well and understands the challenges that families face in the Globalization Era.
Can she beat Trump? When it comes down to just one Republican and One Democrat, she will be the one who takes down a man who survived impeachment, but not the scrutiny that comes with it.
What she promises is real change in a society that badly needs it, and everything suggests she is smart and savvy enough to deliver that change.
118
@Pat Choate
First, can she win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, the states needed at a minimum to get 2070 electoral votes and assuming that we don't lose the other states we won in 2016? Furthermore, even if elected, how will she implement her changes with a Republican senate, or even a narrow democratic senate?
5
@dba: You want to know what the future holds. There's an article in today's Times about the mistakes that pollsters make. It only underscores how difficult it really is to predict the future. Let's try living in the now. Right now, we have an excellent candidate in Elizabeth Warren, an intelligent and trustworthy person who wants to serve the American people, and not just a sliver of rich people. Why not try supporting her and doing the work needed to help her succeed, rather than wringing your hands over what some people in different states - whom you have very little control over - will do next year? If Warren and her supporters work hard enough and show that we are all serious about governing the country honestly and properly, that is really all we can do to influence swing voters.
5
@Pat Choate You seem to be betting on her ability to attract new voters with her message of real change. You may be right!
2
It is true that Senator Warren's promises to fight for change sound remarkably similar to proposals already put forward by Senator Sanders. The difference is that Bernie really means it.
6
@Red Allover I would be happy with either Warren or Sanders. In fact, prefer both by a significant margin over the others in the race. But they're going to split what would otherwise be a progressive majority in the primaries and we're going to end up with Biden (or worse) as a result.
At least, this is my biggest fear.
That said, I will vote for any responsible adult in 2020, although I hope it's Sanders or Warren.
25
@Red Allover
Are you suggesting the CFPB was not any sort of change? Part of the agency’s work involves enforcing anti discrimination laws in lending. Do you believe that should not occur? If you agree that the agency does good work, then, if you’re being honest, you should believe that she desires change that would be beneficial for the middle and working classes.
16
@Todd - What we need is a joint candidate--one to be VP, but unlike all previous VPs, this VP, whether Warren or Sanders, would be very active. Is it possible?
This is what I like about Warren: she has ideas that push forward the ideals of America, a name, by the way, that the United States has not earned yet. Why wouldn’t I want the economy to be more fair to people with lower incomes? That’s an ideal of America. Why wouldn’t I want everyone to have a home and an education and equal representation? That’s an ideal of America.
I don’t know who the eventual nominee will be, but I look forward to helping elect the nominee who will push forward the ideals of America.
111
Isn't it ironic that no one castigated Warren during her spectacular rise through the Spring and Summer. But as soon as she gets to the top of the pack, suddenly there's alarm. But she's the same candidate.
According to the media, the alarm started with the Democratic donors who initially floated establishment Dems who lost previous presidential runs: Hillary, Kerry and Gore. That is sad.
Warren did take a hit "doing Sanders' homework for him," on Medicare for all, as an opinion piece put it. I'm glad she's come out with an interim plan which is to gradually strengthen the ACA and Medicare/Medicaid over three years. She would strengthen these programs by limiting the power of Big Pharma and the for profit health insurance corporations. So in this way, she is not compromising on her core message of curtailing the corruption of money in government. She would then have people vote on which system they prefer. And why not? If government run health care doesn't work, then let's not go there.
Of course I'll vote for the the eventual Dem nominee Who ever it is must have every Democratic vote and and the majority of Independents (who outnumber either major party). I just hope I can vote with joy rather than sadness at a lackluster establishment name.
61
@citizen vox
"Isn't it ironic that no one castigated Warren during her spectacular rise through the Spring and Summer."
Umm, no. It's not ironic because it didn't happen. Only in an ideological bubble like SFO could someone not be aware of the many, loud voices that have questioned Warren's electability since her campaign began.
3
I much prefer her modified health plan.
@citizen vox
May I humbly suggest you save your joy for other areas of your life - we need to find someone who can beat Trump, not someone who sends shivers down your spine
Assuming that she gets the Democratic Party nomination, can Elizabeth Warren ' go high enough, while they are going even lower than before' credibly and long to make the successful partisan political difference that Hillary Clinton couldn't?
Can Elizabeth Warren survive and thrive the carefully cleverly concocted caricatures and nicknames that destroyed 16 Republican Party Trump primary opponent candidates in 2016 to even get the Democratic Party nomination in 2020?
Can Elizabeth Warren deflect and diminish the fact that she naturally lacks a Y chromsome?
9
@Blackmamba
>>Can Elizabeth Warren survive and thrive the carefully cleverly concocted caricatures and nicknames that destroyed 16 Republican Party Trump primary opponent candidates in 2016 to even get the Democratic Party nomination in 2020? <<
Those caricatures and nicknames are a major problem that Democrats must learn to overcome. I was deeply saddened when they used them against Kerry and the Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, these characters and epithets are extremely effective when hurled at Democratic candidates.
Republicans have learned to use what I would call street language and the language of bullies that threaten others or even locker room language.
I hope that all the Democrats will find a way to combat these tropes.
2
@Blackmamba As the song goes, "You got to serve somebody." We know who the Repubs are serving. Warren's detailed plans make it clear who she is going to serve -- the people. You know, that's real people like most Americans. Not the guys over at the yacht club.
3
@Blackmamba - What a poetic comment which boils down the discussion to the crux of her threat. Like "sticks & stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me," a child's rhyme's lie to believing babies, the lie in American politics is that a female can win. Especially one who doesn't engage in dirty tricks & earnestly wants to address income inequality as she has done for the last two decades. Psychological warfare & help from KGB Russian backed disinformation will hurt political campaigns.
2
Rather than term it electability, instead acknowledge that her policies are far left of the electorate. It's good that voters are focused on the policies and not the person. Now pick a candidate whose policies represent the wishes of most citizens, regardless of gender, sexual preference, race, age or charisma.
14
@Keith
Correct. When Gerald Ford proclaimed in 1980 that Ronald Reagan was not electable, he was talking about (then, seemingly) extreme political positions. Reagan did not complain; he just ignored Ford (a former President, no less) and proceeded to overwhelm Carter.
Ms. Warren take note.
11
@Keith : What wealthy and powerful people think of as "electable" when they talk among themselves is not necessary what ordinary people outside the Beltway think of as desirable.
4
@Keith It's "far left" of an electorate that has not had the opportunity to hear progressive policies fully explained w/in the debate forum. We don't know whether the electorate might actually come to agree with Warren and Bernie--especially if the DNC quickly reduces the number of candidates on stage, and if the self appointed media experts stop posing questions as accusations or attacks. Who knows what the electorate is capable of?
3
At this point the operative political calculus appears to be that it will be easier to get progressives to vote for a moderate than it will be to get moderates and independents to vote for a progressive. Specifically, the so-called smart money is betting on Biden, a guy so out of touch politically he claims he can work with Republicans. He may finally be rethinking that claim.
Ostensibly, the so-called smart money won’t back Warren because they say she can’t win, but is that the real reason? Is it possible what they fear most are the very same changes the Republicans fear? Is it possible they are in bed with the same level of big money donors, and plan to move into the same private sector jobs when their political lives draw to a close?
I don’t happen to think Elizabeth Warren will have an easy time of it as we move into the primaries, but I think it will have as much to do with the vested interests of the Democratic Party leadership as anything else. Somebody wrote a column recently bemoaning the loss of the moderate wing of the Republican Party as a check on the extreme right. They’re not lost. They’re just moderate Democrats.
59
@Richard Frank I am mainly in agreement, Richard Frank. However, just what are we talking about when we use the tern "moderate Democrat"? Are any of those Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016 and will again in 2020 "moderate Republicans"? We use labels in politics all the time. These are the jockeys silks in the flaccid horse race politics written and talked up incessantly and to no good end.
2
@Richard Frank good point. The Republican Party is much smaller today than it was in 2016 because there is no longer such a thing as a moderate, sensible Republican. The last one was named John McCain. They have radicalized and only appeal to a small segment — billionaires, and the uneducated white evangelicals who live on Facebook and believe Fox News is basically the same thing as Jesus.
1
@Richard Frank I’m a real, live person, not a bigtime donor. I was originally considering Warren, but she’s moved very far left. Her plan seems to be to never let Bernie get to her left, and Bernie also seems to be almost trolling her by going even further left himself (the latest I’ve heard is openness to stopping all deportations, which is insane. Not even murderers?).
I will vote for her if she’s the nominee. But I’m not a dupe or a shill. I sincerely disagree with many of her policy positions, and yes, I wonder if she can beat Trump.
1
Senator Warren is a pragmatist, amply demonstrated in the creation -from scratch- the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau”. Which other candidate has achieved such monumental task? VP Biden has the Hunter/ Burisma issue to overcome. And, while, perhaps not illegal, it boils down to the “establishment” taking advantage of a country in need. Senator Sanders can add his hear attack to the list of things to overcome which renders him unelectable, albeit strong player with his devoted base.
Bottom line: 2020 is not the election year of “Corporate Centrism”, left or right. Bloomberg is reportedly spending $30M on campaign ads. Why? He’s unelectable in so many ways. The only explanation is to wound Senator Warren.
56
@Ted
I really want Elizabeth Warren to be president and I will vote for her in the primaries and the general if we are so lucky to have her in both places,But she is the most liberal of all the candidates.
Unfortunately she will be targeted by many
Democrats because she is so liberal. Americans are only just recently learning that health care for all is possible. Many fear it because the Republicans have labeled it Socialism and they have bought in to the idea that Socialism is just Communism light and as such it is terrifying.
But Warren will also be targeted by the billionaires because they love their money and they don't want to share. Warren has a well thought out plan to tax the rich in order to pay for her innovations in health care. And she knows what she is doing and that makes the billionaires unhappy. She will have to get money from small donors from now on.
So I expect Warren will be the target of many groups, but I am still wishing for her to win over all these powerful forces who oppose her. But I think it is possible that she could win over Trump. And Elizabeth Warren is an extremely determined woman. And I see that she is trying to meet and talk to as many voters as she can. She just might be able to do it. I plan to vote for Pocahontas.
1
@Ted Thank you Ted. You're on the mark.
Each day, Trump and his Republicans act to make our planet less & less inhabitable for our children and grandchildren.
The window of opportunity to effectively mitigate Climate Change is rapidly disappearing.
The remaining 2020 Democratic Candidates will try to cut & paste portions of Governor Jay Inslee’s comprehensive & actionable Climate Change Mitigation Plan.
We must go with the Real Deal.
The winning Democratic Party 2020 Ticket: President Warren (build a green economy) + Vice President Inslee (save a blue planet)! W+IN 2020!
32
Warren has her good points, but it infuriates me when she says we need to build a movement.
Bernie Sanders tried to get her to start that movement in 2016, encouraging her to run. Whether out of fear of the Clinton machine or the hope that Hillary would pick her for VP, she didn't. So Bernie ran. She didn't support him.
In 2020, Bernie runs again. Ah, NOW Warren runs, splitting the progressive movement. She's not a movement person. She's an opportunist.
Bernie 2020
16
@bluewombat
I understand your point and shared that same frustration in 2016. I think she new the process was rigged for Clinton. Now she is much better prepared and polished. She details and clearly explains Bernies positions better than he does. Sanders simply has not progressed any further than 2016. He now has a cap of support that he will not be able to break through in my opinion
9
@Rob Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I'm not sure she's more articulate than he is; also, there are significant differences between them, both substantively and procedurally. Warren is, in her own words, a capitalist to her bones. Capitalism is incinerating our planet. She also cozies up to superdelegates and the Clinton Machine. You may call that smart politics, but need to ask what she's giving away to get them to be her friends. Finally, Bernie has a much longer track record of running for and winning office against long odds: mayor, Congressman, Senator. He's battle-tested; Warren isn't. May the best candidate win.
4
To really fight against the billionaire class, I would trust a life long Socialist before trusting a politician who was a Republican until 1994 and still declares herself a "capitalist to her bones." . . . . Her recent pull back on Medicare for All, now not even to be introduced until the 3rd year(!)of her term, and her declared willingness, once nominated, to accept big money donations via the Democratic National Committee, are signals to this class that she is really nothing to fear. Just the standard Democrat whose baloney about "change" are no threat to them but, in fact, can be safely supported. On the other hand, their fear of the Socialist movement now led by Sanders is quite realistic . . . .
3
Elizabeth is an excellent candidate. What troubles me is that analysis of the last election shows that Trump overcame the popular vote by appealing to less educated voters across the midwest.
My fear is that the less educated one is, the less one is attracted to Ms. Warren. (Trump is hero of the undereducated.)
She can explain her governing solutions to educated voters, but the rest are not paying attention to the details; in fact, they react negatively to someone who claims to have all the answers.
Obama's campaign won with, "Hope and Change"
Trump won with, "Make America Great Again"
For Warren, how about, "Together We Win"
7
@Barnaby Wild My partner and I have 7 degrees between us the highest being Phd. We did not have to lie about our race to obtain any of our degrees or opportunity. And yes we are both from the MidWest now living in Arlington VA. Perhaps its not education at all.
@Barnaby Wild,
Many of the questions of over policies, especially financing Medicare for All, come from very educated people, so your argument that the only reason people oppose Warren is because they are uneducated is demonstrably false.
If you Warren to win, I suggest you move beyond the condescension of assuming anyone who disagrees with is uneducated (or worse).
In America, less educated voters are low income voters and Sander's populism will win back these workers for Democracy by his programs that benefit them.
1
As a Bernie voter in 2016 - and as an economist
Ms. Warren's economic plans are unfeasible in the real world
The wealth tax was eliminated in Sweden (of all places) in 2007. It is too difficult to collect when money can move with a click of a mouse
For the same reason, the wealth tax was eliminated in France in 2016 by President Macron (sole exception , real estate - it can not move with a click of mouse)
Mr. Holland , the socialist predecessor of Mr. Macron ran and won on the plan to tax the rich at 75%. Implementation failed, very simplified , because the rich are too mobile.
The plain fact is that in a global economy countries DO compete on taxes and countries can no longer set their taxes without taking this into consideration.
Macron explained this very clearly to his constituents: It is better to have the rich in one's country, to have a bigger economic pie, than drive them, and their capital and investments away to where it is taxed less.
28
@Woof
“It’s too difficult to collect when money can move at the click of a mouse.”
This is the reason we don’t have economists involved in regulation or tax collection. They have no idea how either currently work. The same comment above could be made about small business owners hiding income and not reporting it. As if the the IRS and other regulatory agencies don’t already work with financial institutions on these matters. Have you ever heard of the Bank Secrecy Act?
16
As an economist, you should probably read the article published in this very paper by two other economists last month that explains why the comparisons to France and Sweden don’t hold water.
35
@Woof
Whether you like Warren or not- the wealth tax is a good idea.
Warren has to put a big ask out there knowing that the irritated would be far less.
Switzerland has a wealth tax .06% at the highest bracket.
Sweden got rid of their wealth tax because they already have a high rate of tax on everyone.
The best proposal however, is from Andrew Yang. He thinks corporations should pay taxes. That makes sense to me!
10
Warren responds to criticisms of her policies by suggesting that only big, radical plans are worthwhile.
I want big, radical plans that make sense, are affordable, and preserve individual choice.
21
@Michael
Usually the best deals go to people acting in large groups, not as individuals. That's because the sellers are large groups, not individuals.
2
Warren was hyped up this summer by the media and the elites. She was never "cool," and I don't see her registering the same wild enthusiasm that Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders or Andrew Yang get from their supporters.
25
@Steven Andrew Yang is a joke. He has a bunch of high tech true believers who think driverless cars and robots will be the only future pumping money into his campaign. Yet he still polls at 2% just about everywhere.
3
@Steven
so her millions of supporters and donors are just an illusion?
1
@Greg a
He is a joke! He thinks his skateboarding and foul-mouthed rants make him presidential.
He is a bored rich man running for his ego.
2
It was widely accepted (aka "lots of people said") that Donald Trump could never win the 2016 election, and we all know how that turned out. Now it is said that Elizabeth Warren is too wonky and not electable. But once the primaries reveal that she is in fact the choice of those Democrats who actually VOTE in primaries it will be more apparent that she is the better candidate when it is Warren v. Trump. (Biden as a blast from the past will definitely not be as strong against Trump as he is today)
Those who supported Trump in 2016 because they thought he was not part of the establishment will see Warren as the candidate who cares most about making life better for them compared with Narcissus Trump who cares more about making life better for Donald Trump. Don't write her off as unelectable; she has actually spelled out what she would do as POTUS while even Trump's MAGA-hat-wearing supporters have seen what he did, or rather didn't do, as POTUS for the past 4 years. Warren is a winner even if she is not the ideal candidate of presidential elections for the past 3 cycles.
42
@RLW Sorry, but her wonky earnestness won’t play in the swing states. She doesn’t have a chance in Hades of bearing Trump in the Electoral College.
I like Elizabeth Warren a lot. I've donated to her candidacy several times. But as the campaign wears on, I have come to fear she would lose to Trump, not because she's too progressive or because she's a woman. It's because she lacks the pile-driver self-confidence that the average person seems to look for in a leader. Obama and Bill Clinton had this. Unfortunately, Trump also does. Warren is brilliant, compassionate, and full of creative policy ideas. She's also not sure of herself, not all the way down.
You can see this in various tells. The forward-stooping position of her head when she's onstage in the 5th photo accompanying the article. The over-reliance on rhetoric about fighting (instead of just getting out and doing the fighting). The photo of a couple of months ago where she and Bernie were on stage at one of the debates clinging to each other for comfort, both with faces that were masks of tension. The quality of strain in her voice as she makes her points in debate (people have called it schoolmarmish and hectoring; it's not that, it's just tension and insistence, arising from lack of self-belief).
People are primates. They want a leader who is dominating and self-confident, whether it's a man or a woman (like Margaret Thatcher, with whom I disagreed on just about everything). . .
I wish it were otherwise. . . .
12
@The Albatross \The strain on Bernie's face is because of her opportunism. She was not a progressive in 2016,she supported Hillary against Bernie. The when he started to succeed she became progressive, started running for president and tried to distinguish herself from Bernie by becoming more progressive than Bernie, who had tread a more just and carefully calibrated path before he had to combat Warren. Now she has used him into the progressive stratosphere to. He would have been the leading candidate if Warren had not divided the vote for him. He was getting arrested marching for civil rights with the blacks back when Warren was a Republican. I believe the stress of dealing with Warren, whom he knows is not authentically a progressive, but can't say out-loud of decency's sake, is why Bernie worked so hard he had the heart attack. Warren is an expert opportunist--also at Harvard,painting herself as an American Native. An opportunist and a fraud.
8
@The Albatross
You say that she’s not sure of herself and some others here insist that she’s too sure of herself. People will find superficial reasons not to support a candidate, regardless of whether they they have the ability to psychoanalyze her.
3
@fragilewing
Bravo.
Felt that mike drop from here.
1
In very blue Washington State, residents just voted to eliminate most taxes on car registration tabs. It's unlikely those same voters will be happy with legislation to eliminate fracking when it results in higher gas prices.
Everyone loves a bedtime story where only the bad guys lose in the end. But big changes have big consequences -- for everyone. As long as Warren pretends otherwise, I won't vote for her.
13
Obama is right. Most Americans can’t risk fixing climate change, healthcare, guns, education, and the economy to go after pie in the sky “big structural change”. People of color and immigrants don’t have the luxury of risking another 4 years of Trump for a pipe dream.
I know moderates and anti-Trump Republicans in swing states who say she’s too left for them to vote for. But we also can’t inspire voters with promises to go back to what we had before either. That’s why Biden isn’t doing well.
But I think we can do both — excite voters with hope for the future and get it done — by appealing to a broad constituency. So far the only candidate I see doing that is Pete Buttigieg (and sometimes Booker and Harris). He needs to do better w POCs but the most recent Iowa poll has him doing better with non-white voters than the other candidates which is promising. He needs to keep reaching out.
Bottom line is we must be Trump and I honestly think Warren is isolating the voters we need to win.
6
@Michelle
If you think Buttigieg is more electable than Warren in a general election, you are indulging in fantasy. Neither one is electable.
1
@Michelle
Being gay and a "know-it-all" is not a winning combination in America (and most places, I imagine). Why deny all polls since 2016? Bernie is the one.
1
Yeah, the hard part is convincing a country consumed with Trumpism that somehow we can’t afford to take care of our citizens.
13
Her backtrack on Medicare for all will probably be her undoing. She's too scary for the billionares to not try to take her down, but those who were on the fence about her as an alternative to Bernie Sanders who could actually win won't consider her now. Her plan to divide Medicare for All into two bills, with the actual Medicare for All bill saved for 3 years later, won't work because the party that wins the presidency almost always loses the midterms. Putting medicare for all on the back burner is the same thing as killing it.
17
@Kenneth
The problem is also that the wealth tax sounds good, but isn't. What should happen instead is higher taxes for the billionaires on earnings. Wealth taxes are confiscatory in the current environment of low global earnings. Only about 2 1/2 percent can be made with capital safely,and one must pay the firm investing it 1 % too. Thus Elizabeth acts like it is a small tax, but as a tax on capital it leaves the billionaires with only 1/2 a percent earnings, thus the reaction of many of them will be to fleet country with their capital. That is what happened when France put in the wealth tax. A lot of them left and took their capital to places like Switzerland and Monaco. Further, as Americans we should be fair. Wealth tax is confiscatory and doesn't seem like a fair tax, while it is quite fair to tax earnings and at a substantially higher rate than is now being done. Warren acts like all the problems can be solved by simply robbing the rich, but that is a childish fantasy. The rich can leave with their money. We would be smarter to have them investing it in the USA by taxing them fairly.
2
@fragilewing
I agree. But let's bring it to the upper 1/4 or 1/3 (or even 1/2) of income earners, i.e. truly progressive. All these millionaires grabbing pitchforks against billionaires is getting ridiculous! Why just hurt the 0.1% when we could crucify the 0.01%? The hypocrisy of the liberal elite is not lost on the working class.
1
With all due respect to Warren, the only guaranteed “good jobs and minimum wage” will be firemen jobs. America is burning, too many people have guns and many will be displaced and homeless. All the just causes will have to wait. Climate State of Emergency measures should take precedent and massive resources deployed.
Voters have to be reminded of how Republicans behaved when floods and hurricanes devastated this country. Show me how your post disaster preparedness and implementation plan and you’ll get my vote.
1
@Zuzka,
You are living paycheck, one job loss or medical diagnoses away from ruin and instead of receiving help you are told that you are going to have to accept being stretched even thinner by rising costs or have to accept an even lower standard of living.
This is why climate change is a losing issue among most people who are not upper-middle class (or above).
I want a vibrant economy and stock market and it seems that Trump is very good at that.
7
@M
But are you willing to pay for it with the end of the habitability of the planet? Yes,it should be recognised that a good economy and stock market are good fo all (and Warren doesn't do that, she would wreck the economy) but that without being tempered with some socialist policies (Social Security, Medicare for All, Tuition free public education) pure capitalism degenerates to total greed (the current Republican Party) and causes the rise of an oligarchy and Totalianarianism (Trump.) Before Warren, Bernie was more moderate, he only wanted to offer what most of the european countries offer (Medicare for All, and tuition free public education) and that is both reasonable and doable by putting a small tax on speculative trading, and raising the taxes on-- earnings---for the multimillionaires and billionaires .
1
@M I think that a vibrant economy and stock market are in spite of Trump. His instincts and policies just haven't negatively impacted them yet--as they have the agricultural, and lower income sectors of our country.
3
@M
Yeah, who cares about income inequality (who is going to buy all those widgets that company you invest in produces?); crumbling infrastructure, healthcare that is not affordable and increasingly inaccessible? Who cares about the epidemic of gun violence and drug fatalities? Who cares about the scientific proof that climate change will destroy the world for your children and grandchildren? Etcetera. As long as you are making money in the stock market, nothing else matters.
2
Elizabeth Warren lives in the bubble of Boston and New York liberalism to her own detriment. She is coddled by a mainstream press that tends to dismiss legitimate criticism of her candidacy. To fair-minded observers, however, neither her life story nor and policies seem to add up:
For example, she presented herself as a victim of gender discrimination when she was a special education teacher. Turns out there is evidence that would lead fair minded people to a different conclusion -- that she concocted the story to make herself appear as a victim.
Her defenders argue that since the practice of pregnancy lay-off was commonplace, it makes no difference if Warren's story fails to add up. But to people who care about the truth, the holes in her story matter. It is tantamount to falsely accusing a school prinicpal and district of gender discrimination. This is an inflammatory and manipulative tactic at best.
Her blizzard of policy papers are of questionable value for the presidency. The president need not be the smartest person in the room. We already have a know-it-all president and look at the results! The presidency requires a person with the confidence to identify and hire smart people -- and to trust their expertise.
Warren has lost ground because she failed to break out of the northeast liberal bubble.
20
@roger I laugh when people talk about the bubble of Boston liberalism. The fact is that Warren has been elected twice as Senator and, in order to do so, she needs to appeal to people who live far beyond Brattle Street in Cambridge. As for her policy papers, I suppose it’s better to just wing it as the current occupant has?
2
@Roger, yes exactly so. Trump is the bombastic blowhard high school classmate full of braggadocio whom everybody knows is really a moron. On the other hand, Warren is the really smart classmate who is at the top of the class and very fond of letting you know just how smart she is. Warren knows better than everyone else - just ask her. Both types are pains in the hind end. Besides, Warren’s plans were cultivated in the hothouse of academia and bear little connection to reality. No thank you. Democrats, please give me someone reasonable to vote for who wants to unify the whole country and not just pander to the woke and victim crowd.
It has been said that we spend way too much time on the run up to the primaries and the general election and I agree. I believe we voters have been presented with all the information we need to make an informed decision. There is campaigning and then there is doing the job. Enough campaigning! Elizabeth Warren has demonstrated consistently and relentlessly that she will step into the presidency with the good of the American people deeply embedded in her plans and actions. We can trust her. Full stop. We can trust her to do the very best job she can for us every single day. I believe we can say that about Bernie Sanders a few others as well.
27
“If she isn’t willing to moderate some of her views, I don’t think she can beat Trump,” said Jim Butler, 73, a retired teacher from Dubuque wearing a “Nevertheless, She Persisted” shirt. “She scares some people. Doesn’t scare me, I’m as progressive as she is. But I’m not sure she can change people’s views as fast as she needs to change them.”
I admit to having similar qualms at times, but they quickly fade when I see another example of what the Republicans and their leader are up to. There is no evidence so far that majority of people, including some of their supporters, will have an unlimited tolerance for how they conduct themselves.
No one seeking the highest office should expect to be spared hard questions and some criticism. Warren so far has not complained or used easy defenses, like gender. That should count. She has listened to others and is willing to explain her positions as often as she is asked to. She talks about government existing to serve the people, it should and is not in any respect doing that now.
If she is the nominee, the contrast between her and Donald Trump could not be more stark. It will be up to her to prove her fitness to serve and it will be up to the rest of us to see why she should.
23
She needs to convince people that she’s a leader, with an “L”. A leader of Congress, a leader of the government bureaucracy, and a world leader of the fight for personal liberty. Plans are tools of leadership, but not ends in themselves, and the public is skeptical about the efficiency of government programs in general - Trump won on that skepticism (and still does). She needs to illustrate how she’s going to be tough and on target when the going gets rough, because we all know it’s coming, and maybe we can then see the boss behind the planner.
First, she’s smart. Second, she’s smart. Third. I don’t view her plans as promises which must be kept in four years. I see them as a reset. I see them as a direction America can go — in my opinion, must go — if we are to remain a country broadly based on equality, equal opportunity and the encouragement of bold and vigorous thought based on facts and the future. The pursuit of happiness, if you will, the American dream. She raises my own sense of possibilities. That, to me, is leadership.
707
@Alan if you understand that her campaign isn’t a guarantee but about putting the country in the direction it must go, then why would you settle for her diet progressive plan when you should fight for the real thing? Her Medicare for all plan is Obamacare 2.0, her plans for a green military instead of a green new deal are preposterous. You seem to understand that there really isn’t negotiating with the current system, but she still thinks she can be some sly negotiator. There’s still plenty of room to join the movement of Not Me Us and actually fight. Also polls are tricky but every poll out there shows Bernie defeats Trump in the general with Warren failing.
5
@RSK
"Every poll out there" shows nothing of the kind. The RCP nationwide averages show Biden up by 9.6, Sanders up by 7.9 and Warren by 6.8.
11
@RSK
"Every poll out there" shows nothing of the kind. The RCP nationwide averages show Biden up by 9.6, Sanders up by 7.9 and Warren by 6.8.
1
It has been said that the billionaires are afraid of Elizabeth Warren, but not of Bernie Sanders, because they think she could win the presidency, while they don't see him even winning the nomination. An extension of that fear would be the fear that she could and would do exactly what she promises. While many of her plans require Congressional action, she can appoint strong enforcers to Executive Branch agencies. One concern: Too often, her answers to questions are evasive or she doesn't answer the question at all. That plays into Republicans' efforts to characterize her as dishonest and untrustworthy.
10
Elizabeth Warren's mind is amazingly clear. She rethinks things. She is also honest, which is something that this country badly needs after what Republican representatives have subjected Americans to in recent days.
Fiona Hill's testimony was powerful because Fiona Hill stated, simply and clearly, that one of the dominant Republican stories being told currently about Ukraine is a story that originated in Russia and was promoted Russians to undercut Americans. And that she wanted nothing to do with it.
Elizabeth Warren and her campaign might benefit from looking at how Fiona Hill managed to be forthright and clear, admit to having been wrong (about Sondland) and still project phenomenal gravitas.
Warren has clarity of mind, the smarts, the compassion, the political experience, and the spine. She might benefit from a dose of Fiona Hill's gravitas.
82
Warren obviously scares the monied democratic elite as evidenced by Bloomberg’s entry into the race.
This is a good thing. It means she has tapped into something.
As for the electability, please let’s stop with that tired trope. Hillary won the popular vote. What we need is turnout, and huge turnout at that, and Warren will have no trouble winning.
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@Myasara
If she takes the nomination from Bernie, then tries to pivot away from HIS signature issue in the General like everyone says she should you can say goodbye to that 'huge turnout'. You will have Bernie or Bust people voting for Mickey Mouse as protest. So unless she wants to be the Number 2 on a ticket with Bernie don't see how she ever gets in the Oval Office.
3
When the neoliberal Obama became the Democratic presidential candidate, my heart sank as I knew we were in for more oligarchy as he 'reached across the aisle' to his Republican friends. I pray that Bernie Sanders is our next president as I fear that Ms. Warren, a former Republican, is a closet neoliberal also.
4
@Eugene Debs That's the first time I've seen "reaching across the aisle" portrayed as a bad thing. For me, it's one of the top qualities in a candidate that I look for. If he or she can't do that, we're sinking even deeper into that "us vs. them" swamp.
4
@GiftofGalway : "Reaching across the aisle" is a good thing only if the other party is arguing in good faith.
Yet ever since the Gingrich era, it is clear that the Republican leadership on both the federal and state levels has turned into the party of bullies and sees conciliatory gestures as weakness.
I saw the Republican parties in two different states become increasingly reactionary and push their moderates to the sidelines. "We used to be able to work things out with them," one statewide official told me at a party event,"but now they're out for blood."
Clinton gave the Republicans NAFTA and welfare reform, as they wanted, and they still impeached him.
Obama tried to appease the Republicans by offering up a variation on the Heritage Foundation's insurance scheme, and they refused to vote for it.
Under such circumstances, "reaching across the aisle" is like giving the bully your lunch money in the hope that he doesn't come back and demand your phone and your new jacket.
As most of us learned in our youth, the only way to defeat a bully is to be just as strong as he is, maybe violent, maybe not, but certainly by refusing to be intimidated and recruiting allies to stand up for you.
2
Obama’s “Republican friends.” Please tell me you are kidding.
Warren's surge may have weakened, but that's due to more media hype about anonymous undecideds and moderates, as well as Wall Street/billionaire funded media/tech corporations (all of them! Even NPR!) whose "moderators" constantly invoke Warren's problems of being "too far left." This is heard by everyone just like Hillary's various problems--emails, Benghazi, foundation, even though these are all fake news. There is no proof that anyone is running away from Warren because of her campaign goals. Are we really going to continue to put blind faith in polls and let them determine who wins before votes have been cast? Only Biden is getting any similar scrutiny, and the media seem to be colluding to move him off the tickets, the same way with specious statements and allusions to "concerns." The professionals pretending to report the news need to stop editorializing every time they draw a breath, or include a final phrase, "but that's just MY opinion."
39
Steve, I spent an evening with eight thoughtful, educated very politically engaged women the other night in the ultra liberal Pacific Northwest and we all lamented our flagging support for Warren for the very reasons you accuse the media of misrepresenting.
The main concern expressed was the ever present misogyny in this country and a lack of enthusiasm for Medicare for All.
There was also frustration that Climate Change was not a more prevalent issue for Warren, or for most of the front runners for that matter.
4
@Steve C
your opinion, my opinion, and millions of Americans that are rallying for her!
We want change! We want Warren!
2
@Carol Pretty sure Warren (was the only candidate that) immediately adopted Gov. Inslee's Climate platform the moment he dropped out of the race.
It's not a bad thing to step back and question whether you have appropriately-placed enthusiasm for a candidate given all the new information. I've done this in recent weeks and after some reflection found myself back in Warren's camp.
1
Warren can't acquire 'critical mass' as long as Bernie stays in.
If Bernie dropped out, she would immediately become the front runner.
But Bernie isn't dropping out, and I think he will stay in for a long time.
This is also what keeps Biden's chances alive.
Or am I missing something here?
33
@Kenneth Johnson Yes, you're missing something. As long as Warren stays in, Benie can't acquire critical mass. If she drops out, he becomes the frontrunner.
Bernie had the courage to challenge the Clinton Machine in 2016; Warren didn't. That's why Bernie deserves our support: he's fearless, she isn't.
5
@Kenneth Johnson Once Bernie loses Iowa and NH what’s left?
@Kenneth Johnson No, you're not, and while I realize this is a different election, Bernie's refusal to drop out in 2016 resulted in a split Democrat vote and a narcissistic maniac in the White House.
2
As Sen. Warren would say, "Here's the thing". Her stated policies and plans are too extreme and to far to the left. Medicare for all whether you like it or not? Sorry, many people like their insurance. I agree that there should be an option to sign-up for an improved Obamacare as an option, but only as an option. For the two million people in the insurance industry who would lose their jobs under your plan, I think you already lost their votes. Simply put, the country cannot afford your plan. Pay for it by soaking the rich? NY and NJ already soak their residents with taxes. The richer people have figured out how to deal with this - they move to TX, FL, or wherever. Hopefully you will not win the Dem nomination as I can never vote for you and your "I've got a plan for everything".
18
The country could not afford not to accept her plan. Either we keep this useless industry that makes our healthcare unaffordable for millions, or we have affordable healthcare and with saved money retrain people for the future jobs.
31
@yulia Figure this,: 7 to 8 trillion dollars have to come from somewhere over the next 10 years for her "Medicare for All" to get off the ground. I am a Medicare recipient who has into our Social Security system for over 50 years, but she and you want to "Give" this gem to folks who haven't contributed a single dime.
It wont work.
6
The reason many people can like their insurance with their awesome benefits is because they work for big business, big government or big labor - emphasis on big - if you work as an independent or small or mid-sized business your screwed. Economies of scale increase benefits and reduce cost - sounds like a good argument for Medicare for all.
30
I believe, in the end, the nomination is going to come down to a choice between Mayor Pete and Senator Warren. Will voters choose Warren’s “big structural change “ or Buttigieg’s moderate, but progressive, vision? I’m betting it’s the latter.
Peteforamerica.com
20
@Murray Corren Mayor Pete would make a good VP running mate for Warren.
1
Elisabeth Warren is the best of the Democratic Party primary candidates, bar none.
Moreover, the electability argument is like the Russia-GOP criminal trope applied to Hillary Clinton. Don't buy into the punditry of who is electable; it is attempt take you down the proverbial rabbit hole.
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I wish Warren would stick to generalities like the other candidates. It is better to keep your powder dry until you are in a position to shoot.
Just promise a big beautiful Health Care.
5
@Paul Sunlight is a good way to keep your powder dry. Warren has said what she would do. Bravo! Except for Sanders no one else was willing to spell out where we should go. Warren will lead. The others sniff the air and then timidly try to present what might be acceptable. If we want to get the government we need we must elect a leader with guts to get the job done, like a Lyndon Johnson or FDR. The reason Obamacare is an issue now, a decade later, is because Obama and Biden didn't twist Democrat and Republican arms the way Johnson did to get Medicare passed. We need bold leadership, not sissies afraid to stand up to those who say it can't be done.
10
Who would have thought Warren could overcome Trump's vicious, misogynist, lying attacks and rise to the top.
For sheer IQ, hard work, decency, imagination, and grit she's the pick of this litter - and a reminder of what a real Democrat looks like.
Warren has already changed America's thinking by explaining that no matter how successful you are, you got there with the help of an entire society - who also deserve a decent standard of living.
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@Nancy
Well said!
8
I'll be delightfully surprised if a democrat candidate can unite this country away from the tightfisted grip of the Trump/FOX/right-wing-republican infection currently sickening America. I've given this a lot of thought. I believe the only person who can wrestle the entrenched conservative voters away from the stream of lies and illusion will be a very courageous, charismatic, and down to earth. . . . .Republican. It won't be a democrat. Like it or not, if things don't change radically for the democrats in the next couple of months, they will lose the middle. They are tearing each other to pieces. We don't need that.They will never gain the right, and I doubt they want to do so. No, it's going to take a republican who has the courage to look around and see his or her party for what it has become - more obsessed with profit and with its own success over that of this nation. It's going to take a very brave person to pull that party back into the interests of America. They will have to come from somewhere that Trump is not doing well in the Republican polls. A thick skin, a sense of humor (remember people who had one?), a sense of balance, and a good ear to listen to all sides will be needed. I wish it were a democrat, but I don't see that happening. No, my hope is in a moderate republican who can say enough is enough to this ugly slow coup. Someone who shows values and a willingness to listen to all sides. I don't know who they are but it's time for them to step forward.
11
@Michael Kennedy
I embrace your idealistic vision. Just think, if a heroic Republican candidate ran as an Independent (say, Romney or Bloomberg), the Democrat would win.
All we really need to dispose of Trump is a moral, business-friendly Republican to take 5% of the vote.
3
@Barnaby Wild Agreed! Then, perhaps, the thinking will shift away from the protect Trump camp to the protect America point of view. Someone has to make that move.
1
There are no Republicans who are not obsessed with profit and creating wealth for themselves. That is the definition of Republican. the kind of person you are describing is. a Democrat. Are you saying just change the label?
1
No one will read all of her (now) 59 "plans". Except perhaps opposition researchers. They will find all they will need to defeat her in her 15,000 word "Fair and Welcoming Immigration System" plan. Enough to convince undecided low information voters in swing states, who decide US elections, she will "turn America into Venezuela". This will be graphically portrayed in ads. A million more progressive votes on the coasts will not win her the Electoral College.
Her border plan decriminalizes crossing the border. As only a civil offense, anyone caught crossing it anywhere will be admitted, given a (distant) court date and a free lawyer. It also includes amnesty and a path to citizenship for all who legally or illegally settle here, past. present or future. It would never pass Congress, so why does she put it out there? All the Democrats oppose Trump's anti-immigration policies, but upending the whole system as she describes will not happen. As the Democratic nominee, Warren would allow the Republicans to make this an election about her, not about Trump.
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@Winston Smith Agreed... People want a return to decency, to the rule of law, a leader who inspires confidence, a moderate, who values truthfulness, protecting the environment, who has as a priority bringing the nation together, who wants our foreign policy to reflect American values.
Wounded by the trauma of the last three years, the attacks and hollowing out of the institutions of government, attacks on our environment and endangered species, foul personal attacks on opponents, alienation of our allies, abandoning the Kurds, the 'roads leading to Russia' foreign policy, 70,000 separated/interned immigrant children, daily lies..The nation needs to recuperate and rebuild what was damaged, not to leap in a something perceived as revolutionary, which will be labeled 'socialist' a la Venezuela. Recuperation might be a quieter time than the daily barage of alarming news and tweets we face today.
A moderate Joe Biden with his life time of experience and accomplishments could win. If not Biden, then Klobechar, Buttigieg, Bloomberg, Michael Bennet, Steyer, or another moderate with the solid support of all democrats could do better than Warren who seems like be a polarizing lightening rod.
Can democrats wake up and be realists? Bernie Bro's helped elect Trump by sitting out. Americans like the premise of a market economy and dream of being rich. Demonizing "the rich" is not going to go over well. Relaxed upbeat optimistic vs angry has a better chance of winning.
4
@Winston Smith: Again, her plan is a starting point for negotiations, and in comparison to what her opponents propose, far more realistic. There are people in this country who actually want to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. That, to me, is radical, unrealistic, and impractical. Millions of Americans live in border states and cross those borders every day for all kinds of purposes, most of them having to do with trade, tourism, or education. Building a wall and making it harder to conduct everyday business is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard of. Not to mention unnecessarily expensive and cumbersome, because you need a whole new bureaucracy to patrol and administer a wall. Even Israel and young Palestinians are starting to realize that walls are not a solution to anything. Warren's plan acknowledges the reality of human behavior, and takes a pro-active approach to reconciling needs. Finally, the last major country that tried building a big wall around itself was the Soviet Union. It wound up keeping its citizens prisoner inside the wall. I'll take Warren's practicable plan any day over the right-wing's ding-dong whims.
2
@Winston Smith I agree - Americans want secure borders. I never understood why almost all the Democratic candidates raced to be the most welcoming to illegals. That's not what voters want; they want a border that's respected, and illegals to be called illegals. And is that really so bad? What a sin it would be for Dems to lose in 2020 because of this open-border position...
4
If this were any other election, Warren would be a no brainer for me. She's someone I can stand behind. What makes this election more complicated is that we're choosing someone to run against Trump. I'll admit I am afraid of sexism and how that will play into the election. I like Sanders too, and sometimes I wonder if more people would vote for him simply because he's a man. But then I also remember how if people took the cautious road out of fear during the civil rights movement, the movement would have fizzled and racism would be worse than it currently is. We do have to fight for what we want. When it comes down to it, I like Warren as a candidate for who she is and what she stands for; and that has nothing to do with gender. I need to stick to my values--going for the best candidate--and I hope the rest of us who believe in making positive, healing changes to our country will do the same.
34
People DID take the cautious road during the Civil Rights battle. Johnson, in Congress, got middling civil rights laws passed in the late 50’s. Kind of kicked the fan down the road. When he finally got the real things passed in the mid-60’s, the South left the Democratic Party, for good. We all need to stop pretending that these calculations/guesses are fear. Whoever gets the moderates gets the future.
1
Elizabeth Warren is a senator. How can she possibly think she can get any of her big ideas through congress? Executive orders like Trump uses to get his way? In his first term President Obama had a Democratic congress and he couldn't get passed a public option as part of the Affordable Care Act. Ms. Warren what happens if Mitch McConnell is still in charge of the Senate? How do you explain failures to your supporters IF you get elected? I fought the tough fight and gee I couldn't get it done. Sorry. Call me a cynic. Although she is an admirable woman she has the wrong ideas at the wrong time and I question her electability. I am anxious because there is not one candidate I can truly get behind and I don't think I am alone.
18
She does know. That’s why her health plan has two stages: a “try before you buy” chunk that will be easier to pass. Secondly, every Presidential candidate knows this, or should. Thirdly, don’t ask, don’t get. Republicans have won by asking for the moon every single time.
34
Considering Obama experience, Den should not run for any office, or have any plans. Yes, if you not fight, you'll never get it.
1
I admire her honesty in what she believes. Warren puts it right out there whether you agree with her or not. And because of that she cannot win.
All the other candidates essentially have the save policy positions but are willing to hide behind something more palatable to the voters. It's a weakness that will be exploited by Trump next year no matter who the nominee is.
9
Voters attending campaign speeches and voting at primaries are a different crowd from those who vote in general elections. (Disclosure I am one)
Did it feel preordained with Barack Obama in November 2007? I felt it.
He ran on a deeper issue : The time had come for the US, a slave holding Nation for 1/2 of its history to have a black President.
Ms Warren’s plan to soak the rich has not the same moral force. The US is a country that likes self made rich. The US is better off with the likes of Elon Musk, Then there is her history (until 46, she was a Republican) and nagging doubts the validity of her plans. Her assumptions how to fund Universal Healthcare are wildly optimistic.
Unlike Mr. Sanders, who very clearly stated that Universal Health care will require tax increases on the middle class, she tends to bends the truth
This voter, who voted for Sanders in the NYS primary in 2016, feels that the Democratic Party needs a more middle of the road candidate.
A candidate who runs on gradual, long term reforms towards a more equal society . To Mr. Sanders my thanks for setting such a movement in motion
13
@Lars You betray your bias when you call her plan one to "soak the rich." It is one to get the rich to pay their fair share, as she both says and proves.
People in the middle of the road (or the mugwumps who sat on the middle of the fence) are people who don't take positions, and therefore fail.
1
@beaujames
Progressives have to stop with this "fair share" nonsense. IRS figures from 2016 show that the top 1% pay more federal income tax than the bottom 90% combined. That's what isn't fair.
I’m an Elizabeth superfan, but I’m also deeply anxious about her viability among my “neighbors”, by which I mean people in my demographic in other parts of the country.
Are there enough women, college educated people, progressives, charter school opponents, good government groupies, and “Patriotic millionaires” to get her over the finish line? Possibly but who knows. That said, I don’t see any candidate with a winning coalition at the moment.
So we’re left with “vote blue no matter who”. Which, at the moment, might be the winning coalition.
191
@Cousy
Why do you worry about her electability?
If this year, when #meToo and POTUS's misogyny is so prominent, we do not elect a woman, then when?
She is as smart as Hilary but does not have the supercilious attitude, "I am entitled" aura and she is certainly not pally with Wall Street.
Yet, when the time comes, I think she will compromise in favor of the good and not hold off for the best.
Look at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that she created but was not allowed to head because Obama, the great bipartisan, did not appoint her to that spot to appease the Republicans.
That turned out to be better for her for she could stand and get elected for the Senate.
I am hoping that she will not only win the nomination but will also select a smart black woman like Stacy Abrams for her running mate.
That will bring out all the women, blacks and other minorities, LGBTQ, and progressives of all stripes on election day and she will not have to pander to the Trump base to win.
42
@Cousy
She will also appeal to millennials.
17
@Jean
I hope so, though I think Bernie polls well with younger voters.
4
Americans are not ready for this. i.e. Devin Nunes.
Not that long ago, who would have thought an African-American named Barack Hussein Obama would become president? Warren CAN win.
221
@Dawn
I would say probably 7 out of 10 people who saw Obama give the Speech at the Democratic Convention 4 years before he ran were pretty sure he was going to become President. Maybe some thought he would follow Clinton, others clearly considered him the Savior of the Democratic Party as of that very day. So that's who. All of THOSE people. Warren has no comparable moment so no reason to believe she can win.
14
@Dawn , sorry, but a reading of the polls from the swing states showing how poorly Warren is doing is the reality. And she has not managed to win much attention at all among African Americans. And to win a Democrat must carry a majority of the African American vote and the electoral votes of the swing states. The Democratic party must be a big umbrella.
4
@Dawn Mayor Pete can also win.
2
“They smirk at some well-placed trolling — a “Billionaire Tears” coffee mug quickly became a campaign best seller — but worry about the blowback that some of her soak-the-rich platform has inspired”
“In recent weeks, two prospective rivals, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, appeared so unimpressed with the strength of the Democratic candidates as Ms. Warren climbed that a historically large primary field has begun growing again. “
Gov “Bain Capital” Patrick and billionaire Bloomberg were not impressed , but sent by their fellow billionaire boosters to take on the growing power of Warren and Bernies message to make the billionaires pay their fair share instead of extracting all our countries wealth. Wealth inequality is at an all time high. The billionaires have taken everything but the crumbs and want to keep it that way.
124
@steve
Yes. This article is written as if Patrick and Bloomberg
have evolved as candidates from some kind of grass roots movement instead of as a hedge by the relative few against the mounting popularity of candidates who are too committed to the best interests of the majority. And the "electability" trope is a red herring largely promoted by those who want to preserve the status quo. Only the servants of the powerful are electable, so why vote for anyone else?
34
I do not think either Patrick or Bloomberg are wanted.
6
Flawed, Far from perfect. Overly ambitious regarding policy. A little geeky. Still has some hard lessons to learn. Has made some big mistakes already. Probably will make more.
So, you got a better candidate? One who can get nominated, then win the election?
Who is it?
38
@Just Ben Bernie Sanders with Warren as VP. Unstoppable.
2
Assuming that billionaires won't take this lying down, I guess her first act as President Warren will be to instruct the Dept. of Agriculture to fetch the trees where all this free stuff will grow.
11
So very strange how some voters have such an anathema to receiving benefits from a government that exists to providing them benefits while simultaneously doing nothing to complain about the vested interests that take the majority of the government’s benefits.
4
Wouldn't it improvement of IRS ability to go after rich better? Or maybe, you think each American have this magic tree in their backyard to pay for evergrowing premiums, deductions, education fees and childcare fees.
1
@yulia
The IRS collects about $9 for every $1 it spends, so the Right keeps cutting their budget. Workers get taxed automatically. The IRS is used to go after the rich.
The Right wants to shrink Our Republic small enough that they "call drown it in a bathtub."
That is not patriotism.
1
The only person that the Dems can put up against Trump is Bloomberg if he decides to run. All he needs to do is tell Trump he is a better business person, has made more money and has been more successful financially. Bloomberg should release all of his tax returns and financials. Trump would not be able to respond effectively and would be completely humiliated. He hates to lose and this would make him a complete loser.
28
@Bert Kahn : Oh great, the battle of the New York billionaires!
That's really going to rally the voters outside the WCBS listening area.
7
@Bert Kahn
Bloomberg is a polite Trump. As mayor of NYC, he kept running scams instead of honestly governing.
It's not Trump's insults that are the problem. It's the scams. I don't need a smoother billionaire rubbing smoother scams.
1
The two best, most qualified, and smartest policy driven candidates are Warren and Klobuchar. Too bad the U.S. is such a viper pit of male entitlement and sexism.
127
I stand with Warren, but will go with whomever our partiy nominates.
127
Why sort of deity "blessed" an America where the best among us -
Obama and Warren, for example -
usually draw out the worst among us -
Trump and Graham, for example.
10
A suggestion for candidate Warren, from a supporter. Stop talking about the details of your healthcare plan.
You already put it together in sufficient detail. Opponents will quibble about the details, if you let them. When you respond, you encourage them, and leave yourself at a disadvantage.
Instead, insist on equivalent plans from every candidate, detailing costs from all the inputs that go to pay for healthcare. Advocates for the status quo need to supply costs for that. Make plans from everyone the condition for continuing the debate. Make it clear—until the media join you in demanding plans from your competitors, you are taking that issue off the table.
221
@S.P. "A suggestion for candidate Warren, from a supporter. Stop talking about the details of your healthcare plan."
No doubt the other Democratic candidates and Trump will cheerfully agree to allow her to deploy this strategy for the next 12 months.
I would only add that she needs to make the impact of actual costs clear to the public. Let’s see how her plan would impact real folks like a family of four who have employer provided healthcare and face a medical emergency, a couple currently on traditional Medicare and what they pay out of pocket for their plan and their prescriptions, a young entrepreneur paying for himself and a medium sized privately owned business owner who provides coverage for her employees.
9
@S.P. Warren's Medicare Plan has been put out and defended by her. It's in Black and White and Detailed.
Buttigieg and Biden have had nothing more than Proposals to talk about. Not a single Plan between them. Proposals like the type they've mentioned ,are comparable to the famous quote "There is no There There".
I mean really now, neither Biden nor Buttigieg have even drawn up a Plan on a Cocktail napkin. Their Proposals are just noise without Anything concrete to base them on. It's easy to take potshots at a plan that's been fleshed out. The real work is having made the effort and determination to put together a plan in the first place.
I'm just waiting for someone to call them on their "Emperor has No Clothes" proposals.
11
Trust me on this. Elizabeth Warren is too far left to win a national election. That said, I would love to see her in the Senate.
7
@David She is a Massachusetts senator.
11
@David are you referring to Senator Elizabeth Warren?
10
Her message is resonating and big monied interests are getting scared. Bloomberg thinks he can buy his way in. I’m not interested. Warren is right, this country has been on the wrong track for years. My hope is that she can lead government out of the quagmire of scandal and time waste it’s in now.
168
Sen. Warren's road will become harder. I admire her for achieving so much success up to this point and I'll support her if she is the candidate. That said, I find her personality unappealing and question her electability.
14
“I’m not here to criticize other Democrats,” she told reporters. I love that. I also love the breadth and depth of her aspiration - big, bold. We need that now. We don't need business as usual. I feel we stand at a crossroads in a way that is quite distinct - the yawning gap in wealth between the top 0.1% and the bottom 50%, the immediacy and urgency of the climate crisis, the extreme polarization of the electorate, etc, all in world on teetering financial and environmental collapse. I say BRING IT ON!
381
@curt hill
Agreed, Mr. Hill.
Look at the number of endorsements of specific comments from readers of this column. and other readers'comments: There arefewer total endorsements of all comments, but dramatic differences in support for of a few readers' statements that ask for realisam and courage from all those standing for electon in 2020. To cope with the worst national crisis -- but of a totally dfifferent kind -- since therCivil War,
We must have disciplined thinking and reailstic plans, prioritized to meet the most dire needs. Plans that can be supported by Congress ,once realistically proposed by powerful explanations from the Executive Branch sof the problem and the need for change,suffieintky supported by Congress and endorsed by the courts for the right reasons.
How do we get there from where we are now, as a nation?
To be or not to be realistic. That is the question.
1
@curt hill
If you are truly concerned about economic disparity why stop at the 0.1%! There is still a yawning gap in wealth between the bottom 50% and the top 10%. But this cuts too close to home for many liberal professionals. Hypocrisy undermines our efforts.
1
I suspect the Republicans are hoping she or Sanders get the nomination. It’s a sure path to Republican victory in 2020.
31
Good luck to all the Democratic candidates.
Let’s be sure to unite behind whoever wins and
to help get out the vote.
192
@RjW
no more 2016 "it's all about defeating trump"...it's about ISSUES candidates intend stand upon.
7
What I like about Senator Warren is that she can do what smart people have a hard time doing. (I’m talking about you, Hillary.) Ms. Warren has the ability to admit errors, learn from them, and adapt her future behavior to that expanded reality. In other words, she gets better with time.
363
@Walt Bruckner Why are you bashing Clinton? She expressed regret about voting for the war, and a whole lot more. The fact is, she had so much time in the public eye that she accumulated a long list of stuff, a lot of which looks different over time. Warren has been in public office for all of 9 years, six as elected to office.
4
When Elizabeth Warren first announced her candidacy she was given the Bernie silent treatment from the elite owned media.
After achieving front runner statue, it is not unexpected for Elizabeth Warren's number to plateau with the inevitable attacks from the corporate media and Democratic rivals, given her refusal to criticize her opponents.
As far as "electability" is concerned, how "electable" was Trump in 2016?
Warren 2020
530
Your thinking shows how out of touch those in liberal states are with regular America. Trump was destined to win just for being an outsider and shooting from the hip versus repeating well practiced pre-canned answers. Regular Americans like scrappy because it is relatable. Trump will win again if Warren and Sanders win the nomination.
Once the middle class figures out Warren and Sanders are after their wallets and retirement accounts there will be silent changes made to voting plans in many households.
16
@Jim
"Once the middle class figures out Warren and Sanders are after their wallets and retirement accounts there will be silent changes made to voting plans in many households."
Since Trump wants to cancel Obama Care, with no replacement, Trump is after your wallet and your life. Apparently "Regular America" will never figure that out, since they still support him.
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@Jim What middle class are you talking about? The middle class I know is the one that makes the median income of $54k a year per household and it lives on a credit card to pay for the medical bills.
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