We were ready. It's just that 18 or so were called and only one will be chosen.
for God's sake. are y'all forgetting HRC? there but for the lack of good campaign management and pooten's assistance of the cheeto-man went the first female president!
Also, what does Warren say about her coming in third in her home state? What was up with that?
just asking........
23
Such articles make me sick. Have we stopped to wonder, why the card of "sexism" only comes out for Warren. Were democratic primary voters "sexists" when they elected Hillary last year. ? Were the voters "sexists" when Warren rose to the top of the polls last fall ? This newspaper and its opinion section is arch typical echo-chamber. Similar to what we have with conservative radio stations. She appeals to the a very privileged but narrow section of the society - private school+ive-league educated white collar professionals. I know a lot of them as I am one of them. Warren got the most favorable media coverage and still lost, finishing a pathetic 3rd, 4th, 5th and 5th in the first four contests. This is a democracy - learn to respect people. Assume good intent. Don't project your insecurities or wild theories on to them. She lost because she surrounded herself with "woke" out of touch people. Instead of being the warrior for the working class, she became the warrior for the twitter class. Give me break with this string of depressing articles about her candidacy. Get out of liberal bubble of NY+DC+LA once in a while and talk to everyday folks all around.
40
Geraldine Ferraro told the story of when she visited Great Britain while Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. A local woman politician told Ferraro about her daughter and son playing a game the children called “Government” the day before. The kids argued over who would be Prime Minister. The daughter said she was; her brother also wanted to be Prime Minister. “But you can’t be Prime Minister,” said the daughter. “Why not?” he protested. “Because you’re a boy.” Think about it. Those children only knew Thatcher as Prime Minister.
11
This is a different world than 2016. The shift to the right in has also shifted women's issues to the right, not matter what the MeToo movements says. Republicans are not for gender equality. Are women more or less likely to get a promotion at work? Do women make as much money as men? Child care, a Republican issue, or not? What about competent women in the public eye? Who, Betsy DeVos, Mrs. McConnell? SCOTUS will surely take away a women's right to choose very soon, so women have not come a long way, baby. Its is back to square one. Warren was not running against Biden, not running for POTUS, but against Bernie, a man who has not stopped running since 2016. Because she failed to consider the overwhelming power of the media, did nothing to work on her media presence, she did, in a real sense, fail the first test of Presidential leadership: manage the media. She had too many plans that confused. This is not a time to mourn or wring hands. It is time to change the Administration. HRC won the last election but lost the electoral college. That is it. She won. We are angry about this still. She would have beaten Trump in the electoral college had it not been for the Bitter Bernie Bunch and idiots like Jill Stein, a woman.
11
The problem is that voters in the Democratic Party are both misogynistic and racist. Deplorable, really.
13
When Americans stop hating intelligence. Seriously. Americans like a dummy because that person doesn't make them feel dumb. They are quite weak and childish these American people, on the whole that is.
Reagan, Bush the younger, Trump. prime examples. Bush the elder and Obama were slow talkers and spoke in simple words (fooling the people).
America hates intelligence.
18
Nikki 2020!
5
Simply put, never. We don't need quacks from either party in the office.
9
Here is a FACT. Warren lost because she did not get enough votes. That FACT is all you know Ms. Cottle.
20
Hopefully Warren will only be telling untruths to her students from now on. Doesn't it even bother you a little bit that she lied about her background to get her position at Harvard and continued to say she was a Native American? This must have been a lie as she apologized to the Tribe she appropriated. Her ONLY polices were to hate Trump, hate the rich and steal the productive peoples money to give to the lazy and non-productive. A sure recipe for failure. I think I'm going to get me a beer! Really!
13
We will NEVER be ready for a President Warren. Her whole career was based on a fraudulent lie that she is American Indian. She lied about being sacked when she became pregnant. She lied when she said she will not raise taxes to pay for her Trillions of dollars in new spending. Who in their right mind would want her to be our President ?
28
Old, white political junkie UK guy here. Reading all I could on all your candidates, every one had strengths - and occasional weaknesses. To me, Elizabeth was best of the best. Head-banging smart, passionate, funny - the works. Sad to still see so many negatives but as one said "Elizabeth makes one or two inconsequential missteps in her life and people act like she hung a puppy up to die" You want perfect, 90% "popular" leaders? try Kim Jong Un, Duerte, Mbasogo, Putin. Museveni. PS I had very mixed feelings about Thatcher; would have been great if she was on our side. Elizabeth IS!
83
Stop with the woman hating nonsense. Just like the GLTBN... and black arguments liberals try to make the issue, no one cares anymore (generalization, but mostly true). People care about the person and the policies. Warren is Bernie Sanders in drag without the commitment. Bernie actual believes his trash, Senator Warren just does it for the votes. She amends herself and her history to suit the voter profiles (sounds like Hillary and why she lost, not because of gender). Warren became an American Indian when it suited her needs and then an aggrieved pregnant woman when she stated she was refused a job because of her pregnancy (confirmed by her own prior statements and everyone involved as an outright lie). She became a socialist-climber adding details to Bernie's popular socialist agenda without true belief. So stop with the woman nonsense, you (Democrats and liberals) aborted your best candidate (experienced, electable by moderates and independents and genuine), Senator Amy Klobuchar. The Democratic party must get past "anyone Blue" and face reality of the voters motives, which is not hate.
17
Funny (not very) to have all these pro-Warren bits in the NYT coming now that she's out of the race. Where were you when she needed you? Instead, we got overly critical analyses and diminishing coverage.
Not cool. Canceled my scrip over it, actually. No more comments after March!
14
If words themselves could be crimes, could be atrocities, consider the following.
Today, President Trump was asked the question: “Do you think sexism was a factor in Elizabeth Warren pulling out, and do you think you will see a female president in your lifetime?”
He answered:
“No, I think lack of talent was her problem, she had a tremendous lack of talent. She was a good debater, she destroyed Mike Bloomberg very quickly like it was nothing, that was easy for her".
“But people don’t like her. She’s a very mean person, and people don’t like her. People don’t want that,”
“They like a person like me that’s not mean.”
Donald "you're the puppet" Trump's legendary insecurity and projection prove the point:
Elizabeth Warren was the best, smartest, toughest, and nicest candidate. (doubt me? Google Warren and little girl.)
15
Hopefully, gender politics will never be enough to win elections, if we are lucky. Leaders should always be elected on merit and ability and leadership, not gender. The NYT is overplaying the gender issue, for its own demented reasons. Warren didnt deserve to be elected just because she was a woman. Clearly, the voters didn't want her and didn't view her as presidential material. All of this lamenting about women or people of color candidates not winning is beyond stupid, its embarrassing and juvenile. You want to pick your surgeon on the basis of gender or color or on the basis of merit, leadership, experience, and ability?
9
Identity politics is demeaning to every qualified candidate. It is insulting.
Secretary Clinton won the Democratic nomination in 2016 because she was the most qualified candidate.
Sanders speaks in a loop, is supported by the Russians, and has talked about the same issues for decades while achieving nothing.
He is an egotistical, angry man with little regard for the country.
His embittered, angry, vitriolic supporters tore down the Clinton campaign. If he isn't a useful idiot for the Russians, he is at least useful to them.
Warren was not the most qualified candidate in this election cycle. She started strong, but fell apart in indecision and vitriol.
The fact she came in 3rd place in her home state reveals misogyny was not a factor. Her own campaign and policies were the problem.
Many talented people ran in this campaign cycle. Brilliant individuals like Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Mike Bloomberg, and more understood this election is not about them, but about the country.
Trump must be defeated soundly and fully prosecuted for his many crimes. President Biden will not decide to prosecute Trump, but rather an independent Judiciary that will look at the clear facts around this treasonous criminal.
So Senator Warren can think about her own career, blame her loss due to being a woman, and feel comfortable in the space if she wishes.
Or she can be an American patriot, back Joe Biden for President, and go on to bigger and better things.
6
Did the Times's endorsement amount to anything if it subsequently failed to cover the Warren campaign in depth?
9
Our current US President is a profoundly ignorant buffoon, whose father bought him his de minimis education, playboy fame and misspent fortune. Elizabeth Warren is an extremely intelligent, self made woman, who is the antithesis of Trump in her ethics, morals and honesty. Given the choices, why do Americans always go for the con man?
15
To answer your headline? When we get a woman who runs as an American uniting all people and not an identity obsessed, entitled, our time has come, men are the enemy candidate like Hillary and too a lesser extent Warren.
Learn from the master teacher Obama who was as an American uniting people and not as a angry young black man dividing people.
It is incredible how educated women who support Warren can't see that including you Ms. Cottle.
It is mind-blowing,
8
We will be ready for a President Warren when we are looking for someone who played the "race card" by pretending to be an ethnic minority to advance her career ... played the "woman card" when convenient (like the lie about having been fired when she was pregnant) ....played the "humble beginnings card" by lying about her father being a janitor (which her brothers strongly deny) ... and the "electability card" when her own states (both Ok and Ma) declined to support her. SHE WAS NOT A GOOD CANDIDATE! How about that as the reason she failed? How about offering a little of your sympathy to Tulsie Gabbard. Remember her? A woman who has a different perspective, God forbid?
9
we'll never be ready for a Warren b/c she dosent have what it takes to be president. she's got great ideas but is wishy washy and kowtows to the wokers and other far left whiny types that REALLY threaten the planet if the orange virus were somehow cursed upon mankind.
if you want a president b/c they have the "correct" set of reproductive organs and nothing else, then you'll have to wait til they allow discrimination based on sex.
but if you want an electable person who just happens to be female and DOES have the qualifications Warren obviously dosent, then run Michelle Obama. tomorrow, she's get my vote and nbot even have to attend a single debate.
or as an alternative, as I've suggested here at least a dozen times, run Oprah as VP. she would so utterly and completely destroy the white haired empty suit presently disgracing the office it'd be worth whatever the price of admission would be.
but until then, the fact remains literally millions of people agree with me; she aint got it it. deal with it.
4
Elizabeth Warren lost out in the run for the Democratic nomination not because of sexism, but because she was a truly obnoxious personality.
"Look!" she screamed at the start of every speech or debate turn, then proceeded to tell us voters how stupid we are and how all her "plans' would save us from ourselves.
And then she had her fake claim that she was part Native American, and her other fake claim that she was fired because she was pregnant.
And then there was her egregious her pandering to voters by saying her brothers served in the military (if that's so great, why didn't she serve?).
I - a man - am perfectly happy to have a woman President. In fact, I think that would be wonderful. But not Elizabeth Warren. No way.
12
Tulsi Gabbard is still running for President. She is smart, articulate, and a military vet
The media chooses to ignore her. Why? I’m mystified. Warren is a terrible candidate, her whining turns to many people off and her vindictiveness is scary
6
I want President Amy K!
6
There are great women leaders: Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, QEII, Golda Meir. Bill Clinton's wife and flip flop Warren don't make the cut.
3
Great question: "When will we be ready for a President Warren?' I would submit we should look to corporate endeavors for the answer.
When corporations are in the market for a new CEO, history shows us that when the firm is performing well or evenly it almost always selects a male for the position. But when the firm is under-performing or worse a female is significantly more likely to be offered the position.
Why that is actually is anyone's guess but it could be logically suspected that the company sees itself as having nothing left to loose and so takes a flyer at some good short-term PR. And if the firm continues to falter or goes into receivership, well....what the heck, it was a woman who takes the fall so no big loss to anybody important and what the heck did the board expect anyway.
So....when is it that we will be ready for a President Warren? It will be when the US looks even worse than it does today under the Trump regime if that is humanly possible.
And when (not if) we do get there, start looking very hard over your shoulder for how close on your heels your demons are.... and move your portfolios into a position of 50% cash and 50% can goods.
I thought highly of her intellect, but her angry attacks on the other candidates made her come across as a vindictive, spiteful woman. Her attacks on Bloomberg were devastating to her image. The same applied to Kirsten Gillibrand. Women attacking men doesn't sell with both women and men.
6
I assume that all of you will support Nikki Haley if she runs in 2024? Or must it be a female Democrat? I am a female **recovering** R, now Independent. I will vote for whoever ends up running against Trump. I didn't find Warren compelling at all. She lied too much and her proposals didn't pass the smell test when broken down financially. The lecturing got to be a bit much as well. I am not surprised that she is out.
6
We’ll be ready after Biden’s one-term presidency.
3
The first female president will be republican. Hate brings voters out, not love.
2
Never. She is a horrid candidate. A compulsive liar with endless "plans" that are absent of details. She promised not to take corporate money, then she was suddenly taking it, no problem! Combine all that with her screechy demeanor endless pandering, and she was the worst candidate of them all.
7
Warren, and any other woman, will be President, when she wins enough votes. PS: Just being a woman, gets you zero, zilch, nada! And I sit here wondering as an old white guy, why all of this whining is over Warren?
Klobachar was much more up "my alley", smart, accomplished, worked "within the system" to get things accomplished. Had many more centrist views, which from nearly all of my friends, is the preferred trait, of any candidate, man or woman. But between Biden and Klobachar, my vote would have gone to her.
So what are the traits that Warren brought to the table that made her Presidential "timber"? Educated? Check. Defined plans? Check, Good in front of a crowd? Check (?). Inspiring??????
So let"s compare her to both Clinton (Bill) and Obama. Educated, Defined plans, very good with a crowd, and a "slogan" It's the economy stupid, Change.
Warren's "Revolution", "Big Money Anger"? Not very inspiring, especially to the lane she chose to occupy, one that already had a tractor trailer barreling down that road, that had ALL the "lefties" behind him.
So for all the great plans and policy papers she wrote, and many were great, she just had a VERY POOR plan, for the feel of the electorate, and the voter lane that was potentially open to her. Bad candidate, not necessarily, bad campaign, definitely!
1
President Warren, could be a while. President Michelle Obama, right now!
never since she is elitist and not likeable.
4
I’m hoping Biden selects Warren as his Vice Presidential pick.
Warren would pull in a portion of Sander supporters , who would be somewhat reassured that
their progressive platform would not be ignored.
Plus the younger folks would be a part of making history by helping to elect the First Female VP and smashing the Glass!
Boomers would be reassured that there’s still “A Man In Charge” but also “the woman behind the man”....
hopefully providing more service than straightening his tie.
These are all gross generalizations of course.....but could it happen?
BIDEN WARREN.......that’s the Ticket!
1
Who is 'we'?
In the 2016 Presidential election Donald Trump won 58% of the white European American voting majority including 62% of white men and 54% of white women.
While Hillary Clinton won 92% of the black African American voting minority majority including 88% of black men and 95% of black women.
Joe Biden is a two-time Presidential nomination loser. Bernie Sanders is a one-time Presidential nomination loser.
2
Everyone has to raise the bar a lot more.
Kamala Harris was not “terrific”
Klobuchar was never a “serious contender”
Warren did not run a “near perfect campaign”
Winning the presidency is hard.
It takes an extraordinary person.
One will come that happens to be a woman.
But you will just drive yourself crazy to think that every great woman will just be president like that.
It takes much much more than great.
Raise the bar. Stop driving yourself crazy.
2
In a presidential campaign, optics matter.
Every day Warren headed out on the campaign trail wearing a knit shirt, yoga pants and nike sneakers and a jacket that looked like it shrunk in the dryer.
She was dressed like she didn't take the venture seriously.
She ignored the adage that you should always dress like you already have the job you're auditioning for.
There's nothing wrong with yoga pants and nikes - its what I wear everyday.
But I wouldn't show up for a job interview dressed like that. I would consider it disrespectful.
As far as this being "sexist" thinking - I don't believe it is.
If a male candidate had appeared at 4 national presidential debates in a row wearing a knit shirt, sweatpants and sneakers, people would have dismissed him as a fool.
Remember how some people went crazy when Obama wore a tan suit?
I met Obama at an early campaign event in 2015 and he was elegant and beautifully dressed. His wardrobe and grooming were probably a plus with people that might otherwise have balked at a young African American president.
The June 2015 day I met Barack Obama, he looked like he was already president.
It helps.
Remember Biden saying Obama was "clean"?
People who don't believe optics are key should read Joe McGuiness's classic book "The Selling of the President 1968."
If you're running for president, don't make it harder for yourself than it already is by not looking the part.
3
I said when the Democratic Party wangled Hillary as the nominee over Bernie in 2016: She has too much Clintonian baggage to win. She was a real Beltway insider, with a long history of vicious targetting from the Republicans. And she lost. And I was not at all surprised even as I voted for her.
Now here we are in 2020, with what I consider are two more problematic Democratic Party candidates. Bernie has hardened from his delightful 2016 persona, and seemed determined to anything he could to out-maneuver the more intelligent and moderate Elizabeth Warren by deepening his appeal to the far edges of the Progressive wing. Joe Biden has a long career inside the Beltway, which will not endear him to said Progressives. And, thanks to years-old actions of Biden's feckless son, Joe is now a sitting duck for Trumpian mudslinging innuendo. Which the Republicans are gleefully seizing on with subpoenas.
I can't cry enough tears for the loss of Warren and Klobuchar: smart, personable, and comparatively free from the taint of insider status or idiocy.
2
If you held the view that Hillary Clinton lost because of her gender, or partly because of her gender, I think you'd be on some solid ground. She was clearly the better candidate than Trumpie. On the other hand, Warren ruined her campaign with goofy policy proposals that are just not popular with the electorate. She could have gone to enhancing ObamaCare, which today is finally popular despite Repub backstabbing. She could have talked about lowering the cost of medical care by focusing of the supply side which is way out of wack in this country, she could have discussed lowering the cost of higher education, she could have tried to connect with minorities by proposing some immigration reforms and reviving the Voting Rights act killed by the Repubs on the SCOTUS. She could have had a lot more appeal with popular ideas but she proposed bad ideas that people didn't like. If she were a man, it would have been the same. I supported her initially with a contribution but I soon had to send her an email: M4A is a loser.
1
America was ready for a female president in 2016. Hillary Clinton won by 3 million votes. That is a staggering margin of victory.
I am not ready for a president, male or female, who constantly brings up misogyny, accuses her opponents of sexism, supports reparations for slavery, and flip flops on her healthcare policy. Also boasting that unless a presidential candidate supports big ideas, then you are some kind of coward is a proclamation one should avoid.
These were all pieces of Senator Warren’s flawed campaign.
5
This "electability problem" that women have, exists primarily because the majority voter sees men as more electable and that's the way THEY raise their children and therefore, money flows to the men. Reproductive rights have no bearing on the matter.
Who controls most of the money in America...WOMEN
Who raises most of the children in America...WOMEN
Who are the majority voters in America...WOMEN
Who's the loudest anti-choice voice in America...WOMEN
Ok, make that "evangelical" and "christian" women who scream loudest.
Why are we pretending that WOMEN aren't getting exactly what they want in America?
It's just too easy and LAZY to blame the men...yea...the same men who made Nancy Pelosi Speaker Of The House.
See...when we decide to never look in the mirror and accept responsibility for ourselves and would rather accept every lame excuse for our own failures...we perpetuate that failure.
As some of the oblivious here stated..."when women discriminate against women...it's because they are "socialized" or "habituated" to think this way"...
And no one sees the immense hypocrisy in statements like that....
Because...when men do it...it's called "sexism".
2
Not now Elizabeth, but in the future you could be our president. But right now we need to get rid of Trump. Survive this malignant coronavirus and incompetent lying Trump White House . And recover our constitution, laws and customs. And you Elizabeth, an intelligent, smart, and wonderful person can help us do all of that. Please use all your skills and talents to do so and support Biden. Thank you for all your energy, enthusiasm and energy.
1
When will we be ready for a President Warren? Never. But a President Klobuchar would have been nice. Why is Warren the only woman the feminists seem to care about?
(Although just for the record, we've already had a President Warren. Warren Harding).
3
Sorry, but gender bias IS the problem. When will our country catchup with the rest of world by electing and supporting a candidate that represents the female population? Possibly not in my lifetime. How depressing to see the lackluster geriatric trio of white men running for the presidency this year.
4
Perhaps the refusal of some of us to support Senator Warren had nothing to do with her being a woman.
At least in my case, I was appalled that the senator had no qualms about smearing an investigated, exonerated, innocent police office as a murderer, as shocking a slander as almost anything President Trump has uttered in the past four years.
No, being a woman should not mean getting away with slander.
And one other call to all the liberal fanatics and social justice warriors out there: if you are going to claim sexism, you should provide verifiable proof, not just make some hazy,
amorphous claim that 'society' is sexist because your favored female candidate did not do as well as you wanted. Name the individual(s). Provide the solid proof as to that the individiual(s) said or did.
2
mi·sog·y·ny
dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.
"she felt she was struggling against thinly disguised misogyny"
mis·an·dry
dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men (i.e. the male sex).
"poorly disguised misandry"
One could say Jack the Ripper was a misogynist, but is it so. His contempt and rage was not directed at women of his own class, as I recall.
America differs from most other countries in that its leader has often effectively been the world leader. This seems to have biased the role to favor active, rather than passive, engagement.
Perhaps various religious traditions place a value on feminine acceptance, rather than self assertion. Still, from my youth, the dynamics of the long running TV show, 'I Remember Mama' had a grip on the nation. Mama clearly ruled the roost.
As it appears to me, Elizabeth Warren has used her intellect impressively. As a Senator among Senators I have an ill informed respect for her, in that I really do not have a position from which to judge her.
Robert Frost wrote, 'Choose something like a star'. If the star for any particular women is the leadership of the United States, someone will get there.
The little girl in the piece said: “But she’s a woman. She can’t be president.”
We have to take away her certainty; when the right woman for the time comes along, she will land the job. Some girl choosing that star can show us the difference it would make.
1
Senator Warren was the one that got away.
4
Michelle Cottle, thank you for the fine review. Every point you have made is a point I have tried to make in countless comments on the treatment of Elizabeth Warren in every context and at every level.
The first Times column on Warren that I read earlier was this one:
Opinion
I Am Burning With Fury and Grief Over Elizabeth Warren. And I Am Not Alone.
She might not be bound for the presidency, but she has lodged herself in another powerful place: the female psyche.
By Sarah Smarsh
March 6, 2020
There was no comment section there, which led immediately to this thought. Why has the Times not given us a chance to comment here? Guess one is not supposed to go into a rage about treatment of the best president we will never have.
So once again, thank you Michelle Cottle and Sara Smarsh. Elizabeth Warren has lodged herself in my psyche. Would she accept an offer to be Vice President? That could give her a chance to become President.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
4
In response to the title, I would say, Hopefully Never!
5
Probably another ten years or so {hopefully less) when people realize how toxic their beliefs about women and men are.
3
Stop with the whining about the fact that no females are left in the race! Seriously, it's pathetic.
We backed a female in 2016, remember? Her ame was Hillary Clinton, remember? She received more votes than anyone, remember?
So, "when will we be ready for a President Warren? 2016!
Extensive play in the media and a lot of loud voices do not make the falsehood that the absence of a remaining female in the race (though Gabbard is still in the race) is about sexism. It is not.
In fact, I'll guarantee there have been far more negative, sexist, racist, ageist things said about "old, white males" than any female.
Here's a list of other "defeated" candidates, most out long before Warren. :Buttigieg, Steyer, Patrick, Yang , Bennet, Delaney, Booker, Castro, Bullock, Sestak, Messam, O’Rourke, Ryan, de Blasio, Moulton, Inslee, Hickenlooper , Swalwell, Ojeda, Walsh , Sanford and Bloomberg. All MEN. Wonder if they all have excuses.
This is not rocket science, people. None of the women struck the right chord, not because they were women, but because the majority of Democrats didn't think they were the right candidates in this critical race, just like the above list of men.
I voted for Hillary in 2016. This year, I liked very few of the candidates, including the women.
Please, call me sexist. Just so I can laugh.
3
Of course no mention of Nikki Haley. The women here clamoring for the first woman president will be in mourning if it is Nikki Haley. Could they just be honest and say they want a liberal woman?
5
Women biased against women? Or women just not liking Warren's proposals? Why on earth would any woman vote for a woman merely because she is a woman? So passe.
4
“It’s infuriating that the women are dropping & we’re going to be stuck with white men.” shrieked one comment I read in the NYT. Why is a candidate's gender relevant? Please explain how XX chromosomes equal better policies or a better candidate that will beat Trump or an even better President. Sorry, I don't see the correlation. However, I do see the correlation when progressive zealots feel entitled to call someone out based on their age, gender, & ethnicity. Blatant ageism, sexism, & racism.The left's standard go-to whenever they lose an election or don't get what they want. Not a good way to persuade a rational person you have a winning argument. We need less of identity politics. The last thing young girls need to believe is that gender is responsible for everything that happens to women. Those who like to pretend that sexism or misogyny knocked Warren out of the race must accept the fact that sexism and misogyny were practiced by a huge number of Democratic women voters. Indeed, it seems a large segment of the democrat electorate must be misogynistic, racist, & homophobic. Yes? With all the caterwauling over conservative intolerance, we see clear evidence that progressives are exactly what they claim others to be. The curtain has been pulled all the way back. Maybe voters simply didn't like Warren's positions on the issues. To me, the 1st priority of this election is who can beat Trump. In this election, we need a big tent consensus builder not fighters/dividers/whiners.
3
Elizabeth Warren is what? Seventy years old? So when stop and frisk was a serious problem in New York City, she wasn’t a starry eyed college student. She was in the midst of her professional life and certainly an expert in the law. So, what did she do about stop and frisk in the twelve years Bloomberg was the mayor of New York? Did she bring a suit? Speak out in angry terms, rally others around this issue? No. She didn’t care about it. She probably didn’t even notice it - until recently - years after the fact - it suited her purpose in attacking Bloomberg and making lots of points with the voting public. A first class hypocrite!
3
Stop making this all about a woman candidate. I notice the NY times opinion writers never mention there was a gay candidate, Mayor Pete who did not win.
It is all about who is the best qualified in the eyes of the voters. They don't want a socialist, Bernie or Warren. If a smart popular minority woman like Oprah or Michelle Obama ran for President they would probably win.
1
We are ready now! Senator Warren’s by far, the best and most ready candidate. She’s an FDR-like individual, which the country needs to clean up the corruption and looting. The American family has been decimated.
The problem is dirty money as illustrated by Michael Bloomberg who entered th race as a spoiler. He leant $500M and hit her to end their candidacy. Never mind the Samoa delegates During an interview he claimed credit for electing the congressional class that made Nancy Pelosi Speaker So, as he said during a Freudian slip, “I bought..ehr...helped elect”
Senator Warren is ready to fix the system, Bloomberg and his friends like Henry Kravis and Stephen Schwarzman own the cos that supply Drs, nurses, EMS to emergency rooms across the country, for instance, and the reason people go bankrupt by huge unsuspecting ER bills. That’s just one issue. Bloomberg is a spoiler. And Estée Lauder’s owner has participated in Trump re-election fundraising. It’s a battle of interest.
1
Is the gender of a president more important than competence? So far I’m not terribly impressed with the competence of American politicians regardless of gender, or party.
Warren was unable to win her own state! To spin it generously, you can believe her people love her so much they didn’t want to lose a valuable Senator. Or they were horrified she might win.
Warren began losing when she couldn’t explain how to finance her healthcare plan. She’s the academic, so it should have become clear to her the math doesn’t work. She declared war on rich people, people who made money in America, as entrepreneurs mostly, legally.
Attacking the person rather than inequity of the system was stupid. She tore into Bloomberg as if he were evil incarnate because he was sexist and rich, and it looked like an SNL sketch, bizarre and riveting. For all these reasons she lost my vote and respect.
It appears Biden might be the Democratic nominee to face Trump. It’s been reported people are encouraging Biden to select a Black female running mate to show the party is inclusive. Names have been tossed around. Oprah, Kamala, Stacey.
Assuming Oprah is smart enough to decline, and draining the Senate of Democrats is dumb, Stacey Abrams pops up. She may be bright, intelligent, a good person, but not a VP. I hope Biden doesn’t make McCain’s mistake with Palin. I hope he selects a person with intelligence, integrity, and experience and not to satisfy a demographic. Otherwise he’ll lose my vote.
2
It is logically impossible to attribute the failures of Hillary and Liz to anyone but women, since the majority of voters are always women. Everyone knows that the majority of women voted for Trump. Now Liz has so totally failed with women again that they didn’t prefer her in a single primary—not even MA. Maybe Tom Frank needs to explain to women “What’s Wrong With Women,” since women literally have such a voting advantage (they vote at higher rates than men, too) that they could achieve anything at all the vote could win for them, if only they could get women (who would not need men at all) to vote for it. So charges of “sexism” must mainly be lodged against women, not men, when feminists don’t get what they want politically, since it’s women who so often let sisterhood down, as only they have the numbers to do. It’s just like the feminist struggle against the sexual “objectfication” of women for the last sixty years. If only women, of their own free will, didn’t try as hard as possible to look more and more like a Kardashian with every new generation. Yet they do.
1
Wanted to like Warren. Did not agree with all of her policies, a bit too radical and was not sure how she would pay for what she was promising., Got tired of hearing what a "fighter" she is. She is whinny. What tipped me over the edge was when she attacked Bloomberg. He showed up to debate the issues, but never had the opportunity. Warren should have been addressing the issues, addressing Trump's incompetence and his policies. Klobuchar was definitely someone who I could admire, want for a role model for the children. She is leveled headed, is a leader, but I do not think she could beat Trump. Trump is a mad man, does not know how to debate except to stand up there lie, name call, bully. avoid the issues. Don't think Warren could have beat him either.
2
Disappointed that a woman wasn't picked for Democratic presidential nominee? Why not switch to Tulsi Gabbard? She's still in the race. If 20% of women switched their vote to Gabbard, that would be over the 10% threshold required for recent debates. Women are apx. 1/2 the voters, so 20% becomes 10% overall, plus a small amount from the men who will vote for Gabbard too =>10% overall.
If Gabbard makes the next debate with two late septuagenarian white men who didn't see her coming, who knows what might happen?
20
" You know the old trope: An assertive man is a strong leader; an assertive woman is a … witch. Assertive women, ambitious women, successful women, powerful women — all tend to provoke complicated reactions, and not in a good way."
MC is spot on. Senator Warren's gender was her nemesis as was Hillary Clintons. Their gender left little room for the process of candid debating and it is a process.
The male gender founded our country and have monopolized the seat of governing from the beginning of our short history. They will contiune to hang on like bull dogs and do what ever it takes to keep the status quo.
Well, disguised misogyny is slowly loosing it's vail. In the not so distant future we will hear the words 'Madame President' because aptitude will win over attitude.
2
I am surprised by the number of Artices regarding Elizabeth Warren after she withdrew from the race because the New York Times could not use the name Warren in a headline for days prior to Super Tuesday.
2
Please G--... never.
It's this simple – Liz looks to slime or scorch opponents, and then play the gender card...
And then, play the transdemographic uniter...
(for clarity, nothing to do with LGBTQ)
Her "plans" are an abstract level of plagiarism that's called "style transfer" in AI...
As we type, she's trying to smear Bernie for not adequately distancing himself from his more boisterous bros – while trying to position herself as the Dem number 2...
Whether Biden stumbles – or not...
For clarity, went into this wanting to prefer her...
3
Please stop.
If you can’t get the votes you don’t win.
Or should we change the rules?
Your choice lost, get over it.
The Democratic Party and the NYT are destroying America by pursuing identity politics.
6
NEVER!
Living in Massachusetts, campaigning for Senator Warren, four years ago campaigning for Secretary Clinton, dedicated to the importance of everyone’s responsibility to vote I have decided my only recourse at this moment is to never to vote again.
14
@PJB
Awwww.
2
Is it the message or messenger your promoting...
Condoleezza Rice
A qualified black woman..
A Republican...whoops
Your prejudice is showing..
4
It is a horse race and Warren is built for it. Had she been more centrist, then she would have had a real chance to beat Biden on the merits of a campaigner if not her record in the Senate. But Warren is closer to Sanders in ideology and that is the one of the main reasons she is out of the race. Another is that she is always in your face, a trait "fearless" that I liked about her. If a candidate is running solely by choosing a vagina over a penis or vice versa then I would say that's wrong just as running a black candidate over a white one for that sole reason does not provide us with the full picture. Again Warren is a pit bull and that is what I want in the Presidency not that candidate she took down in the debate, Michael Bloomberg who for all his money couldn't respond or defend himself. Bravo for Warren - her time is not up or over, she has made significant strides to breaking that glass ceiling and in a far more effective way then a Hillary Clinton could ever muster.
1
I know people who love Warren... and didn’t vote for her.
I think people aren’t getting that there was only one issue in this primary.
Can you beat Trump.
Woman, man, gay, straight, black, white... who cares.
Can you beat Trump?
She attacked Bernie and lost the hard core progressives.
She attacked Bloomberg and lost the moderates and never trumpers.
She pushed people farther away than bringing people together.
She created doubt that she could win.
At the moment Biden unified a bunch of key larger groups.
So even people who loved her, went for Biden.
Had nothing to do with gender.
Had to do with can you beat Trump?
And she lost on that.
74
I (a 66 year-old, Ivy-educated, lawyer, & white guy) love Elizabeth Warren -- her polices, her values, her energy, her intelligence, her honesty, etc., etc. But if the women who have been writing articles bemoaning her defeat want to put a woman in the White House, they have to come to grasps with the reality that the most fervent anti-Warren voters were women themselves. I realize my experience is only anecdotal, but whenever I would bring up Warren's name in my office, the most virulent anti-Warren diatribes came from my female co-workers. They cannot stand Trump and generally are progressive, but Warren struck a visceral nerve that was inexplicable, beyond the explanation "that women, too, have been habituated and socialized to dismiss female candidates for the same sexist reasons men use to justify their preferences for old white male candidates." Four years ago, the most rabid anti-Hillary people I knew were women. So Ms. Cottle et als, when you figure why women seem to be their own worst enemy, then maybe we'll be able to elect a female president.
4
Hillary Clinton already won the presidency as a female candidate if you are looking at the popular vote. A 3-million-surplus is not a margin of error or an anomaly. She won and she is female.
Sexism clearly is an entrenched issue, but to speak of Warren or others as having missed out on a great opportunity because of sexism misses how hard it is to win a national, electoral event.
2
Sexism is so deeply rooted, so profound, so entangled in the whole fabric of home life, work life, politics, leisure, that a man or a woman will look you in the eye and say something like, "Well, it wasn't sexist that she didn't get the nomination. She couldn't even win her own state." Society on every level tucks people in slots and they don't even know they're doing it. She was elected a Senator to represent her state, but of course she is not qualified to lead the whole country, just the folks at home as part of a group. A rap star with the world on their knees before her could not become President even if she were supremely qualified because, as much as they love her, they could not relinquish the idea that a woman cannot be trusted and must not be allowed to actually lead them. Her place is second place. Second place. In our country, it's always been that way.
2
Warren and Warren alone could have beaten Trump. Mark my words. This day is way sadder than we think.
1
"When Will Be Ready for a President Warren?"
Never.
She was a lousy candidate.
But look out in the future for a President Klobuchar, or a President Haley, or any other woman candidate who doesn't come in third in her own overwhelmingly liberal state's primary.
4
If the Republicans nominated a strong conservative woman - someone in the mold of Maggie Thatcher - would any liberal women vote for her, or does ideology trump gender?
3
For me? Never. I think she is where she needs to be - a thorn in the side of the government, a sharp voice for reform. But for all her intelligence, she is unable to see that she is nearly as divisive as Trump, and I am not sorry not to have her as president. (yes, I'm female.)
3
Fair or not (it's not), we have over 250 years of what a President is supposed to look like, and with the exception of Barack Obama being black, that image is "a man".
But it's a stereotype, and they can be changed. Witness Barack Obama. How did he become the first black President? For one thing, he didn't run as a black man, constantly reminding everyone how historic it would be to elect him, and how long overdue it was. He had a vision that resonated with voters that transcended his race. In other words, he made his vision THE most important part of his campaign. When a woman does that, she will have a real chance at winning.
Specific to Ms. Warren, while at times she talked about her vision, more often she blurred that vision with too many details. "I have a plan for that!" is nice to know, but voters don't really care about those details. They assume that you have some plan to get your vision implemented, and they don't need to know the nitty gritty. She also kept pushing the fact that she's a woman to forefront, which then overshadowed her vision. What was being a woman supposed to tell us? That we should vote for her just because she's a woman? That this was the most important reason to vote for her, beyond her vision? If you don't want to be knocked for being a woman, stop talking about it so much.
Finally, your calling Sanders "shouty", makes me wonder what you would've called the Founders? Sometimes shouting is required. These are such times.
Hopefully not anytime soon! I found her message to be one of anger and her plans poorly thought out.
3
Going forward with the notion that but for being female, Elizabeth Warren would have (excuse the expression) sewn up the presidency, is not only false, it cuts close to Trump's embrace of victimhood.
Was Warren too smart? Absolutely. But what I can't figure is why Amy Klobuchar didn't do better. Other than the story she was abusive to her staff, all the press was good and she was as personable as Biden.
1
I watched E.W. quite a bit on news shows, talk shows, rallies, and so on. She did have some well thought-out plans, and she is a very smart Senator. OTOH, whether she was on MSNBC, CNN, Colbert, wherever, I heard the same speech every time, almost word for word. I think I can even remember a lot of it. On Colbert one night she was SO animated, so excited, that she commented that perhaps she should just forgo the interview and go out into the audience to take selfies instead. Really? Anyway, once again she proceeded to recite the same old speech. Afraid to just let her hair down for once and just talk about pizza or a movie she liked, anything that would let me know what kind of a person she is.
Instead the -"We want the government to work for everyone, and not just the wealthy and the powerful" line must be repeated yet again. Maybe tell a funny story now and then? No, it's always about struggling families, trying to put food on the table instead of filling their prescription at the pharmacy. WE KNOW people don't have enough money. WE KNOW folks don't have adequate health care. Tell me about some of the good things we still have, and how we can do even better. Oh and BTW, no one wants to bring up foreign policy, NATO, or NAFTA. What about the Strategic Pacific Partnership Obama wanted to implement? These are TOUGH issues neither party has easy, simple solutions to offer. So now where's the plan? I voted for Hilary, but these wooden comments EW gives bores me to death.
2
What infuriates me (among other things, to be sure) is the way some Bernie Sanders supporters viciously attacked Elizabeth Warren in the days before she dropped out of the race, as she recounted to Rachel Maddow: barraging her with tweets and emails calling her a traitor and a snake (including images); demanding - in scabrous terms - that she quit; urging other Democrats to mount primary challenges against her. She and Sanders have been allies in the Senate for years. What is this about?
I was a Sanders delegate in my state in 2016, but I am sickened by this - as well as the actions of his supporters who published personal information of Nevada union leaders who didn’t endorse him, which led to their being inundated with hundreds of obscene and threatening phone calls at home. While Sanders did denounce this, I find the behavior so disheartening (and his efforts to distance himself so insufficient) that I can’t support him this time. As Senator Warren said, this is not the America I want to live in. I was proud to be able to vote for her.
1
I'm over these woe is us editorials. I'll go ahead and say it. She lost, people don't want Warren to be president, it has nothing to do with her sex and everything to do with her sense of entitlement. First she was the Indian, then the fired mom for being pregnant, now she is the woman shunned by sexism. No, she's just another former Republican intersectionalist, using the term Latinx and other baloney while the country has very serious problems that need fixing.
Warrens lane is overrepresented in the media, so she gets outsized coverage. I'm talking the white, woke, wealthy, highly educated women. Meanwhile the country is filled with men and women of all shapes ages and colors who are increasingly going through difficult times. Upper middle class will just have to hang on a little while with their tales of oppression from Newton.
3
The most important thing is that we get rid of Trump. Stop, stop, stop with the articles about having a women President. We have one more far important thing to take care of.
When her humility equals her talent. So far, four more years of Trump.
Not ever is the answer to the lead’s question.
2
As a 60 something American male who’s seen more than enough male political leaders foul things up I’m so ready to see a woman have an opportunity to try her hand at running things.
2
I grew up in Oklahoma....Indian territory. And boy oh boy, are they VERY proud of it. Some of the kids I went to high school were one eighth Cherokee or Sioux or whatever and it was a huge badge of honor.
You drive on the interstate highways and big highway signs say, "Entering the Cherokee Nation" or "Entering the Osage Nation".
My niece is part Osage. She told me she and her comrades were high offended by Warren and her highly publicized claim at being a member.
4
The Dems biggest weakness is their insistence on always relying on identity politics to explain their failures. I liked Warren, though I wasn't convinced she was the best in the field. Many Dems would conclude if she was a man I would have made her my first choice.
Total nonsense - and until many Dems realize this - they will continue to fail.
2
Another question among all these about a woman president is.. "when will be ready for a gay president." I fear we may never be.
We had the chance to have a great president in Buttigieg. A man of vision, energy, integrity, compassion, high intelligence, honesty and kindness. I was devastated when he dropped out, but understood that he did it out of selflessness. He was the hero of the day after Super Tuesday.
If Nancy Pelosi were running she would be the next President. Which Democrats wouldn't like her for her policies and toughness?
1
Elizabeth Warren was a very flawed candidate, and this is a woman speaking. She was nasty and calculating in the debates, and her attacks of other candidates and completely turned me off. Am I sexist? At the beginning I was really hoping she would be great, but she was not. I do not buy into all of this rant about sexism and we have to have a female president. I would love to see one, but I am looking for the genuine outstanding "person." I am not terribly inspired by the two seventy-year-old front runners either, But let's stop this rant about this absolutely necessity to elect a woman. The voters have spoken.
2
Michelle, nothing is more sexist than claiming that sexism defeated your candidate. Liz ran - as Bernie is running - an angry, negative campaign that demonized and alienated moderate Democratic voters. Hillary claimed the nomination last round. So would have Liz if most Democrats wanted what she was selling. As James Carville put it, "I know they want a revolution but they are not in the majority." We will be ready for a woman president when we stop with the gender politics.
3
Exactly true.
How did Warren distinguish herself that drew voters away from Sanders?
Warren’s positions, like Sanders, were intractable. Medicare for All was/is a disaster that allowed no room for compromise. They are both my way or you’re wrong. I don’t like Sanders for his yelling and lecturing and Warren is no different.
Warren’s licking her wounds just like Clinton did (and still does) without acknowledging the problem to be them. Not their gender, not anyone else’s fault, just them. That alone confirms to me they were not ready to be stateswoman and President. I predict the same with Sanders if he does not get the nomination. They are a type that can’t acknowledge their own foibles.
I don’t see Amy wringing her hands either.
2
Whoever gets the Democratic nomination there had better be a woman V.P. Common sense would be a more liberal individual.
My bet is, if Biden gets the nomination either Stacy Abrams or Elisabeth Warren will get the nod. And that women, whoever she is, will be the next President of the United States.
1
Senator Warren was the last best hope to save an America that does not want to be saved.
It was numbing and searing by turns to see her erased by the media, ignored by the pundits and attacked on superficialities by candidates whose qualifications she dwarfed.
America does not deserve her.
They should have been discussing her policies, but when they were not ignoring Warren they were debating exactly what it was about her that was unelectable, when all along we knew it was simply her gender.
It is a further outrage that these same pundits whom I watched dismiss her repeatedly are now devoting entire segments to how bias eliminated Warren from the race.
I would be purple with rage and grief if only a lifetime of conditioning had not taught me that my anger, however justified, is so taboo that it will disqualify me from relationships and credibility.
Elizabeth Warren's post-mortem statement about sexism says it all: admit it and you are a whiner, deny it and a bazillion women wonder what planet you've been on.
Another violation of hope has occurred in a long line of gendered disappointments in my six decades on this big blue marble.
2
The narrative re Warren is falling into the same tired trap as Hilary- blaming her defeat on her gender. It has nothing to do with gender. She had policies that were unrealistic and unpalatable. And in this particular election year, she did not have any chance of beating Trump. We all whine about ending gender bias and then jump on the same trove the minute a woman takes a loss, as if defeat deserves no other analysis. Until we get over the smokescreen of gender and start assessing loss for what it is, we perpetuate the very thing we are trying to eliminate. And we extend the cycle by failing to make a clear eyed assessment of what went wrong and how to improve. Women are not infallible by virtue of their sex.
3
I have no doubt that there are people who refuse to vote in a woman for president, but I wonder if the current commentary on Elizabeth Warren would be written if it was a Condoleezza Rice who failed to get the nomination. Probably not; why, because they probably reject her politics. In the end, that is often the answer.
1
I'd wager that Elizabeth Warren underestimated and the NYT and the rest of the main stream media continue to underestimate how sick and tired both American men and women are of hearing about bogus sexism claims and identity politics associated with them each and every time woman doesn't get what she thinks she deserves
The more you keep opining and spinning the more you motivate Donald Trump's base plus more and more independents who won't be bullied by the constant whining and hectoring. Result MAGA again in November.
2
Although I'm certain the VP pick will be a woman - the Dems are smart enough to know that - it is small consolation to the rage I feel right now. That we live in a country where a dynamic, fiercely intelligent woman got beat out by two geezers with nothing NEAR the detailed policies she had crafted. That a woman will have to occupy the VP spot - the "helpmate-to-the-President" spot - before one gets to lead this country, absolutely infuriates me!
3
I think these lamentations are sexist, mistaken, and divisive. I am a male who voted for Hillary Clinton twice in primaries and in the general election. I've voted for Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts each time she has run. In this year's Massachusetts primary, I voted for Amy K because I doubted Mrs. Warren could win even though she is the smartest in the field. Part of that decision was based on her all or nothing single payer system. It is obviously a no go with massive numbers of voters. Part is based to on her personal style. She didn't have the common touch and the more she tried to reverse that image the worse she looked. A part of that feeling may also be due to my sex, which in another year I might have disregarded. Style is an obstacle a woman, any candidate, needs to overcome. Amy did. It is on the candidate to change.
1
Warren failed because of her politics. And her strategy. And her failure to make a strong emotional connection to enough people. And, lastly, her gender.
Oh, yeah, that last debate in Vegas - she was despicable in the way she attacked Bloomberg; unable to take "yes" for an answer, when the right target was Bernie.
As an ardent supporter of Amy Klobuchar, who won more delegates than Warren, I believe she, too, couldn't equal the emotional connection that Joe and Bernie make. Go figure. She'd make a fine VP pick while she works on that.
2
We'll never be ready for Elizabeth Warren to be President. She's too left wing. It has nothing to do with gender, and is the same reason why Bernie Sanders won't win the Presidency.
Hillary won the popular vote, and if not for Russian interference and Jim Comey's ridiculous pronouncements so late in the 2016 race she'd already be the first female President.
2
Sadly, sexism seemed to play a major role in the presidential race - in 2016. This year, lesser candidates including a more radical Warren did not attract voters most certainly including me. Perhaps a woman, like a black man, needs to be significantly better than anyone else to win. This year, they were not. If you insist that a woman should win because she's a woman, then please me just a little more clear in making that statement outright.
1
I enjoyed the interview with Warren on Rachel Maddow last night.
I support nearly all of Warren's policies but found her to be a
terrible candidate. Shrill, nasty, too intense, always on the attack.
I think part of the groundswell for Biden is because people are comfortable with him. I never felt comfortable about Warren during the campaign. She was exhausting.
She also could have taken a page from Obama's campaign. Obama was assertive but he was also always a perfect gentleman and seemed reasonable and calm. Whereas Warren often seemed like an angry zealot.
This isn't about sexism. Lots of people don't support Bernie because they dislike his persona which they perceive as loud,
aggressive, obnoxious. stubborn, combative.
In this, Warren's campaign person was much like Bernie's.
Whatever you think about their policies, many people find loud angry politicians too tiresome to be president and in their living room for 4 years.
You can make it clear you will fight for people without being loud and combative. Just ask Barack Obama.
2
Clinton a woman got more votes than Trump did in 2016. So we were ready for a woman in 2016 for a woman to be president. Clinton ran a tone deaf campaign in 2016 by not visiting states she should have.When the dust clears I think when Warren give us the nuts and bolts of her Medicare for All plan she sealed her fate. Is it sexist that only now are we asking Bernie how are his plans going to be paid for? Warren to some was just a milder version of Sanders.
Why is it that Warren didn't get the nomination because voters are biased? Why isn't it that she didn't get the nomination because a majority of voters decided there was someone else they preferred? Look, I'm not dismissing the fact that there are those that are biased for/against certain groups, but why do we automtically go to that? Remember, this is "our" side we are talking about. Do we really believe that many of "us" are incapable or unwilling to make a decision based on merit?
Why are women supposed to vote for Warren just because she is a woman? If that is the only criteria that should matter for women, Tulsi Gabbard is still in the race.
I know there are many who truly believed Warren was the best choice, and they could be correct. But I hope they thought that because of what they thought Warren would do as President, not because she is a female.
Finally, with all due respect, why am I supposed to vote for someone just so someone's mother or grandmother can see a female President? It makes one wonder how many people out there implored their relatives/friends to vote for Trump for President because they didn't want to die not seeing a complete buffoon be President.
1
Warren likely missed her shot in 2016. She should have ran then but kowtowed to Clinton-Obama, Inc. Hillary Clinton got 66 million votes and a lot of people hated her guts. Warren's awful 2020 performance with voters had less than nothing to do with being a woman.
There will be a female President one day. No doubt about that. It will happen when the right woman, espousing the right ideas and policies (and not flip-flopping on a key issue like health care), runs a campaign based on her vision for America. Not on being a woman candidate.
Take a lesson from Barack Obama:
I am running for President. I happen to be a black man. I am not a black man who happens to be running for President.
1
We feel for Ms Warren, likely the most prepared of all candidates, for a tough job, the presidency of these United States. There is no question we suffer from a subconscious bias...where women must be twice as good to be considered equal to us men. To our collective loss. And we haven't even considered, yet, the current vulgar beast occupying the White House, a disgrace to this country and an ever present danger to the world. Who would have thought, that the most powerful nation on Earth remains with a heavy dose of misogyny?
1
I think we'd be ready for Elizabeth Warren 3+ years ago
There is one common theme for why two of our best women candidates for the Presidency failed: Bernie Sanders.
I still find it hard to believe that E, smart as razor stropped whip, made the medicare for all mistake. It’s also discouraging that two really old, way too old, white entitled males, both deeply fundamentally flawed, don’t have the inherent decency, and respect for the country to fall on their swords and get out of the way of EW. Look how people coalesced around old joe, if he and the burn got out of the way and threw their support to EW and she turned away from medicare for all she would crush trump like a bug. But these two old guys are just gonna clog up the lane as versus letting the one, the only person, who really feels (because she was) for the poor and the middle class and has the detailed plans and the moves to get it done, go to the hoop. If biden brings in a cabinet of the candidates, including elizabeth as vp, then i will think he was the right one & did the right thing. If bernie campaigns for biden and brings his followers along he will have done right. If neither happens and biden is a placeholder, scratch that, given any future outcome, EW must run again in 4 years. ELIZABETH WARREN MUST BE PRESIDENT. And in fact, if biden, with his moderate coattails, can flip the senate, have ew as vp or in the cabinet, step away in four, and put the younger ew into the presidency, with a dem senate and congress, then things will get done, things that bernie wants but could never ever achieve, things that the country desperately needs/requires, will be possible.
We'll be ready for a President Warren when she is chosen by Joe Biden for vice president. Or he could choose Camilla Harris. They both have the most important qualification for vice president. They have teeth! That's far more important than gender.
1
I find the idea that a woman and/or a person of color should be "on the ticket". The vice-president is primarily an honorific job. Why should a basically meaningless job go to a woman and/or person of color? m
Moreover, can any supporter of Warren think of a beer role for her than Majority (or even Minority) Leader of the senate?
Also, think of what a Sanders presidency would mean. In 4 years we will have gone from a black president to a mentally and emotionally handicapped president to a Jewish president. Sound like diversity to me.
And if young voters are saying that they prefer a democratic socialist candidate over one who says she is proudly and unabashedly a capitalist, then I am thrilled!
This is fine and I appreciate this column but didn't Warren receive more votes from the Editorial Board to get its endorsement?
And weren't you the one who denied her the win?
What were you thinking when you did that?
4
We are ready for a woman president today.
Hillary Clinton was a few votes short. Other candidates will come in the future.
We will never be ready for a President Warren. She did it to herself. Lousy candidate. Naive. Savaged Mike Bloomberg. Good bye and good riddance.
Elizabeth Warren lost as a lousy candidate. Lets end the wake.
1
Well apparently when Democratic women (at least ) vote for her in the Democrats race, and then enough other US voters are agreeable to her left wing views.
2
Well, I am. She can start today.
2
Sexism is absolutely a factor, all the time and not just during election season. I have talked about this repeatedly with my three sisters (two of whom voted for Warren) and my 83-year-old mother, who also voted for Warren.
But last time I checked, Amy Klobuchar is a woman. Why no tears and outrage when she pulled out? Does sexism only count as a factor for certain types of women, from certain parts of the country, with certain political views? Maybe?
There are many people, myself included, who long to see a woman elected president, but who decided they preferred other candidates. These are smart, thoughtful people, media-savvy people, who were not manipulated by anyone and who are not sexist or misogynistic. Is anyone who did not support Pete Buttegieg homophobic? No.
I would argue that some of this mourning is a bunch of people realizing that a huge chunk of people just don't agree with them. Life is full of big disappointments, some of them really painful. Wallowing on Facebook gets you nowhere.
1
I remember first wondering whether Elizabeth Warren could stand up to Trump's "Pocahontas" jibe. And I thought a lot of people would fall for it. I myself am only a little Jewish but take great pride in it, and I am constantly hearing people tell me I'm not Jewish. So I sympathized. Then after her surge in the summer, I thought she had a real chance. Maybe she will wind up as the Vice President candidate for the Democrats. She would be a great choice. She's charismatic, smart, kind. If we could do it all over again, what a contender she could have been.
1
More than half the US population is female. Women can elect anybody they want.
Exit polls in the Massachusetts primary showed only a quarter of democrat women voting for Warren.
3
Where would a 5 year old get the idea that a woman could not be president? From her parents? Do they talk politics in kindergarten?
1
I, as a man, state the following: Hillary Clinton was the most qualified "woman," actually human being, to ever run for president. She had insights on the White House from more perspectives, with more varied experience, and demonstrating more intellect and humanity than any other candidate. And "women" voted for Trump.
So I'm sick of woman complaining about whoever. Warren came in third in her own state. Where do you get off trying to say she should be the president? Your "yapping is forgettable!" Your "burning fury" is your own issue. When it comes election time you better support whoever's opposing Mr T. for all of humanity.
1
Unfortunately for Warren, she was not the right woman at the right time. She's very good in the Senate and she will continue to do good work there.
The right woman is Governor Gretchen Whitmer. She will be the VP. And then she will run in 2024.
Let’s not forget that a woman won the Presidency by 2,864,974 votes in 2016. The candidate with the highest popular vote should be the winner. It is well past the time to get rid of the Electoral College (EC)!
The Founding Fathers created the EC because they didn’t trust direct democracy. “James Madison worried about what he called “factions,” which he defined as groups of citizens who have a common interest in some proposal that would either violate the rights of other citizens or would harm the nation as a whole.”
The stable genius (SG) has violated our rights often and has caused harm to our nation in so many ways. Now his incompetence is endangering the health of our citizens. Had the 2016 electors truly cared about our nation they would have voted to protect us from the likes of the SG. But the electors like the GOP failed in their duty to protect us.
Maybe I am naïve but I think that decent Americans are fed up with the SG. I think Warren could have won the GE. She’s already proven that she is far more intelligent and component than the SG. He continues to show his lack of empathy and his lack of qualifications to be the leader of our country.
I hope the Dems learned that they need to pay more attention to the states that HRC overlooked. They need to win these while we still have the EC. If Dems still don’t get this then it won’t matter who the nominee is in the fall.
SEE: factcheck.org/2008/02/the-reason-for-the-electoral-college/
We already would HAVE had a woman POTUS in 2016 had it NOT been for Bernie Sanders!!!!! with his divisive anti-establishment one-note propaganda.
Why so few people seem willing or able to connect the dots as to this matter and hold him responsible is utterly amazing to me.
As for 2020, had it not been for an effort to stop Bernie, Biden probably would not have even run, much less been resurrected
Stop blaming men and start blaming Bernie!
Also blame white married women, they went for DJT.
2
Sorry Michelle, she was just too angry and shrill. Her attacks on Bloomberg were vicious and political.
1
Warren was shrill. Warren was not likable. And she was way too far to the left of the center of the Democratic Party. She attacked capitalism, but denied she was doing so. Her plans were unattainable and unfinanceable. She got 5% of the black vote, the “core” of the Democratic Party. And, the coupe de grace, she came in 3rd in her own home state of Massachusetts. The people who know her best turned away from her. Warren lost fair and square.
If women want to be the same as men, they need to learn to take the hits “like a man,” and not go crying to mamma that “it’s because I’m a woman.”
So long as women play the “woman card,” they will be treated like women.
2
Despite what Dianne Feinstein believes, I think this nation's first female president is closer than you think. Feinstein, ever the Hillary champion, believes if Hillary, of all women, cannot win this nation's highest office, well heck, who can??? One of Feinstein's many faults is her inability to recognize just how toxic Hillary's steamer trucks of self-imposed baggage she was tooting to her own peril. This doesn't even include her inability to campaign. She absolutely ceded daily press coverage of the 2016 election to Trump's ambitions. I don't know how many times, while watching MSNBC, I'd ask myself, "where's Hillary?" But even given all of the negatives she proudly availed to the electorate, she still managed to win the popular vote. Can and will there be a female president of the United States? Absolutely, so long as she isn't Hillary Rodham Clinton. I would've been proud of a President Warren or President Klobuchar, even a President Buttigieg, but unfortunately this year will not allow for an experimental prototype, we need a proven model to maximize our chances of crossing the finish line victorious.
I voted for a woman in 2016 and I will vote again, write in my vote, for a woman in 2020, that being Elizabeth Warren. This vote will be cast in the spirit of the millions of women on the planet who in this day and age still are treated as property, like garbage, like they don't exist.
2
Women in america, just ask yourselves a few questions: why is not ERA, the law of the land? who doesn't want to pass it? who benefits from not having ERA? If white men in this country don't want to pass ERA that would benefit (principally) their own white women; imagine how people of color feel or think about elections or electing candidates that never address the issues of "all americans". So do you still need an answer to the question that this article posts?
2
Is it not the case that the reason EW is no longer in the race is that not enough of her fellow Democrats voted for her?
2
never never never. She's too radical and she has zero charisma. Not only that, she's a bigger teller of tall tales than Trump is. Her ridiculous proclamation that she was Native American wasn't a harmless little lie or an exaggeration, it was nothing less than a scam she ran to help her career. While she and Harvard may claim it made no difference, that's just a coverup. She went from a position at a second tier school (U of H) with a law degree from a 2nd tier school (Rutgers) and within about a decade after she discovered her real identity (in her thirties) and staked her claim as a Cherokee, she somehow ended up with a full professorship at Harvard which doesn't happen in academia -- unless you have something so brilliant on your resume (she didn't) or are in some other way are special (being Native American and female, what a combo).
She has the most annoying public persona of any of the dem candidates this year. Her arm waving, her behavior at the debates (no call on me, see I'm waving my hand).
Moreover, she won't get to run again until 2024. Possibly, Biden, if the nominee, may make her the VP to appeal to the wackos on the left and then he may not make it to a second term. But if he does, she wouldn't be able to run until 2028 when she'd be 79 and would turn 80 within the first six months of her term -- if she won. Unlikely that will fly.
But I don't think that ticket (Biden-Warren) will beat Trump.
3
America will never have a female president as long as they run on being female. No-one cares about your genitalia. It does not enter into what makes a competent leader whatsoever.
People who vote for Trump want a daddy figure to take care of everything. I could argue the same for Biden. Their vote is predicated on perceived competence. People vote for Bernie because they want change, not a maintenance of the status quo. People voted for Hillary and Warren because they lack male genitalia. That's never going to be enough. Every discussion I see about Warren has primarily centered the novelty of her being a 'Female Candidate'. Until that stops you won't ever see one.
2
If you're beginning criteria for who should be president is the candidate's gender, you're probably going to not get very far. The country has too many more important issues to consider than whether the candidate has a vagina or a penis.
O.K., an old white guy here.
I have been truly impressed with Elizabeth Warren and contributed money to her campaign. She was clearly not an ordinary politician, in that she had genuinely analyzed the important issues facing the nation and drafted detailed and plausible plans to deal with most of them.
But... First, there was her worrisome mishandling of the Medicare for All issue, which anyone (especially Warren) must have realized was not going to be anything but a slam dunk. Yes, she walked back her initial unrealistic claims and acknowledged that Medicare for All would be a long tough slog to be pursued over many years. She still had my support, but with a dent in her armor.
It was her venomous attacks on Bloomberg that abruptly ended my support. They were brutal and utterly, utterly unnecessary. Worse yet, parts of that assault were marginally dishonest. Had she been a man making that kind of attack on a fellow Democratic candidate, I would have had a similar reaction.
In case there is any doubt of my position, I would have voted for Warren in a flash over hot-air Bernie. Unlike Bernie, she's everything Trump is not: smart, articulate, well informed, thorough, strategic, likeable, and (most of the time) highly plausible as a national leader. I don't understand why she felt it was her assigned role to take down Bloomberg, but it revealed a side of her that made support far more difficult.
Regretful.
3
I’m an old feminist, a rabid Democrat, a woman of a certain age. I was devastated when, despite earning 3 million more votes than Trump, Hillary did not get elected. The election was so gendered, misogynist, lookist, that hundreds of doctoral theses will be written about it.
Elizabeth Warren lost not because of the issues that plagued Hillary Clinton but because of her political positions. She is always eager for a fight in a climate that calls for reconciliation and the reconstruction of our government torn apart by not one complete Trump administration.
Being a good politician isn’t the same as being a good idea person. If you can’t get your agenda passed your ideas are likely to get bypassed. Liz is wedded to her agenda and in the mix did not resonate with voters, even in her own state.
She lost because that far left agenda, while smart and not wrong, isn’t what the electorate wants right now in this historical space. It has nothing to do with pantsuits.
70
Like Hillary Clinton, Sen Warren was a lackluster candidate, and gender has nothing to do with that. Warren comes across as forced affect like Clinton, over the top gesturing, waving her arms like she is having a fit. However her worse mistake was the tendency to lecture constituents, that’s great for the classroom, but comes across as condescending to many people. When she flipped out on Mike Bloomberg in the second debate she lost me. Bloomberg is no angel, but he is not Trump ether. Now if she really cares about the “little” people in America she will endorse Biden (who is a dullard, but at least he’s not Trump).
3
Hillary Clinton is actually a woman who won the nomination, won many States, and won the popular vote for President. Liz Warren is a woman who attributes her failure to win any State to the fact that she is a woman. But Hillary is also a women who actually won States, won the nomination, and actually won the popular vote for the presidency. So in what sense did Liz fail to win any State because she was a woman, when Hillary did so much better than Liz did? That is a head scratcher.
2
The wrongness is that the opponent was not worthy. A very sad thing to know, but it is true. He was not an opponent worthy of Hilary Clinton. He is not an opponent worthy of Elizabeth Warren. This is where we are. The bar is now so low. Men should hold worthy women in the same regard that women hold worthy men. Why can it not be?
2
Elizabeth Warren’s debate exchange with Bloomberg was crass and as petty as any Trump tweet.
For those of us who are sick of the politics of seek and destroy invective it was another nail in the coffin of a candidate who lied about being a minority, lied about being fired for being pregnant and whose plan for healthcare didn’t add up.
I am a 63 year old Hispanic woman. I would like a president - woman, man, gay, straight, brown, etc..who is more than a master of cheap shot politics.
1
There's a bit of hypocrisy involved in the editorial moaning about Senator Warren's withdrawal from the race, because the mainstream press is only concerned about women advancing if they have the correct, which is to say liberal, politics. One need only point to the vicious attacks on Sarah Palin by the press after she was nominated by John McCain for the Vice Presidency. No one seemed upset about a higher "level of scrutiny" then. If the Ambassador Nikki Haley runs four years from now? She will endure the same type of assault because her political record is not what those in the press want to see for a first female anything. As far as the Vice President's veep pick, one has to look for a nominee from a red state with a proven record of winning elections and governmental experience. Although I would promote Senator Claire McCaskill from my home state, who was swept aside in the 2016 elections, I believe a good, albeit risky, choice would be Secretary Julian Castro.
I was raised to try to see everyone as a human first and when possible get to know them as an individual. identity politics inherently feel wrong to me. partisanship, tribalism, nationalism are all examples of groups walling themselves off. So it's tempting to say further dividing the human race into smaller groups isn't going to help anyone. But society is already making these divisions and those who aren't in the dominate groups are hurting. So do you embrace the reality that these groups are already being defined and try to empower them, knowing it will create a power struggle with some other groups? Or do you try to unteach the group categories, knowing you are ignoring certain realities and producing change at a glacial pace, if at all? I don't know. i can only imagine what it's like not be a white guy. The worst I get is that maybe a doctor or a teacher talks directly to my wife the whole time they are discussing something important about our children. And so I'm also now dutifully trying to be aware of when my group gets the favored out comes. This has an effect that I'm much more aware that I'm a white guy group member then I am just me. So there's the rub. Biden is a presidential candidate, Warren is a female presidential candidate. And this whole comment is probably mansplaning. its not clear to me how to be in the world anymore and maybe that's okay. I don't know.
2
I would include the Saturday Night Live parodies of the female candidates. The were more derisive and cynical than the male ones. Funny, sure. And if you’re running for President, I suppose you have to be able to take the heat in the kitchen. But the caricatures were just as severe as that of Trump by Alec Baldwin — and he already is President. And SNL’s Bernie Sanders, by Larry David is not as biting, rather a kind of endearing buffoonery. And several actors have played Biden so far, and they haven’t quite got him. This is powerful air-time, worth $100 million in ads Women might be able to ridicule other women more sneeringly and scathingly than men can to men. Maya Rudolph’s portrayal of Kamala Harris was lethal. It’s a Mean Girls thing. Ditto for SNL against Clinton in 2016.
Never. Warren was a terribly flawed candidate. I'm actually surprised she made it as far as she did. Her claim of native American ancestry really hurt her credibility. Bernie Sanders didn't have similar problems and he lost to Hillary Clinton who was one of the most flawed candidates to ever win the Democratic nomination for president. The last time I checked, Hillary was a woman.
69
US will be ready for a President Warren when enough citizens cast their vote her, first at the primaries and then at the presidential election.
1
The biggest problem going forward is that her Senate seat isn't safe, so if she were to leave it to go into someone's Cabinet the Dems might lose that seat.
She is a great Senator. I am grateful she serves so brilliantly, and hope she stays for many a year.
She appealed to the best in all of us. Sorry she won't be President, worried that the first President might actually be a Republican, maybe Nikki Haley in 2024.
Hugh
36
@Hugh Massengill
The first female President will be a good candidate. Hillary and Elizabeth were "terrible" candidates and neither ready for prime time. Look at Bloomberg, spent half a billion to get embarrassed as NOBODY likes him. The middle of the country, democrat and republican, despises NE Liberals and will punish your party, again, for running them. We welcome Joe as your candidate. He is struggling at this point to remember "his" name! I would suggest giving up now and working towards 2024, when you will lose again!
Even if she became president she would have a reactionary congress to deal with.
Unless people stop voting against their interests and change congress, no progressive president will succeed.
31
I liked Warren, at first, even though I thought the CFPB was one of the worst ideas ever. Well, maybe that is an exaggeration, but even so.
In any event, Warren was running for President, a difficult and unusual job. She did her best, I assume, to achieve that result, and apparently failed. She simply did not get enough people to "like" her as a candidate. Is she competent? I think so. And I am honestly interested in a more "socialist" approach to government and economics. Apparently not enough people in the USA agreed with me on that. Trying to figure out the "why" of this is a useful exercise, but simply complaining about the woman aspect seems mistaken. HRC got more votes than Trump.
This not entirely a "woman" issue. Not even close. It is worth talking about the woman issue here, and it is probably a factor. But there is more going on than just that.
44
Does anybody seriously think that a Democratic woman from Massachusetts would really have a chance for the nomination after the debacle of Hillary Clinton in 2016? East coast, Harvard law professor - she didn't have a chance. She has coastal elite written all over her. She would have been eaten up in the heartland. She couldn't even win her own state in the primary. It's all about getting the votes. And whatever the reason for her failure to do so, she's gone.
I hope that whoever gets the nomination will choose a woman for VP. There are plenty of talented women who would make great VP's and Presidents. The choice will probably be the presidential candidate in four years. Those old white guys won't live forever. Keep on plugging away. It will happen!
28
@Dick Franklin I think the reason she did not win her home state was that the writing was on the wall. I am not a Massachusetts voters, but I would have voted for Biden as I much prefer him to Bernie. If Joe had not had the South Carolina comeback, I think she would have done well there.
Yet another reason to allow ranked choice voting in all 50 states.
8
@Dick Franklin
She’s from OK and sounds like she’s from OK. She came to S. OH and blended right in. She went to a small town in WV next and, the crowd of Trump supporting men there liked her just fine. Anyone who ever heard her speak to a smaller audience and/or met her, doesn’t share your opinion.
9
When I think of who I would prefer to see in charge of the COVID19 response, I think of Warren, not Biden, not Sanders, and definitely not Trump.
I don't care about "Pocahantas" or whether she is schoolmarmish, or even the details of how to pay for M4A. I wanted a President who, faced with a challenge, would gather information, think, consult with experts, and make a rational decision with the good of the whole country in mind.
So now I'll vote for the Democrat I've got and not the Democrat I wanted. Waren had her weaknesses and made mistakes. But so does every candidate. We blew a great opportunity.
147
WRONG QUESTION, When will we be ready for a female president? Now that's the right question and the answer is NOW.
I had hoped Warren would be the one, but she went to the Dark Side. AOC is one, but she is too young and right now, we need her in the house. I wish she was the Speaker right now. Tulsi Gabbard is a good one, but she is young and we need her in the House. If I had to choose a running mate for Bernie, I would like to see Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) Then in 2024 I could see Lee and AOC on a ticket together
2
I wanted to vote for Warren, and I bought her t shirt and put her bumper sticker on my car. It’s still there. However, to claim that she lost because she is a woman is to claim you know why people voted. A vote is an amalgam, however, even in the case of a single voter. There is too much noise in the system and too small a sample size to say we know why this highly competent woman did not advance. She came off as professorial. She did not try to remake the Democratic Party, as Sanders is attempting. Lots of reasons, one of them gender. I don’t trust pollsters and I don’t trust pundits to know, and the more they say they know the less I trust. Remember the polls of 2016.
6
Most people crying over Warren's departure from the field are missing the point. Of course there's never just one reason someone loses, but in this election cycle, with so many people sick of the toxic climate Trump has brought to our country, what stands out is the desire among many to come together, to heal this nation, to find a safe ground. It's a message that Biden brings. Warren may one day have her day, but it ain't today and it's not because she's a woman.
4
Perhaps we'll be "ready" for an Elizabeth Warren when The Times ends its war against progressive candidates. It has been waging a war against Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for months now.
Tell your reporters and pundits to treat progressive candidates with respect, not derision. Perhaps then Americans will begin taking a serious look at the next Elizabeth Warren.
8
America was ready for a woman president in 2016, when Hillary was the Democratic nominee and won the popular vote. But the only time that she's mentioned in this article is when she lost the 2008 nomination to Barack Obama.
I guess that ignoring history makes these sorts of articles more compelling.
12
I voted for a woman for president in 2016 and she won the popular vote, so it is clear that a woman could be elected president, and will. In politics, there are two kinds of issues that voters must come to terms with - things that keep you up at night and things that don't. Things that keep you up at night include job security, availability of health care, affording the rent or mortgage payments, etc. The sex of the president is not one of those issues. If Warren had been the Democratic nominee this year, she would have my vote. Same for Harris. The important issue to me, the one that keeps me up at night, is that Trump could very well get re-elected. Therefore, I support the Democrat whoever it is. Period.
16
Warren made significant mistakes. It should've been no surprise to anyone that ending private health insurance is controversial and could cost votes. Warren came to that conclusion herself and changed her approach, but her handling of the health care issue cost her a lot.
9
So, the Cottles and Megan Garners (the Atlantic) of the world will tell us that Warren was yet another victim of sexism. As far as I know, Warren’s approval rating among men was higher at the beginning of the campaign than at the end, as a percentage of total support. I am among those men that fell away. I actually sent a few bucks early. My early support suggests that I had no issue at all with the idea of a woman President, and I continued believing that Warren’s world is the one I’d most like to live in, even up to today.
Warren’s gender didn’t change, and I doubt that the 60-year trajectory of my attitude about women in leadership positions took a an abrupt detour over the past few months. Was it something she said? For me, yes.
The woman who ultimately wins big will be the one that can convince men and the women that love them that gender equality is not a zero-sum game, but a win-win. I have seen and believe that increasing gender parity is good for me as a man, and as a father of girls. Warren may believe that, but her language became too combative and suggested that power was something to be taken from men, rather than something that, once shared with women, would free them.
Maybe Warren is herself a little sexist.
5
Dems nominated a woman in 2016 and only a fluke election kept her out of the White House -- losing by 70,000 votes in 3 states after an unspeakably arrogant James Comey decided Justice Department policy didn't apply to him. This is not a nation that is ready to elect someone as left wing as Sanders or Warren. It may be sooner than we think. And you can speculate on why the left -- including AOC -- embraced Sanders and rejected Warren: Bernie's purity on principles clearly appealed to AOC and many others. I have no doubt that being a woman cost Hillary votes and costs any woman votes in some states. But let's not dismiss the philosophical divide in the party over what wins national electons.
8
As someone who has worked in public schools for 25 year, the child's comment, “But she’s a woman. She can’t be president.” It broke my heart." seems, frankly, made up.
Five year old children do not speak that way. We also work very hard in schools to teach this generation that women can do anything they want. Lastly, if the "child" did develop that belief, it would have come from the now-heartbroken parents.
Regarding the apparent glass ceiling, I found the debates to be a turning point for the candidates. Although I chalk up the notion that Warren was the most qualified progressive candidate and Harris and Klobuchar the most qualified moderates to the writer's own gender biases, I was so hoping that Amy Klobuchar would do well in the debates. It was such a letdown that she fell flat.
It's certainly essential that the President be able to communicate, debates demonstrate the candidates' assertiveness and argumentative natures. In the ideal oval office, the leader and her staff will work though problems as a group and not by the one-upmanship that are successful debates. Perhaps a candidate will be able to convince voters that the debates are a waste of time and communicate his / her positions through other media.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the last election. As the writers pointed out, it is hard to become president. The notion that we are stuck with old white guy choices because the electorate just doesn't respect women is flatly wrong.
4
I was originally enthusiastic about Warren's candidacy because she seemed smart and caring.
However, I felt that she never fully explained how she would reconcile her progressive plans with her stated support capitalism, which made her harder to trust that the true progressive (Bernie) or centrists (everyone else).
So, I ended up not voting for her in the primary, but still like her quite a bit, and would certainly have supported her in a general election.
Finding gender related excuses for the failure of women in politics may make you feel better and self righteous, but it will also prevent success in the future.
Warren lost her bid not because she was a woman but because she held half baked positions that she could not explain how she could follow through ( Medicare for all), and used every opportunity to pull the weapons of identity politics to the point of losing credibility ( claiming a Native American heritage, accusing Sanders for not believing elect-ability of women as president and Bloomberg for being rich, treating woman and African Americans badly).
Her worldview as she expressed during those debates was limited to restricting and punishing the entrepreneurs of this country for any excuse that is around. She also came across as an angry person with no warmth or sense of humor. Ultimately I perceived Warren as an insincere and power hungry politician and that is why I would never vote for her. Not because she is a woman.
6
Outside of a very select group of people, Warren wasn't relatable. Her delegate count reflected this. However those so concerned that a woman be our next president were too blinkered to see this.
4
My whole family was ready to vote for Ms Warren until the last debate. We all watched together and waited for her to move on beyond Bloomberg but somehow she couldn't see beyond Bloomberg. We all felt that she was missing the forest for the tree and couldn't really talk about the country, the international relations, education, healthcare or even women and children issues. We never saw any candidate as male or female but as perspective president. In the last election we all voted for Ms Clinton.
I doubt the glass ceiling came in her way, it was Ms Warren who came in her own way.
11
I'll be the last to dismiss sexism and gender bias. Yes, gender is always a factor. But, there are other factors we shouldn't overlook. After all, Hillary won the popular vote in 2016, so it isn't impossible for a woman to become president.
Warren's loss is due to two factors. First, she positioned herself as a progressive alternative to Sanders, who has a larger-than-life cult following. Second, Warren's message didn't resonate with sufficient numbers of voters. It's generally recognized that you can't campaign on the economy when most gross economic measures are showing that the economy is strong and the unemployment rate is low.
Elizabeth was my preferred candidate, one who I felt could be the "unity candidate", and the best president. I donated to her campaign. I was a volunteer for her campaign for senate in 2012, when I lived in Massachusetts. But as I listened to her stump speeches this time, I kept shaking my head, "How is she going to win the hearts of those people she's fighting for by attacking financial predators and the upper 1%?"
We may hate Trump, but he's a clever politician. In simple language he tells people what he plans to do for them. "Coal miners, this is what I'll do for you. Farmers, this is what I'll do for you. Xenophobes, I'm going to build a sky high wall."
Sorry I couldn't be more supportive of women at this disappointing time. I too would love to have a woman as president, and now. But a candidate's message must resonate.
10
Warren was my choice till the Medicare for all mistake. I am reminded of Aurthor Selizenger description of FDR "first class character second class intellect." Warren reversed that. Wilber Cohen my professor at Michigan remarked that politics is doing not thinking . Her failure was most unfortunate.
4
I can empathize with the mourning but there's some unwillingness here to confront the harder questions about Warren's defeat. She had a lot going for her (and I originally supported her) but that's just the price of admission. Here are some points Cottle should be looking at:
1. The voters who knew her best and not just as a Presidential candidate, in Southern NH and in Massachusetts, did not want her. Why?
2. The research I have seen showing it is harder for women is not that pertinent. The issue is the attitudes of Democratic voters. Not some cross section of the US. If we asked a cross section of the US, the gay candidate would not do as well as he in fact did in the Democratic nomination process.
3. You might look specifically at the attitudes of the left wing of the Democratic Party because that's where Warren tried to win. I was hoping that she would be more center left but she went left. And at the attitudes of the young left and minorities where Bernie clobbered her.
4. You might look specifically at the attitudes of women. All this talk about sexism makes it sound like a conspiracy of the patriarchy but the Democratic voters are mostly women.
5. Did double standards really hurt Warren? She played the woman card as an asset, like when she sent her NH surrogates out to attack Buttigieg for declaring victory in Iowa which they claimed was an exercise of male privilege. Plus, there are Democrats who want to elect a woman.
3
Why aren’t women voting for women?
Other than particular reasons mentioned here and elsewhere, woman tend to be pragmatic on practical matters, especially when it comes to their families. In this circumstance a number of women who may have preferred to vote for a woman opted instead to vote for the person who they felt had the best chance of winning the general election where the goal of defeating a greater threat to them and their families was of more importance than other considerations such as exactly who or who they are. In this way they may have made the same decision many men did.
4
I think in 2024, if the Trump nightmare is behind us, if we've staunched the bleeding, and if America is no longer synonymous with corruption and mental incompetence, and if something has been done legally so that a madman and his minions will ever again occupy the White House, then we can all sit together and have a picnic and think about what's best for the future, think about what represents the best of what America has to offer - and there'd be no better specimen of that than Elizabeth Warren.
But if Trump gets 4 more years, he'll nuclearize foreign policy, jail his critics destroy entire government agencies become so dangerous to the world that other nations will have to intervene, since we will have proven we are unwilling to do so.
2024 - that will be the time for Elizabeth Warren, unless we've slid into some sort of Weirmar Republic In The 1920s sideshow for the world to stop anyway it can.
2
@Michael Song Lim: I see no indications whatsoever that the institutional foundations of slavery in the US will ever be abolished without another hot Civil War.
I think Ms. Warren would have had a far better chance except for several factors: 1) Trump. If she'd been potentially running against a less toxic potential opponent, the urgency to win would have been less dramatic. This undercut her potential, largely because of: 2) We ran Hillary Clinton in the last election and she lost to Donald Trump. Like it or not, the memory of this is going to make people more cautious about running a woman candidate again than might be true otherwise, especially against the same Republican. A repeat performance is not what the Democrats want. A "crash-and-burn" of two women losing in back-to-back elections would be even more damaging to the idea of a woman president in the long run.
Finally, she did run on a platform that is very left-of-center to where the country as a whole is. She offered ideas and programs that would require a great expansion of both bureaucracy and largely unknown costs. While she did tend to pull back toward the center, compared to Bernie Sanders, that cost her in support of the progressive wing who favored Sanders' unwavering commitment to what he says. On the other side, moderates were left uncertain as to what her real intentions and plans were, so skepticism cost her there as well.
The larger point is that women need to keep running. We had more in this primary contest than ever before. Someday the stars will align as they did for Obama. But not this year.
3
Face it. Warren catered to the left wing of the party. She was too far left. She originally had solutions for problems that didn’t need those solutions for many of the Democrats who voted. Look at McCain and Romney, who when they were nominated moved too far right. Same thing too far in any direction is not going to get you elected. She also didn’t have enough money. I didn’t get requests for money from her until Super Tuesday. I did much earlier from Biden.
1
I agree with the statement that it is incredibly hard to have the right mix of both hard and soft skills to run this gauntlet that is the presidential election process. And the truth is, excellent, qualified people do not win because of the numbers--much like excellent students do not get into Yale.
The curious thing to me about this opinion piece is why its centered around Warren instead of Klobuchar?
I greatly preferred Klobuchar, both as a moderate that struck a practical tone, her extensive legislative record, and her wry humor. It wasn't because of her gender.
8
"Everybody wants to rule the world" is a striking lyric given us by Tears For Fears.
True that, no?
If so, then jealousy almost necessarily comes into play: If you're the boss, I'm the bossed. And deep down, I passionately dislike that: Who is he to tell me what to do? Why does he get the good life, fame, and fortune, and I get the dirty end of the stick?
Thus, we reject most people as leaders; we can usually find flaws with them quickly. Ronald Reagan was physically attractive, congenial, well-spoken, and famous in a popular line of work: movies. Most of us like movie stars; thus, he checked a lot of boxes.
Hillary Clinton was a lawyer: strike one. She was bossy, a know-it-all, not very attractive, and a woman: strikes two, three, four, and five. She's out.
Unless you're obviously way better than me in almost every category -- physical, social, financial, spiritual, etc. -- I refuse to bow to you unconsciously. I will find your weak spots and shout them from the rooftops.
More specifically, women have rarely been leaders in human history. Most men won't allow it, and many women would be jealous; it's just how many of us are made. It's hard to break out of our own worldview: It seems so right.
So, yes, I agree: It's very difficult for men to become a nation's leader; and it's even more difficult for women to do so: too many opposing factors.
It's changing a little, and it will continue to change, I predict, but I doubt that I'll see a female president in my lifetime.
I voted for a woman, Amy Klobuchar. Not because of gender, but because she understood clearly that the voters are too financially stressed to pay for the grand dreams and plans of Bernie Sanders, and the extravagant plans of mother Warren to pay everything for everybody. That's why Bernie will never win the presidency. The Democratic party will suffer the consequences of allowing a Communist Bernie Sanders to crash their party and take off with the free buffet. The country does not respect that.
4
@LHP
Unfortunately, the country wants to give the entire buffet to the billionaires, and too many people don’t see a problem with that.
5
Come on Michelle, Hillary won the general election and if it were not for her awkwardness and coming across as a phony who people just disliked she probably could have won the electoral one too. Two of the very close states (Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania) going the other and way would and we would have a different president right now. As far as Warren goes, she's in the same boat as Sanders, America just isn't ready for either of them. If Bernie wins the candidacy he will lose the election because America is not ready for the likes of him, his own party is not even ready for him. His good ideas for government may eventually trickle into the system but as far as abrupt changes go - fugeddaboutit...it ain't gonna happen. Is it safe to assume Trump has lost more supporters than he gained? You would think so, but we won't know until November.
4
I voted for a woman. It was not Warren. I thought my choice was the best (in fact the only choice) among all the others running including the men. She was never given a choice. The media saw to that. They had their favorites, the ones that would draw attention and sell media.
It's not the sex, its the person.
If I were to vote now, it would be a difficult choice as I find the two remaining candidates are not my choice. I had a second choice, a man, but likewise, he was never given any media attention during or outside the debates.
And, once again, in November I will hold my nose and vote for the person the Democrat elite think it should be, the next person in line and who the media think it should be.
4
If the vast majority of the Democratic voters of Massachusetts aren't ready for a President Warren--and presumably, they know her best--why should any of the rest of us be?
6
Have we forgotten that Hillary Clinton is a woman, that she was a Presidential nominee, and that she won three million more votes than our current President? Isn't that proof enough that Americans will vote for a qualified woman and that gender may not have been the primary issue that caused Elizabeth Warren to lose her bid for the Presidency?
10
Warren had better be Joes VP. I'll vote for him but I won't like him as president if he does not.
3
@no one I think its more likely to be Amy Klobuchar. She clearly demonstrated her competence through the campaign, and her legislative record is impressive.
4
vote for Trump then. Warren has a plan for everything.
It's ridiculously transparent that she's not in touch with what the voters need. I'm a man who would vote for a woman before a man but the 2020 female candidates aren't self aware. Nancy Pelosi would be the ideal candidate but she's too intelligent to run.
@M
That would be sad, since they’re both as exciting and inspiring as watching paint dry.
Had Warren offered an alternative to Bernie, she, not he, would be standing as the progressive candidate offering the party a clear choice between restoration and reimagination. Time after time, she just said "I'm with Bernie" and most poisonously to her campaign, on health care. She is brilliant, hard working, looks more like she's knocking on the door of 50 than 70, and with the CFPB, she showed us she knows how to make the system work for everyone, not just the wealthy and powerful. Bernie talks, she does. But TLTL. She squandered it. She misread the American mind. She offered a "fighter" when in its heart, the country wanted a healer. Yes getting Trump out will be a fight. A fight for every vote. A fight against the great Republican lie machine. But out he must go with Mitch McConnell's Senate majority under his arm. The debates are an audition for the job of President. Warren showed us she can be full-on attack dog. She passed the audition, but for the position of Vice President - the traditional attack role. Perhaps Biden will select her as his VP, though I doubt it. Initially, she ran an effective tactical campaign, but the strategic mistakes eventually caught up with her. This race was hers to lose, and she did. Not because of sexism, but because in the final analysis, on Super Tuesday, the great Obama coalition woke up, decided only one thing mattered - ousting Trump - and Biden was the better tool for the job.
2
@G James
E. Warren, and Sanders, simply missed that the country can not afford their grand schemes. Everyone is maxed out tax wise. Look at Connecticut, and arch-Democratic state, the local taxes are so high that it's driving house prices down, and most children of Connecticut can no longer afford a home of their own. That what it's all about. And no, free healthcare for everybody and free college forever, is not a high priority with overtaxed voters. It's a priority to those who want a free ride and live off the public payroll. like Bernie Sanders.
3
@LHP
Right now it’s just the billionaires who are getting a free ride. It’s time to change that.
3
I would have been very glad if Elizabeth Warren became President of the United States. I appreciate her intelligence and values. There is no question that gender bias remains a powerful force in the United States. But Senator Warren's campaign failed because of her own inadequacies as a candidate. On stage she was unable to explain her detailed "plans" in brief and clear statements and came across as lecturing. People have had enough of failed Democratic candidates like Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry who had similar issues.
5
@Alan Singer
The affable “everyman”, vague-on-details approach works for men. We haven’t found one that works for women yet. Hillary was faulted for being too vague and not “real” enough, Liz for the opposite: too wonky and too passionate.
1
The saddest thought concerning the two remaining candidates is the party being left with a candidate, if elected, will be a one term President and a candidate whose health care policy relies on the ACA that the GOP has fatally wounded. The outcome will rest on the choice of running mate in the end. Both candidates will require a vibrant, and competent running mate. If Biden were smart he would again consider Stacy Abrams. I believe that ticket would be unbeatable. At the moment I can't think of anyone to make Sanders more palatable to the general public.
2
@psrunwme Abrams took a few million from Bloomberg a couple weeks ago. For what? I used to think Abrams was the one candidate that could connect and was young enough to have a future, until she took the money. Nope.
2
@somsai Stacy Abrams runs an organization called Fair Fight which fights voter suppression. THAT is what Bloomberg’s cash is helping. And not every politician who accepts cash from the wealthy is a corporate shill or a sell out. Accept your allies. We need all the help we can get.
3
@somsai
So by taking Bloomberg's money to enrich her very important initiative to stop voter suppression, Abrams is forever tainted? How and why? Whatever you think of Bloomberg, at least in this instance (among many others) he's putting money into a cause that all progressives believe in. I suppose Abrams' initiative should just be expected to be successful on the basis of its merits alone? This is the USA. EVERYTHING worth fighting for takes lots of money.
This myopic insistence for ideological purity always manages to get in the way of progress. Politics requires a thing called compromise. Period. Get used to it, please.
3
It is apparently very hard to accept that a lot of people are actually quite content with the so-called traditional gender roles. And that they do not consider these in any way sexist or restrictive.
That, even if they accept the RIGHT of individuals to challenge these patterns, they're not ready or willing to act to support such a challenge and even less to plead for positive discrimination. Oddly enough, this even includes individuals who did overcome obstacles and bias.
So, what to do? Well, I imagine wait. And, if you're lucky in a few months time, start by having a female Vice-President and having her in charge of a high profile trans-departmental project.
Unless Trump is re-elected of course. Then all bets are off, as he may very well damage the US beyond repair... Both distinct possibilities, unfortunately.
1
The points folks keep repeating about the 'likeability" of women candidates like Warren and others are, sadly, truer than ever.
Behavior admired in men is excoriated in women. This age-old dynamic where smart, compettent women are allowed in positions that demand smarts, and organizational skills (which they have in spades) but never in the presidency itself has to change.
It will take the next generation to change it. As the boomer generation finally exits allowing younger people to step up and change ideas of who is electable or not, I fully expect stereotypes to lessen.
About time, given all the strong competent women on the world stage, who've demonstrated how many women like Warren are natural born leaders and managers.
5
@ChristineMcM
I agree with you some. But, I don't think any successful male candidates would have spent their debate time as Warren did in Nevada, vigorously bashing just about everyone else on the stage. Her behavior really is something of an outlier. And the most pugnacious of the men, Castro, did not do well at all. It may be that there were other reasons but I think voters didn't appreciate his attacks.
3
@ChristineMcM
Does anyone remember the 2016 election when a woman won the Democratic nomination and the popular vote?
1
@ChristineMcM
Leadership is in the eye of the beholder. Elizabeth Warren is no "natural born leader." A "natural born leader" does not behave like a virago on the debate stage as Warren did when she attacked Mike Bloomberg. Its ALL about presentation.
Ms. Warren is a smart, competent politician who has done great things for American consumers. But presidential material she is not.
3
Right now, the matter of prime importance is uniting to winning the Presidency. This overwhelming hand-wringing over gender is divisive and may mean another four of Trump. Women are on the march and must be unstoppable. There will be another day. We have only one shot at Trump and his enablers. Our legal system is under attack and being undermined. The longer Trump and co. are able to name federal judges and SC judges (lifetime appts.) the less equal the system,becomes. Everyone will suffer, most of all women and minorities. KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE GOAL, FEMALES! Play it wrong, and the Presidency might become a nice dream we once had. Just what Trump ordered!
6
I was ready to vote for Klobuchar, the other female candidate that gets no mention, who lead the polls and likely would have won MN had she not pulled out the day before the primary. I did not consider changing my vote to Warren for several reasons, gender not among them.
6
I detect a sense of entitlement running through this column and I find it quite irritating. Just like I found what I perceived strongly to be Elizabeth Warren's sense of entitlement irritating.
After Winston Churchill, Maggie Thatcher was perhaps the greatest prime minister in British history. I have absolutely no doubt that had Maggie been an American and run for the presidency that she would have won by a landslide.
Similarly, I have absolutely no doubt that when, in 20 years, my daughter runs for the presidency, that she will win.
For now, let's lose the sense of entitlement, which to my mind was summed up when Ms. Warren tearfully proclaimed on March 5 that "little girls will have to wait four more years" for a woman president. It may be longer than that.
19
@David H
Thank you for saying exacting how I feel. Ms. Warren and does not represent my more moderate views. It has nothing to do with gender. Ms. Sanders for whatever reason is able to promote and communicate those ideologies more persuasively. Ms. Warren's poor me, poor women communicates a message of weakness and dependency.
6
@David H Spoken like a true Republican/Trumpist. It may surprise you to know that a great many think Maggie Thatcher was among the worst prime ministers in British History. Setting her as an example of what female contenders for the highest office in this country should be is akin to saying 'Democrats need not apply.'
1
@David H
Thank you. As a woman, I found that to be true as well.
Warren played the sex card well. She was always mentioning it.
It troubles me to think that she believes girls, and especially young girls will be damaged because there is not a woman president.
Its almost like it doesn't matter who the woman is, just so it is a woman and not a man.
In my mind, that position is also sexist.
I don't choose a candidate solely because of sex, race, sexual orientation, religion or any other reason.
Having said that, I voted for a woman, not because she was a woman, but because I thought she was the most qualified to be president and it was not Warren.
3
I like and would vote fr Warren. Should she endorse and join with Sanders, she could well be the candidate most likely to take over in four years. Should she opportunistically play careful political games, she will only reinforce the negatives that inspire mistrust of her authenticity. I hope she will do what's right for the country.
3
Like Buttigieg and Klobuchar before Super Tuesday, Betsy Warren’s decision to withdraw her candidacy afterwards, was critical to Biden’s front-running position. Now when, not if, Biden wins the key primaries next week, these important next steps will demonstrate that Democracy, like the Virus, is a self-learning process of randomly interconnected parts of a network seeking to optimize its own favorable environmental conditions for growth. In that context of “survival of the fittest” according to an iterative decision-tree of critical choices to come, there are now only eight short months until the general elections for our democratic system to select its next President, House of Representatives, and Senate, as well as, numerous down-ballot positions. We must, thus, already prepare ourselves for the coming “battle of the streets” to defeat the GOP impediments to development in our Democracy, including not least Trump and his now vulnerable McConnell-Graham acolytes to rational growth.
3
Frankly, Warren may have "won" debates with an argument but she lost in the presentation. I felt she came off as a condescending school teacher. I've always thought of her as too idealistic to be President. I believe she would make a good VP or cabinet member, but not a President. She needs someone to bring pragmatism to her ideas. Obama did that for her. I think she has a bright future as a fighter in a Democratic cabinet.
13
@froneputt
Ah. Proof positive of Ms Cottle's point.
2
I have seen more media coverage about Elizabeth Warren since she dropped her campaign than I ever saw when she was actually running. Now that she’s no longer a threat I guess it doesn’t matter if we tell the truth about her and ourselves.
2
I disagree with the gender argument. I am a center left Dem and Warren was to liberal for me continuality talking about "her" plan about this and that all of which would never become law. I want to see a women president and Amy Klobuchar was my choice.
9
@Thomas Renner I would like to add that some people are just bad candidates which has nothing to do with race, sex, age or religion. I Think Warren was one and I also think Burnie is.
2
In 2016 I worked with great excitement on Hillary Clinton's campaign, not because she was a woman but because she truly was the best candidate. I thought like so many others that she would surely win. I would support and vote for another woman in a heartbeat, and believe the majority of our country would as well. This year, unfortunately, Elizabeth Warren was simply not the best candidate. Her ideas were extreme and would never have passed Congress. While she was empathetic, when she spoke I always felt like she was talking down to me, somewhat like a teacher who knew everything and just had to teach me would do, vs. listening to others. I hope she stays in Congress, she works hard and contributes in amazing ways there, but she wasn't the best candidate, male or female in my view. It's as simple as that.
4
I am a blue-collar worker in Ohio. Among my friends, co-workers, and such, I know no-one who votes based on gender. Not a single one. Are the readers of this paper somehow different?!
14
@Mikhail23 - " I know no-one who votes based on gender."
I grew up and live in New England with family in Massachusetts, NH, and Vermont. Some may think that means "east coast elites or liberals", take your pick. But while growing up, going to school, meeting people, adding members with marriage, I can tell you I am no stranger to "I won't vote for no woman".
My own father in law even railed against a female Vermont State Trooper as no woman should be in a position of authority over him. He was as blue collar as they come.
I've even the accusation of those saying that people shouldn't vote for someone just because she is a woman right before or after saying "I won't vote for no woman" which is the same as saying I will vote for someone because he is a man.
8
@Mikhail23
Mikhail, it is similar here in SC. This state elected Nikki Haley, not because of gender, but because of her politics. I voted against her, not because of her gender but because of her politics. I don't know a single person who voted based upon her gender.
Likewise, Tim Scott was elected to the Senate, not because he is black, but because he is conservative. And Graham has been elected and re-elected because he is conservative, despite persistent rumors that he is gay.
If gender, race, and rumored sexual orientation are indicators of a voter's politics, South Carolina is a progressive liberal state. But it assuredly is not.
3
@Mikhail23
Only liberals worry about gender politics. The country has moved on and the democrats haven't. Women have never gotten over Trump beating their prized, and very flawed, candidate Hillary, who expected a coronation. Women biggest anger was for the women who were vital to Trumps big win over their less qualified female candidate. The numbers for women and African Americans voting for Trump in 2020 will be even higher and will ruin your psyche for 4 more years.
I do not understand these articles about "why can't a woman get elected president." Four years ago Hilary Clinton won the popular vote and with out few twists of fate and the electoral college she'd be president today. The democrats nominated her, she ran and nearly won -- obviously a woman can be elected president, one basically was.
24
@Charles
In our system winning a majority is not sufficient to be elected as a Democrat. It is necessary for a Democrat to win a much more than a simple majority while Republicans can win with a minority. For Democratic woman to be elected she must win that "super" majority just as man must, but so far that hasn't happened.
1
@Marie
It’s not a super majority. It’s an electoral college majority. Everyone on the left thinks we should scrap it because it doesn’t always reward the real winner. And in 2016 the public had a clear preference.
I mean, she beat him by three million! Even after interference by a hostile foreign power and Comey’s ill-conceived last minute surprise!
5
@Charles
No Charles, "one basically wasn't" or she would be in the White House and not on her 4 year "denial and Whining" tour. Run garbage for candidates and this is what you get. The countries democrats did the correct thing and I hope Michelle Cottle noticed that it was the "middle" of the country democrats that dispatched this flawed democrat. These are the same people who don't want any of your liberal ideas to win. You guys are toast in November for good reasons!
In the current environment, and unfortunately, women have to clear a larger hurdle than do men. There are also some common sense rules that are useful to pay attention to when reaching out for leadership roles :
Rule # 1 : Know your audience
Rule #2 : Grow your audience
Rule #3 : Speak to more than just your audience
Rule #4 : Pay attention to perceptions. Don't let them become a drag
Rule #5 : Avoid sounding or looking impatient, let alone angry or confrontational
Ms. Warren undoubtedly understood these basic elements to be important. However, it seems as though she did not pay much attention to them.
It is not always those with the best ideas or abilities that win. It is those who can articulate it legibly, smartly and draw the largest audience to speak to.
There was also a bit of electoral math that was missing.
I see Warren's defeat as being more due to a lack of coherent messaging strategy and less due to continued gender bias.
Like it or not, Trump gets Rule #1 and takes it to the bank. The substance of his messages might be hollow and lousy but he knows how to deliver them.
From an election standpoint, It is better to be consistent than merely to be good.
6
@Plato
Totally agree Plato. I bet you are a man, not a woman. Something so basic, know what's important and what's not, seems to escape so many. The ironic thing is, Warren does not strike me as a person who would accept an uber helicopter mother to lead us thru the jungle either.
If Liz Warren is in front of a women's presidential effort, she would do well to take a good look back - to make sure she indeed has a following. Women talk a good game and complain buoyantly about male hegemony in politics but nonetheless the average woman in this country failed utterly to coalesce behind the candidacy of any of the very talented women who launched Democratic presidential candidacies this year. What is that about?? Are women so downtrodden? Are men so magnetic and mystical as leaders that US women cannot resist male candidacies?
Maybe its just me but I think there will be no women presidents unless and until US women choose to vote for women. And it looks like that ain't happening anytime soon. Tragic.
6
@wilt
I'm a man that votes for many women and I backed Warren since the beginning, because she knows how to pop assumptions created by Republicans, like the idea that CEO's create the wealth that is created by American workers and American infrastructure. Warren said "they didn't build that," because they didn't, something many Democrats refuse to say.
The numbers say that there are more female voters than male voters. If women were more open to voting for women, more women would be elected.
But when Trump attacked Warren with the insult (not), Pocahontas, I had to defend Warren from dozens of Democratic Party women on these very pages who accused Warren of identity politics and being "un-electable" because Trump would call her Pocahontas, as if he doesn't have a degrading nickname for anyone that dares to disagree with him.
You would think that more women would have pointed out that Warren was repeating her family history as told to her by her mother (the oldest kind of history in the world), gained no actual benefit from claiming native ancestry, and already had the position.
Trump bet her $1 million she couldn't prove it, so she did. Democrats attacked Warren, though Trump was the welcher.
It is centrist Democrats, including women, that helped Trump weaken Warren by blaming his "identity politics" on her, not him.
It is the Right, not the Left, that divides us by identity to expand their power over others, including women.
The Left argues AGAINST identity politics.
6
Please don’t forget that a woman won the popular vote in 2016 even though both men and women expressed thoughts about her “unlikability”. Warren made proposals that were outside the envelope of consensus in the US at this time, and those proposals were the essential part of her lack traction with the Democratic electorate. Bernie had all those voters based on a lifetime of activity.
She is a brilliant and principled thinker, and I bet her initiatives will influence this country more than those of most other people, especially Bernie. But with her as leader there would have been no chance of getting a congress willing to pass her program. Same for Bernie, and for the same reason he will never be president. It will either be Trump (if Sanders is the nominee) or Biden, not because of sexism but because of policy.
10
@Dan Pinkel of course this is a man agreeing with another man, so I expect there will be a lot of dismissive eye-rolling. Warren's MFA push scared off a lot of voters well before Super Tuesday. Yes, a lot of Dem voters are pro MFA. But a lot are basically happy with their insurance as is, are very concerned with how MFA will be funded, and how it will impact the 20% of the economy tied to healthcare. Even the very pro-MFA dems know that is a policy that would help, definitely not hurt, Trump in the general.
I didn't vote for Warren for the same reason I didn't vote for Sanders. I don't think they can beat Trump. It was not a gender thing. For me it wasn't even policy. It was all about getting rid of Trump.
5
@Dan Pinkel
If E. Warren were a brilliant thinker then she would advocate the needs of Democratic voters that hold this country together. Those with decent jobs that the pay taxes, health insurance, and other contributions that keep this country afloat. But no, the Democratic party seems hell bent on bleeding their heart for the losers, the illegals, the unfortunates who have fallen and can't get up at the tax expense of those who manage to keep themselves and theirs above water. The Democrats represent the inmates at the correctional institutions, not the soccer mom's and dad's who succeed at making a go of it in this turbulent world.
1
@Dan Pinkel
Do "brilliant" people lie about their cultural identity? Do "brilliant" people find solutions for the poor by stealing earned money from one group to "give away" to another. Any thinking person who watched this government spend Trillions on Johnson's Great Society know these programs fail because they don't change the outcomes of their recipients. Tried and failed miserably. The
socialism" card has been fully played and Bernie will fail again. You guy have nothing buy lies!
2
Bernie was running for a second time and had both the name recognition and the aura of the original.
Warren lost because in essence she was running against Bernie.
Her positions were those shared by approx. 50% of the dem base. Unfortunately for her, much of that base was already captured by Bernie.
Sexism has nothing — nothing! — to do with it.
14
@J
It truly WAS sexism. If sexism is a qualified man winning and a less qualified woman losing. A woman will be President and it will be a good thing. The wrong women, Hillary and this disingenuous loser will not be the first one. That was decided by YOUR voters. Can't blame the Republicans for your losses!
PS: Old people vote and when you threaten our Medicare because Congress can't pass workable health care for younger people we vote against you!
1
I understand the wish to have a woman President in the same way I understand the wish, now fulfilled, to have a black candidate elected President. However the first criterion must be met. A candidate for President should make a good President. I did not vote for several black candidates in the past because I did not think they would be good Presidents. I voted for Obama because I believed he was the best choice. If the women who are bemoaning the fact that Warren is not going to be elected President had supported Klobuchar we might have a solid female candidate for President now. It is interesting to me that they lament the fact that Warren is no longer in the race do not mention Klobuchar who actually had a program that could have passed in the House and Senate as opposed to Warren who could never explain how to pay for her plans. They seem less disappointed that there is no longer a woman in the race than that THEIR woman candidate is no longer running. And maybe that is why we no longer have a woman candidate.
10
@Crawford Long And also to your point, Elizabeth Warren placed 3rd in her home state of Massachussetts . I cannot tell you what the voters there were thinking but I can tell you they know who she is better than everyone else and they could not see her in the White House. Gender had little to do with their decision to not vote for her. Over the months I vacillated in my support for Earren. In the end it was her waffling over how much her Healthcare plan would cost that deterred me from sticking with her. Warren's political career is far from over. I can see her paired with Biden on the big ticket in November or appointed to a level cabinet post position.
5
@Crawford Long
Great take as the democrats control who runs for President in their party and they know Elizabeth wasn't Presidential material. Imagine Hillary running and NOT being Bill's wife. She would have never made it to the primaries. When the democrats find a female candidate who can inspire and run on a record that doesn't include lies and mis-truths, they will have a winner. Warren has gotten way past her intellect already career wise. She will be well paid to give her endorsement. Bye Liz!
1
@Crawford Long
Exactly. The media ignored Klobuchar all year because, I suspect, she’s moderate—a white moderate at that. Did the NYT even cover her before its dual-endorsement?
1
As you said, "I feel like crying while at the same time punching something." Her interview with Rachel Maddow was helpful. Nevertheless, I'm curiously furious.
3
I am a woman and I never supported Warren. I listened to everything she said in each of the debates and I rarely heard her talking specifics on her plans versus sweeping generalities of what she wanted to accomplish even when pressed. I found Klobachar much more appealing because she tended to delve into specifics to back up her policy stance. It is only since Warren dropped out of the race that I heard her describe herself as somewhere between a pure progressive (Sanders) and a pragmatist (Biden). If she had talked more about this idea of creating a new Democratic lane in the debates and backed it up on specifics on the details and cost of her policy proposals she would have been much more compelling. Also, why did she never delve into describing her role in creating the Consumer Protection Agency during the debates? This might have made her a more compelling candidate as it is a great example of what it means to be both progressive and pragmatic.
11
@Valerie
I could never get past Klobachar's abuse of staff. I have worked for women like that. I did not trust her. And she seemed fake midwest nice, much of that fake when you live in the midwest to be honest.
1
I would be careful not to define Warren’s failure to lead the race as a direct result of sexism. I liked her early on but then was turned off by how she framed her policies as us versus them. And I did not believe in some of her policies to move the country forward. She did not pivot toward the center. And frankly I don’t need to be reminded how unfair the world is for those on the bottom. What inspires me is a leader who can make me feel good about the future without hypercritical attitudes. This is also why I do not find Bernie Sanders a good choice for president. Nancy Pelosi represents the leadership we need.
11
Biden saw Warren and Klobuchar up front and saw their style, determination, smartness and many other favorable traits. I would be very surprised if Biden does not pick one of them for Vice President and the other for an important cabinet position. They can do immeasurable good for the ticket in the general election and be extremely important additions to a Biden White House where Joe will make them as close to equal partners as can be.
3
@Harold R Berk I think either of them would be an excellent choice, but I favor Klobuchar. She is from the midwest and would help win states there. But the biggest reason is that we cannot afford to lose Warren in the Senate. Massachusetts has a republican governor and would appoint a republican to replace Warren. That would hinder democrats' chances to take the Senate.
8
@Kertch
You are continuing to talk about 2 losers no longer in the race! Is this why democrats continue to lose? Your own people, democrats, spoke! Believe them!
Disagree, Biden needs a black woman as his VP choice. This would lock the African American vote (especially Stacy Abrahms, since most African Americans know her election was stolen).
I am a 60-something male. I wanted to support Warren. I really did. I truly believe it is time for a woman to be elected President. I also think she is very smart and would have been a formidable opponent to the orange disaster currently infesting the White House.
But as Warren's campaign unfolded, I lost my enthusiasm. Why? because I felt that Warren lacked convictions of her own and was intent only on positioning herself between Bernie and the moderates. She had a plan for everything, but it seemed contrived and she seemed personally committed to ... not much. And by chaining herself to medicare for all she alienated herself from moderate democrats and all republicans. I began to doubt she could win against Trump.
IMO Warren lost support, not because she is a woman, but because she failed to convince most democrats that she was the candidate best suited to defeat Trump.
I believe a woman will be president, and soon. I expect the democratic nominee, either Biden or Sanders, to choose a woman as his running mate. That is a huge leap in the right direction.
11
I don't discount the gender issue, but in this case I would suggest that Warren lost not because she was a woman, but because Way Left Democratic voters viewed Sanders as a purer, less compromising Way Left progressive candidate. Like Trump did in 2016, Sanders plows ahead, blinders in place, attacks at the ready, with an unrelenting self-assuredness and an unwillingness to change or admit error.
In today's political climate, the extremes in each party seem to gravitate to this approach. In 2016 Trump trounced more conservative, much more thoughtful, better funded, better organized Republican candidates in the primary in much the same way. Bernie is like a Way Left Trump and his most fervent base greatly resembles the most fervent Trump supporters. Warren's more intellectual, thoughtful brand of progressiveness positioned her like Jeb Bush was to Trump in 2016. Warren met the same fate as Bush, for many of the same reasons.
9
I was not a warren fan as I thought her defunding charter schools (much less vouchers) and proposing free public college showed a desire to cater to teacher unions and public university unions at the expense of any other option Her answer to the father that said he sacrificed to pay his kids loans, second job, no vacations and where is his reward was something like "the fact that you could do it is it's own reward". One thing that amazes me is that when a candidate says they have huge phone banks and people knocking on doors is that NOBODY picks up their phone or answers their doors anymore. She (and others who say this) don't really get it
2
Thank you for adding evidence to the case. We don’t need personalities and politicized gender roles, much less reproductive organs, weighing in to quantify the qualifications of leaders’ ability to govern. We don’t need these things ANYWHERE in a valid and viable form of modern governance. We need better tools.
3
A lot of us are ready for an Elizabeth Warren presidency right now and our admiration for this truly exceptional person is in no way diminished by recent events. But campaigns can be strange and unpredictable and this brilliant and engaging woman was hurt by the probably unrealistic Medicare for all position from which she tried, with only some success, to extract herself.
What is convincing about Senator Warren is that she justifiably believes that she can and should improve the world and our lives. What more can we ask?
Me, I was looking forward to her eviscerating Donald Trump if he tried to stalk her on the debate stage as he did Hillary Clinton, but I suspect he’d have weaseled out of debating her.
14
@Walt
We agree overall, but on that Medicare for All issue --
Elizabeth Warren adjusted her approach to be more honest than that of the other candidates, who subscribe to the polite fiction that they can get *anything* passed 100% intact. She showed flexibility, which is exactly what the best project managers and executives display. She was also honest in tailoring the proposal slightly, which violated the taboo of admitting that presidents do not have dictatorial power (though Trump is working on that).
Bias is covert and its expression taboo. You won't see people saying "I don't like Obama because he is Black," or "Elizabeth Warren is too female." What you will see is tiny mis-steps blown out of proportion, or nebulous criticisms like 'unelectable' or 'unlikeable' which are just fig leaves for sexism or racism.
21
I'm a woman. I'm getting so sick all the crying over Warren dropping out, as if it is some disaster for all of womankind. Give me a break.
I did not want to vote for Warren not because she is a woman, but because I'm a moderate, and I did not like her ideas, and she had ideas that I felt HURT ordinary women.
She advocated for trans girls in girls sports, disadvantaging real girls, and her school policies on Gender Identity would have compromised parental rights, including the rights of mothers. Hard no.
She advocated for higher taxes to fund government regulated childcare. The majority of women don't want this; we want the money and flexibility to choose their OWN childcare / work life balance. Many, like myself, prefer to be home, or to have family members only to watch our babies. Why don't we get help?
Many women like their healthcare. Many are small business owners who would suffer under more regulation. Nearly half of women have qualms about legal abortion.
Women are not homogenous. Women do not all think like those who work in media or academia.
Warren was the candidate of rich, coastal, white ladies who brunch. I'm sorry the writers at the NYTimes and their friends are sad. But she wasn't the candidate of all women. Stop making her out to be.
Clinton was the first Democrat I ever voted for. I'm relieved Biden is the nominee. And I look forward to returning to the GOP and voting for Nikki Haley in 2024.
12
@A F
“Real girls??” Really? Are you saying that trans girls aren’t girls?
You’d rather deny working mothers and fathers childcare assistance outright because you have an unexamined and irrational fears that you would be unable to choose the best childcare situation for your family? I’d say that you didn’t read Warren’s plan closely enough.
Also, some women might like their healthcare. But many, many more women, especially mothers, don’t like having to find out that in-network specialists in your area might not be available, or even extant. When my daughter was a young toddler, her pediatrician recommended an auditory test and speech pathologist review. There were no specialists in our area who could do this (the only auditory docs in our area were for old people). We had to wait 3 months and drive 2 hours each way to a children’s hospital to have the (still out-of-network) testing done. So don’t tell me about rationing and long wait times for medical services- it’s already happening and costing mothers a fortune in copayments, deductibles, and lost work time now.
Also, just to fact check, around 70% of all Americans believe in safe, affordable access to abortion services. The acceptance rate for abortion is higher amongst women than men.
I supported Elizabeth Warren because she was on my side of these important issues for women!
2
I loved Elizabeth Warren as the progressive in the race because of her thoroughness in policy development and because she knows more about the need for financial regulation to contain the oligarchs than all of the other candidates combined. However, Bernie's take no prisoners style and its hold over his young minions with blinders on provided no air for Warren. Bernie has zero capacity to get anything done as a president and will be a collossal mistake if he becomes the candidate due to his lack of coattails for Senate and House candidates. The only good thing about Joe Biden is that he at least has a shot at beating Trump and helping win the House and Senate.
4
" When Will We Be Ready for a President Warren? "
She could be the VP with a portfolio next January, and the President 4 years later.
She should strike a deal with Bernie. Her policies are much closer to Sanders than to Biden.
Odd that when it comes to the electibility of women, the questions of "likeability" and all the rest that plague American commentary simply don't turn up in many other places - even Britain. I think this constant need to find reasons and excuses as to why America "would choose a woman, just not this one", reveals a more deeply-entrenched problem than we might think.
Moreover, is America really ready for a woman in the White House? Julia Gillard's grim experience in Australia is instructive. Unless the first female American President manages world peace and the cure for cancer, she will be reviled after she leaves office like no one before her. It may be a long time before Australia has another woman leader.
6
@Nullius
Sixty-six million people voted for Hillary, a figure surpassed only by Obama in 2008. Got that? A woman received the second highest number of votes in U.S. history.
Hillary won the popular vote by three million, fact of which all of her supporters—including pundits from this very paper and yours truly—constantly remind the critics and cite as reason to abolish the electoral college.
People who blame “misogyny” and “sexism” can’t have it both ways. If you believe the electoral college overrides the will of the people, then the people already elected a woman (and we should get rid of the EC).
But if you believe the EC better reflects the will of the people, then the people have not elected a woman (and the EC should remain).
As for Warren, she made a series of mistakes for which a “double standards!!!” defense is so absurd it’s comical—or, it would be if there weren’t so many women who actually believe it.
"Warren’s brief lead in the polls caused the entire media establishment to dissect her “Medicare for all” plan mercilessly. Bernie Sanders never got that level of scrutiny and he was more rigid about it."
This is incorrect. The media (and voters) dissected her flip-flopping and inconsistency of her M4A plan. All throughout the campaign, she gave the impression that she wanted to say what people wanted to hear, not her own convictions. When she stuck to her convictions, she polled high. When she suggested that a 9 year old would vet her secretary of education...
Say what you will about Bernie, but he is consistent and forthright. All the time.
6
@Will
Seriously, it’s hard to believe that incident is what they’re using as evidence of misogyny. The pitch on which she staked her campaign was that “she has a plan for that.” That’s what was meant to distinguish her from Bernie, who DOESN’T have a plan and doesn’t care—because his base doesn’t care; they think it can be willed into existence.
Warren’s supporters (or would-be supporters) were smarter—literally better educated, according to surveys—and wanted to see her plan for the most radical overhaul of our healthcare system in American history.
Well, she didn’t have a plan for Medicare For All. Or, if she did, she was afraid that being honest about it would turn off voters. The vacillation helped with that, and the “plan” did the rest. Most people could see the empress had no clothes. The ones who can’t—and if votes mean anything, it’s a small minority—are being given massive platforms to repeatedly vent their rage.
2
I am ready now. I'd like Bernie and Liz to agree to a co-presidency and come out as a unified front for co-leadership in which Bernie would agree to give Liz a role not of VP but of co-president.
I believe if these two strong-minded people, who both are ready to take on the major corporate corruption and fight for average Americans like me and make a case for what would finally be a return to the type of New Deal Democratic morality that Eleanor Roosevelt inspired in her husband and backed by great men like George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower and a time when corporations and the very rich paid a much higher percentage of funding our common wealth.
If Bernie and Liz can set aside their egos and the past, I believe they could win this election together. I've supported them both all along sending regular donnations to both campaigns.
Liz would make a better president than Bernie but the reality is that only together can the win. I hope Liz has the courage and compassion to forgive Bernie for not being stronger in his efforts to push his alleged supporters who made highly inappropriate remarks. I hope Bernie has the flexibility to make a deal of co-presidency of Liz.
The country will be better if Liz and Bernie work together with equal authority to end corruption and fight for our fellow Americans.
The human ego requires great courage and compassion to overcome. If Liz and Bernie come together, the world for future generations may a place of sunlit uplands.
9
@Tom Paine
and not only for the future generations of Americans.
If successful, it will inspire changes in other countries of the world.
America needs to lead by example, not by force.
4
@Tom Paine
Not that I don’t see the benefits of a co-presidency to our republic...but our Constitution does not seem to recognize that arrangement. Thoughts about how that might be overcome?
3
I would bet all my money and everything I own that whoever emerges as the nominee will pick a female running mate. But as far as Warren is concerned, I was not interested in voting for her for the same reason I was not interested in voting for Bernie: I disagree with her policy ideas. Plus, she could not excite large numbers of people of color.
I would have been happier voting for Klobuchar, but she too had a people of color problem. And people of color, to borrow a phrase from Yeats, “cast a cold eye” on all the candidates, male and female, Black, White, Latino and Asian. And their choice—for all sorts of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with gender—seems to be Biden. If Biden does emerge as the nominee, my guess is that he will not pick Warren but a woman of color as his running mate and heir apparent: maybe Stacey Abrams or Tammy Duckworth. Folks like that are the future of the party—and the presidency.
8
Hello! You can't win with only white voters in the Democratic Party. Until the diversity of the party is really taken into account this will happen again. If people of color turned out more in Pennsylvania,Wisconsin and Michigan we would not have a Trump in the White House. It is not the messenger but The Message that will make us ready for a President Warren.
4
Out of all the eligible people to run for President, why is it so difficult to find a female candidate who can actually be elected President? No female to take notes on what kind of career to have prior to running? What kind of success is needed to win the people's trust in one's competency, success rate, and benefits?
@Abby
It's hard to find a Democratic woman who can win because the culture of the left encourages identity politics, which a) pushes the female candidate to play off her "femaleness", which even most women find off putting, and b) it forces that female candidate to engage with and conform to Official Feminism, the network of bloggers, columnists, Twitterati, and activists whose ideas are dogma among the college educated, urban set, but who are far, far to the left, both socially and economically, of most Americans, including most American women.
A Democratic female candidate is doomed if she does, doomed is she doesn't. Warren conformed to Official Feminism, pandered to the activists, adopted every dogma from the magisterium of the Everyday Feminism, Alicia Garza, and Jessica Valenti crowd, and in the process turned off pretty much everyone else, because those people are REALLY unpopular, including with women, outside their bubble.
Klobuchar didn't bend the knee to the left, and was immediately taken out as "mean".
And no one had Biden's easy familiarity and status as Obama's VP. Like or not, most of us would like to turn the clock back five years, before Trump, before "pronouns", before the world went nuts. No candidate, male or female, can speak to that exhaustion like Biden.
A Republican woman doesn't have to deal with the feminist left. She can just be a candidate with her own ideas. Which is why the first woman president will likely be from the GOP.
2
The reason Biden is ascendant is because he is supported by multiple constituencies of Democratic voters (especially African-American voters), and thus he has a chance to actually beat Trump. Warren and many others (including my pick, Pete Buttigieg) didn't demonstrate that ability in this election. Was there sexism in Warren's defeat? Undoubtedly, but that wasn't the only reason, as has been discussed elsewhere in these comments. Was there homophobia in Buttigieg's failure? I would think so, but neither he nor his campaign has said anything about that. I've dealt with my personal disappointment, and I'm voting for Biden to get rid of Trump.
15
@Bob G.
Agreed.
I knew the media would try to “erase” Pete’s homosexuality, especially once he started rising in the polls, but I was caught off guard by how thorough they’ve been.
If your sole source of information about American politics were election coverage, you’d think being gay is a boring hobby. You’d have no idea that every time Chasten kisses Pete on camera, demonstrating the same affection all political spouses do, it’s a radical act; or that over a third of Americans would strip them of the right to call each other husband. Good God, homosexuality was still effectively illegal until 2003. The guy could’ve been discharged from the military if he even mentioned it. Chasten’s family kicked him out of the house when he came out; he was living out of his car.
Pete wasn’t my first choice, but if liberals sneeringly dismiss a Harvard educated Rhodes Scholar and polyglot military veteran who left a promising career at the most prestigious consulting firm in the world (where Warren’s own daughter worked, by the way) to serve as mayor of a dying Rust Belt city and, after years of psychological anguish in the closet, finally came out in office as another “privileged white male,” there will never be a gay president.
Not that it’s a milestone I really care about. (I, too, would rather see a woman in the White House), but it’s good to know your place in the victim hierarchy.
There seems to be a misconception that Warren was excoriated over her health-insurance plan because she's a woman and held to a "higher standard". She was bollocked because she made her name by proposing detailed plans, yet was strangely vague on health insurance. When she finally produced a plan, it was one that pleased neither the Medicare-for-All supporters nor the fix-Obamacare proponents; she fudged it, which was glaringly contrary to her reputation. Amy Klobuchar (whom I supported) did not produce as detailed a plan, but she wasn't lambasted like Warren, because Klobuchar (or any other candidate) didn't make policy wonkishness her centrepiece.
Sen. Warren lost because she couldn't inspire enough people, and while she eviscerated Bloomberg in the debates, she made it personal, unlike anyone else on the stage. Bloomberg, whatever his faults, has done more for this nation that Liz Warren ever will (she's one of my senators, and I voted for her), and what she did was something Trump deserved, not Bloomberg. The way she was ready to take on anyone except Bernie Sanders (her main competitor) seemed odd as well.
As for her DNA test, it confirmed what she claimed, that she has a bit of Cherokee ancestry, so it hurt her only because of political spin. But it does raise the question for those to whom "identity" is all that matters; what percentage "allows" someone to claim membership in a group?
In the end, Warren lost because wasn't a good candidate, not because she's a woman.
24
Michelle, the title of your dialogue with readers is “When will we be ready for a President Warren?” All the comments you selected focus on the fact that Warren is a woman. I do not minimize the effect of that on the failure of her candidacy. The United States has a dismal record on empowering women in some of the most high-profile positions — beyond politics, women are still in the minority as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies — and with the nomination cycle now all but complete, the comments of journalists looking back on it don’t give much hope that something will change in 2024.
That said, Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy was about much more than electing a woman to the presidency. We could equally well ask when we will be ready for a president who ran on all the substantial progressive policies her plans described: a wealth tax, Medicare for All, affordable college, a moral immigration policy, regulation of corporations in the interest of economic justice, strong environmental regulations. Aside from the gender conclusions this week has raised, it also appears that Americans are not yet ready for intelligent, forceful and just regulation of capitalism.
12
I'm not nearly as impressed with Elizabeth Warren as many others. Sure is brilliant, she has a compelling life story, a super achiever and woman of high moral standards, a galaxy away from the current occupant of the oval office. It would be a privilege and honor for Elizabeth Warren to be President of the United States.
But listening to her narrative over and over again I soon tired of it. I felt she was packaged, artificial and what another commenter termed "inauthentic." I know all about her brothers, her father, her mother, her Aunt Bee. I also know that for some reason she told Harvard she was Native American or of Native American ancestry. Not true, or .1 to .01 percent as per DNA testing. I also know she was a Republican for the longest time. I also saw her rip apart Michael Bloomberg who is a good man, not a womanizer or cruel and who has given billions of dollars to charity. She brutalized him on national television because I assume she believed she had to do that, beyond her policy differences with him.
So I don't feel sorry for Elizabeth Warren. And I think feminists need to stop whining that we don't have a woman who is president. There are far more fateful and serious concerns that affect us beyond the gender of the next president.
27
The problem with Elizabeth Warren is that she just wasn’t all that good.
The United States is not short of women leaders. You can find them in sports, media, and various areas of business and the professions, even in the military.
Yet for some reason, these women aren’t drawn to electoral politics.
Maybe this is due to some kind of bias. But I think it’s a little too simple to blame this on a general misogyny.
8
Ethos, logos, pathos. When teaching my English students how important these persuasive elements are, I told them to look at who has won the presidency over the last few cycles.
Ethos: Obama and Trump's prestigious degrees; their brand
Logos: The facts (fake or not) that they cite
Pathos: The personal, emotional appeal they have.
Warren had ethos and logos, but you've got to have all three, and for Americans, I note, PATHOS is the most persuasive tool that politicians have to get elected president. You've GOT to have pathos.
Bernie, Biden, Obama, and Trump all have that tool that draws American voters most: pathos.
3
Biden's appeal is to those who are "exhausted" by Trump. What these voters miss is that Trump & Trumpism aren't going away. They'll run a far more attractive Trumpist in 2024. If a White House Democrat doesn't create a broad pathway to the middle class, Trumpism will win in 2024.
A President Warren would have created that path. The Democrat's nominee needs to be someone who will.
5
Fans of Elizabeth Warren might like to know that she inspired a work of art -- a music commission for choir and orchestra, "Nevertheless, She Persisted," by the very talented young composer Shruthi Rajasekar. The piece will be premiered in Boston by the Seraphim Singers, who commissioned it, on March 29. (Details are available on The Boston Musical Intelligencer website.)
13
I was (and remain) convinced that Elizabeth Warren was the best candidate, even when the field was the size of a small village. I am genuinely distressed that she has been pushed out. Her intelligence, her understanding that you work the details, you don't just dismiss (often with sarcastic ire) people who disagree you, you educate, you provide facts. Her calm, laser focus on the issues, and above all, her determination to keep critical thinking in the equation of this election are the reasons I believe she would have won and made an outstanding president. I will support with my vote whoever the Democratic candidate is; it is simply not possible to have anyone worse for this country than the current occupant of the White House. But the obvious machinations by the Democratic hierarchy behind the scenes, devoid of even a semblance of transparency reminds me of the current state of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences where like the recent Oscars, our political systems at the top remain very white and very male.
7
@JEP
If you are all that upset that there is some alleged patriarchal plot afoot, then you should be overjoyed that one of the remaining candidates is a Hindu, Samoan woman.
There's no point in getting depressed or feeling victimized about Warren departure from the arena. Gender is an issue that exists everywhere in society, but I don't think it was the dominant factor in her failure to get sufficient support. After all, twenty five percent of the Senate and twenty three percent of the House are women and Clinton received more of the popular vote than Trump. She only came in third in delegates in her very liberal home state where as a U S Senator she had particularly high visibility. I think there were issues more important than gender that ultimately sank her campaign. Concentrating the blame on the gender issue is sort of a cop out.
15
Think about Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt did not want to be Vice-President in 1900 and President William McKinley did not want him. But Senator Thomas C. Platt engineered his nomination for the election in 1900. Roosevelt's ascendance to the Presidency after the the death of McKinley was the Progressive serendipity that the U.S. needed to begin the long process of taming the oligarchs.
Elizabeth, where is your Platt?
2
The premise of your column seems to fail to recognize that Hillary Clinton - a woman - was the party nominee in 2016. Of course, it is possible for a woman to be elected.
9
Before we accept the notion that parliamentary democracies are more amenable to female prime ministers because they don't need to "charm the public", let's look north. Justin Trudeau had little experience, but got the job of prime minister because he was young telegenic, and had a famous name. Boris Johnson is prime minister of the UK because of his personal popularity.
Women like Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel led their countries for more than a decade. If you want to lead a country, you need charisma and a platform that sells well to the public (Warren talks like a professor and had an unworkable economic plan). Perhaps we need to wait for the Republicans to nominate a woman. Germany, Canada, and the UK have all had female leaders, but only from their right of center parties. Center left parties seem incapable of fielding winning female candidates.
9
I don't know how the 'standard' woman views Warren, but as a guy, I can say that owing to childhood socialization -- which can certainly be disputed but which has a kind of gravitational hegemony -- men are too fine-tuned and ready to detect the prejudice-formed negatives of a woman seeking authority. Warren, from this perspective, had too much personality. Bernie doesn't, he just has anger. Biden doesn't, he just has generic Americana mood. Bloomberg didn't, he just has generic rich guy vibe. Warren's personality was intense and pungent, with wobbly exclamation points and caustic good spirits. Whew! But she was great.
13
I voted for Elizabeth, she had me at ‘corruption’. The media gave everyone else, especially Biden, more press than they gave Elizabeth in the days leading up to Super Tuesday. Now that she’s out of the race the media is all over her. It’s a shame. No one questions Biden’s wealth or his upbringing. But they are quick to judge Elizabeth, who brought herself to where she is today by using her wonderful brain. They’re accusing her of of being elitist because she made it to the top of her field. When a man makes to the top of his field he’s praised, honored and admired. Elizabeth makes one or two inconsequential missteps in her life and people act like she hung a puppy up to die. If a man were found to have done those things we’d never hear about them, it would have been pushed aside for being inconsequential. Elizabeth didn’t lose in her own state because she wasn’t worthy, she lost because the game is rigged against her. There is still too much prejudice in this world. Take a look at the 5 states who refuse to give women equal rights and you’ll know that I’m not wrong. Nebraska, Tennessee, South Dakota, Kentucky, Idaho. Even though there are equal rights in the other states constitution, it doesn’t mean that prejudice is non existent. Elizabeth is electable. Had she received the rallying support that Biden and Bloomberg had received from the Democratic Party , we’d be seeing different candidates up for the democratic nomination.
17
Could the flaws in the process of selecting the nominee be as big a part of the problem as individual voters' prejudices--maybe bigger?
Looking through the other end of the telescope, if Elizabeth Warren or Amy Klobuchar (or Kirsten Gillibrand) were the nominee, might she possibly bring out some votes that no man can? or at least that neither Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders can?
What if the primary/caucus process, in which only a small percentage of eligible Democrats participate (and which also includes Republican cross-overs in open primary states, who are trying to sabotage their opponents) is not the optimal way to select the nominee? If it risks resulting in a nominee who is not the best candidate, wouldn't be the best president, and/or is unlikely to win the election?
What if party elders who, perhaps, would be more inclined to nominate a woman, played a bigger role--and ordinary voters played a smaller role? (They still, of course, play their role in the general election.) What if there was less social media, circular firing squad TV "debates," and competitive fund-raising--and more quiet, thoughtful input from experienced, politically savvy office-holders?
Can a politician be better informed, and incorporate better judgment, about prospective nominees than an ordinary voter? (To answer this question fairly, quit demonizing politicians.)
Is that hopelessly elitist? Or is it just common sense?
You can bring the angst to an end quickly by recognizing that it's a mistake to view a presidential election as a referendum on women's deserts as women.
When will we be ready for a female president? That's an irrelevant question. For one thing, we're ready now, as we are for a gay president. However, the viable candidates in this cycle who were women and the one who was gay found that, all things considered, they couldn't justify continuing to seek the nomination.
For another thing, the question is irrelevant because the electorate will never have the luxury of placing identity on the scales. It's never going to be anybody's turn. It never ought to be.
Joe Biden was always near the bottom of my list of preferences till recent events left him at the top. I commented in these pages that I preferred Kamala Harris to Biden even after her cynical courtroom stunt in the first debate. She was a contender for first choice with me till Pete Buttigieg got my attention, and when she positively turned me off later it was for reasons having nothing to do with her sex.
Would I have voted for Elizabeth Warren? Gladly. I think she'd have made an excellent president, and I wouldn't have wanted us Democrats to shrink from casting our lot with her any more than with my favorite, Buttigieg. Others may disagree in view of the absolute necessity of defeating Trump. Let's not blame them. Now, go Joe!
And now please change channels from feminist critique to electoral politics.
6
I don’t understand who would vote for her aside from the small number of people who simply want a strong debated and a woman to go against Trump.
For progressives, her wavering support of Medicare for all, and imperfect record on other issues (she was a Republican at 45, not an ideal characteristic in the purity test era of politics), scared them away.
For more traditional centrist Democratic voters, her mere support of M4A, and of the Green New Deal, was enough to make them wary. They ultimately stuck to their guns and went with Joe Biden, who had demonstrated entrenched support among Black voters.
So where was the lane for Sen Warren? Evidently she believed she could carve one down the middle by appeasing the occupants of neither. This is indicative of far from a perfect campaign, for a far from perfect candidate.
10
I understand the deep sense of disappointment and frustration many women feel with the folding of the Warren campaign--my wife is among them. Warren probably would have made the best president of all those in the field. And while misogyny certainly played a role in how she was portrayed and perceived, it was not the principal reason her campaign fell behind. In my view it was because she misjudged the mood of the electorate, and presented herself as too much a doctrinaire progressive when, as we've since seen, most Democratic voters sought a more pragmatic tone to defeat Trump.
However, as many here have already pointed out, we don't have to ask when a woman can win the Democratic nomination and go on to win the election for president. That already happened in 2016. The electoral college deprived Hillary Clinton of the opportunity to govern and the country of her talents, but like Emelia Earhart she proved that a woman could fly across that ocean on her own.
If you want to find the most blatant misogyny in politics, look no further than how Hillary has been treated since her loss. The myth that she was "anointed" by the DNC rather than won the nomination through her own perseverance, and that she did not become president because she was the "worst candidate ever" is the misogyny hiding in plain sight. Someday, probably long after we've had one or more female presidents, Americans will appreciate that she was the one who proved it could be done.
14
Warren's critical mistake was in 2016, not running, handing the progressive wing to Bernie.
I and other men wanted to vote for her in 2016 but had to vote for Hillary (too many didn't have to.)
Bernie had a loyal following from 2016: loyal means not wanting to desert, don't ask followers to be unethical.
(Warren's not unelectable, she was elected, hope she gets another chance.)
1
On a personal basis, I liked Warren. And I think sexism absolutely played a role in some of this.
However, she lost me on several policy points. She was brilliant in the first two debates and then stumbled badly.
I might also add that early on everyone was talking about Warren (and Harris) but Amy Klobuchar (who was my #1 from before she announced her candidacy) was pretty much ignored, as was another quality candidate, Jay Inslee. Not a woman, but insanely qualified.
I thought Klobuchar could have cleaned up in the national race if she could just have gotten through the primary. Unfortunately, what you need to win in a primary versus a national election are two different things.
I am sad to see Warren out, but remember that many of us folks do fully believe a woman could be president.
Personally, in 2024 I'd love to see Klobuchar (who I imagine will be Joe's running mate) running with Tammy Duckworth.
4
She deserves the VP spot. She could be great at bonding Biden and Sanders together. She is just what this country needs. A woman who is progressive and fights for the underdog. Making Warren a viable element in the Democrat Campaign is a win win for everyone.
8
@That's What She Said -- Given the serious divisions in the Democratic party (to say nothing of the country as a whole), Biden's vp pick will be more important in determining the level of support his candidacy receives than in any other presidential race in modern history. "Vote blue no matter who" has been the mantra, but there will be a lot of deeply disappointed supporters of candidates who did far better than Biden for most of this primary season. The idea of Stacy Abrams has been floated for some time, but the reality is that Biden does not need a person of color on his ticket; his support among African American is assured. Warren would be exactly the bridge he needs to shore up enthusiasm from the progressive wing and from women, who have been waiting since at least 2006.
5
I thought we just had a primary election and Elizabeth Warren lost decisively.
In fact, she even lost her own home state of Massachusetts, the voters that know her best, and she came in third.
As someone who voted for Secretary Clinton for Democratic nominee and for US President, I remember Warren as a vicious, angry candidate who would savagely attack her opponents while claiming absolute certainty in her long list of detailed prescriptions.
When I say detailed, she would quote prices on what every medicine should cost. That is asinine.
I understand her supporters are disappointed that she lost.
My favored candidate lost, but I am glad he endorsed Joe Biden because this election is far bigger than about one person.
This election is about saving the Constitution, the rule of law, democracy, freedom, and competent governance. This is about re-establishing our NATO alliances, fighting climate change, and rebuilding infrastructure.
Warren did not lose because she is a woman. If she doesn't understand that now, she will never be President in the future.
14
NYT seems to really be going all-in on this narrative that Warren would have been president but-for sexism.
I'm not saying that some sexism wasn't there, but she was the front-runner for a good chunk of the race—people were giving her a chance. And the party nominated a woman last time. There were a lot of other, more significant reasons Warren is out.
Instead of building a broad coalition, she veered to the far-left of the field (abolish health insurance). She refused to compete with the person who was in her lane (Sanders). She continuously made promises (endless plans) that she would have never been able to enact.
In four or eight years, I'll give her a second chance to earn my vote, just like I would give any of the men who are now out of the race.
13
@Seb I like Warren, but as someone who supported Klobuchar, I got tired of the fact Warren (and Harris until she dropped out) got so much more coverage.
I think Amy would have done way better if she had not been ignored for so long by some of the very same folks now lamenting Warren's defeat.
9
@Seb
Yes Elizabeth Warren is not blameless for her poor performance. It's not always about men unwilling to accept a female leader. Other countries equally chauvinistic have done so-- England, Germany, Israel, etc. Are we so different here? If Sarah Palin had a brain she could have been President and Hillary was tarnished by her association with Bill. We will definitely have a female president in the near future. I doubt that either party will not run a female on the ticket. I'm thinking Pence will be jettisoned for Haley and both Bernie and Joe will pick a female VP. Truthfully, Warren did not appeal to a vast number of Democrats for a variety of reasons and I don't think her sex was necessarily the main reason. Being an individual of competence and ideas doesn't necessarily translate to leadership.
1
Golly, Seb. You’re all heart!
1
As much as it is my fervent wish to see a female president, and it will always be my preference to vote for a woman over a man, I will never, I mean never, vote for a female Republican.
5
@MAS not even for Lisa Murkowski? What a loss.
Elizabeth Warren is/was the most prepared and competent and qualified candidate among all the Democratic candidates. She ran a good campaign; she made very few errors, and the errors she did make were unfairly magnified by the media. I found her to be personable, thoughtful, warm and highly capable. She earned her way to her Harvard professorship; nobody gave that to her. She has a good record of public service. That she didn't fare much much better in the campaign in my humble opinion is more a reflection upon US voters than it is upon her. Of course she could be President; she would make a great President. I hope she considers running again.
43
I'm sad too. I also had my sights on a Warren presidency. But let's be clear. This wasn't about sexism, or misogyny. It was about politics.
Sanders has his base, who support him not because he's a man, but because of what he's said over a long career in politics. Warren has been saying similar things recently, and says them better, but that's not going to prise away Sanders' passionate supporters, any more than it would Trump's.
And the Democratic party will likely also bypass Sanders for a more "electable" moderate. Biden was only ever there for his electability. These might be wrong judgements [I for one consider Warren sufficiently electable, especially since she'll likely carry Bernie's base against Trump, where Biden might not] but they're political judgements, not made on the basis of gander.
Soon there'll be a female candidate that fits through the hoops. When there is, she's likely to win because she's also inspirational. We need a female Obama, not a female Hillary. Warren was close, but not close enough. Bring on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Who would win in a fight between Trump and ACO? That's like a fight between a professional wrestler and a real one. But alas we'll never get to see it, because Trump is a one-term president.
4
The Times endorsed Warren and Klobuchar. It should have stuck with one endorsement because it would have resonated more strongly.
As for bias, I would prefer the Book of Revelation to voting for Bernie Sanders. He is so full of revolutionary talk. And yet I would have voted for Warren because she's reasonable (my opinion). I preferred Klobuchar over Warren.
4
I was ready for President Hillary Clinton, and voted for her. I was also ready for President Harris and contributed to her campaign.
2
Elizabeth Warren was my first choice. I believe she is the most qualified to lead American, and would have done the most good.
However, Elizabeth Warren is a poor campaigner. Her Medicare for All plan was half-baked. The Native American ethnicity thing was tenuous, of no utility, and played into the hands of Trump the bully.
I myself (a very modest legal scholar compared to Ms. Warren) could have divined a Public Option Healthcare Plan in two hours that would have been better than hers. Healthcare is the No. 1 issue with the majority of Americans. Coronavirus blows that up. You just can't present Medicare for All which would be a hostile takeover of private employers', and then paper it over with taxes. I know she retreated from her original. Nonetheless, Medicare put the kibosh on her candidacy.
I can honestly say if Ms. Warren were a man, I would have critiqued her campaign the same way. Too many faux pas and gaffes. Analogous to Bernie Sanders, a man.
Elizabeth was too much Harvard Law; not enough Boomer Sooner.
15
@Wordsworth from Wadsworth I'd be interested in how you critique Biden's campaign thus far. Until 3 days ago, he was almost out of money, had no capacity to run ads to support his campaign, had no staff or ground game in most states; had not even campaigned in many of the states he "won" on Tuesday; gave extraordinarily cringe worthy interviews; could barely get through a debate without contradicting himself, mumbling, forgetting, making ridiculous statements, and basically appear like he has some cognitive impairment; he reversed himself on his support of the Hyde Amendment so quickly I got whiplash; he took credit for pretty much everything that has happened good in Obama's administration while responding in confrontational and nasty ways with people on the campaign trail; acted like a creepy uncle around women and girls, etc. Besides that he has been unable to give details on how he is actually going to get all people on a health care plan in an affordable way...he merely says he will improve on the ACA. Really....I'd like to know how. Additionally, you critique Warren for the "Native American ethnicity thing', so I'd be interested in what you think of the crime bill thing from Biden, the MBNA thing; etc.
2
@Wordsworth from Wadsworth
Elizabeth Warren's Medicare for All Plan did not have to be better than yours( in you opinion). It just had to be better than Bernie's and Biden's which it was.
I don't remember any faux pas on her campaign. I would be interested to learn which ones you noted.
And there is nothing that private employers would rather get rid of than their private insurance plans.
Clever as your rhyme may be, I pity the country that prefers Boomer Sooner to Havard Law in a President.
3
We have a nascent epidemic that selectively harms the elderly about to sweep the country. This election has a gigantic unknown bearing down on all of us and especially on the political leaders over 70 who are at high risk. There is absolutely no predicting who will be the next president. We can't know which of the candidates will even survive until the election
3
Warren was a very poor candidate and is rightly out of the race. You can't have the Presidency handed to you by the menfolk just because you are a woman and a lot of the Warren angst seems nothing more than a misunderstanding of that. The fact that Hilary Clinton was a viable candidate and should have won if her male advisers had not blown belies the theme of this article.
8
Ms. Warren should take responsibility for her own failures this primary season. Wouldn't it be wonderful if she admitted to the obvious fact that she's great on policy (or so her supporters say) and absolutely terrible at political strategy. I'm not trying to be mean or trying to tear her down. I'm merely bringing up that Ms. Warren regularly makes the wrong move and it results in her own political defeat time and time again. I think she's an incredible person and I respect her greatly. I respect her enough to freely admit that she's a terrible at the strategic aspect of being a politician.
11
Warren's campaign did not flounder because she is a woman. Not at all. She made many unforced errors in the fall of last year and she never recovered from these errors. But most of all, Warren does not understand the US electorate. "Having a plan for it" would never move any voters, however effective this plan may be. Voters need an emotional message that touches them. Trump did not propose any plans, while Hillary had many. Trump won and hardly anybody read Hillary's plans. Trump won because he played on the insecurities and the prejudices of a certain sector of the electorate.
I have watched many interviews by Elizabeth Warren. She never understood the need for an emotional appeal. She did not understand that the middle class may not place more emphasis on cultural norms and "diversity anxiety" than in income issues, free college and health care. If one fails to address the cultural issues adequately, all the plans and benefits would never help.
Well, maybe in the future there would be a woman who understands well what moves the electorate. If that woman appears, she will win.
18
@ADRz
What you are saying is that in order to win, a woman doesn't need to be competent; she needs to be more like Trump. What that says is that the US is dying a long slow death.
2
Look how long did it take Joe Biden to get here (and Bernie), and clearly Warren needs more time and more tries. Rome is not built in a day, is it?
However, Warren does have some additional baggage that a white male doesn't:
1. The older generation, both men and women, is suspicious of woman is capable of running the country, their perception came from the time they were growing up.
2. Warren is an intellectual from Harvard (even though grew up in Oklahoma) and white, that she does not connect well with working class and other non-white population,
3. Warren lacks emotional appeal (she does with women mostly) to voters, unlike Biden or Sanders. She builds her whole platform on ideas, which most of the voters didn't bother with during primaries.
4. She is perceived as weak against Donald ("bully') by a lot of men and women.
Clearly, Warren can be elected and is capable of doing the job. Look no further than Margret Thatcher and Angela Merkel. but she will have to wait until the next time, just like Bernie Sanders did four years ago.
2
Warren presents a complicated case. She is my US Senator and proudly so. When I saw her in a packed town hall in New Hampshire in October she was on fire. Smart, quick, funny, charming, on point. A great communicator. I left thinking she has this in the bag. But that one debate where she would not or could not explain how Medicare for all would be paid for I just knew would do her in. Women cannot make these mistakes. Men get off free on answering these types of questions, but not women. Bernie is not pressed on this issue, essentially stating, we will see. Women are always held to a higher standard.
Tonight my 34 year old daughter said to her father and I. I do not get it. Women do it all. We have the babies, we work, we cook, we clean, we manage home and our families, we have careers, we pay the bills. We are more than half the population and we still take orders from men less qualified, less competent, less thoughtful. What is wrong with us? Why have we not taking the power? We had no answer for her, except there are still many in our nation, including women, who thing men should rule and women should be quiet. And just cannot see a woman president.
It will be her generation that will change this. Or maybe, just maybe, Biden will pick a woman to run with. But again, give his age, he has to be super careful In his choice
17
@Rache Elizabeth Warren: charming????? If you looked up the word "shrill" in the dictionary her picture would be across from it.
Nicky Haley (not because she's a Republican) has the kind of personality that would get her elected. Too bad for the Dems she's not one of them.
Bernie could have, and should have stepped aside and endorsed Warren. He is 78 with health issues, and simply too far left to bridge the gap to the more moderate wing of the party and the country. Also, don’t forget Bernie’s constant 30 to 40 percent capture of primary voters eliminated many other good candidates, both male and female, who were left to divide up the remaining 60-70% 12 ways at the start. Trump did much the same thing and prevailed, going on to win the electoral college by a whisker in probably the luckiest confluence of events ever seen.
11
Fear not. Joe will choose a woman for his VP. And this will probably make Trump so jealous that he will find a way to ditch Pence so that he too can put a woman on the ballot.
It won’t matter because the GOP has irreparably damaged its position with women. In fact, the GOP has damaged its relationship with many groups, including and maybe most importantly, suburbanites.
But Republicans cannot ignore what’s happening in the suburbs. Even in deep red Alabama, we saw a huge uptick in Democratic ballots on Super Tuesday statewide and most heavily in the urban/suburban areas. 56,000 more D ballots and 125,000 fewer R ballots. This is a big freaking deal. A poll worker in an affluent area of Birmingham said she’d never seen so many R’s pull D ballots, and yes more women than men. In Madison Co (Huntsville and suburbs), this is what happened:
-15,000 more D ballots cast than in 2016
-10,000 fewer R ballots
-7.5% of R ballots chose someone other than Trump
-Biden 57.5 %
-Bernie 23.3 %
-Warren 8 %
-(Bernie 2016 - 30.1%)
In Alabama, our large urban/suburban areas are limited to a handful of counties. Just imagine the data we will see in states with a higher percentage of suburbanites. I can’t wait to see Atlanta. Anyway, my point is that women are making a huge difference in this election. Many women who are traditional conservatives are voting Dem. Also notice that Bernie lost support from 2016 to 2020 — same thing happened in ALL of the urban/suburban counties in Alabama.
9
Progressives went for the wrong progressive. Sanders cannot transform the democratic party in the way Trump has the GOP — the coalition is too diverse. Yet, Warren’s public service and success with the Consumer Protection Bureau she ran should have been enough. Her demanding Wall Street reform and crying foul when the big banks emerged relatively unscathed for their lending malfeasance during the 2008 meltdown while those towing the supplies up the Hillary Step of our economy were left high and dry, should have been enough. Her ability to think, to have plans for a more reasonable union instead of the grunting, divisive, incoherent tweets we have now, should have been enough. Her womansplaining of Bloomberg was a hint of what she could have done to Trump on the debate stage, but even that wasn’t enough. The progressives who endorsed Sanders wanted purity. So did Hamlet. Look where that got him.
51
@Annabelle K.
I agree her filleting of Bloomberg was a hint of what she could have done to Trump. Bloomberg joined joined the race because Biden, the likely democratic standard-bearer, faltered and mumbled in his earlier debates, and Bloomberg felt he could not beat Trump. He felt that Trump, if given a second term would destroy our democracy, our environment, increase divisiveness and worsen global warming. Trump's deceit, narcissism, and nastiness deserves the type of rebuke Warren gave to Bloomberg. Bloomberg , a very intelligent, honest, capable individual, with a great deal of integrity, did not. I know she is proud of her take down of Bloomberg but to myself and many voters it was unwarranted.
4
@KWW
I agree about Bloomberg.
I watched a great interview on CNN tonight with former Senator Al Franken.
Warren was part of the group that hounded Franken out of the Senate without the Ethics Committee hearing Franken asked for after there were unproven allegations against him, some by women connected to FOX NEWS and the DNC.
Since Franken's resignation, 8 of the Democratic Senators who supported removing Franken have spoken saying that they strongly regret their decision to seek his resignation. Warren was not among them.
Franken was a brilliant, compassionate progressive Senator who championed the rights of women, minorities and the poor. He worked with Bernie to get a public option into the ACA. Franken was widely admired, even beloved, in Minnesota. Minnesotans should have decided Al Franken's fate, not Elizabeth
Warren and the others who responded hysterically to the accusations against him.
I'm very proud of my Senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine for not joining those who forced Franken out.
Elizabeth Warren and others deprived us of one of the finest progressive Senators of this century.
Warren will never be half the Senator Al Franken was.
7
The purpose of the primaries is to establish the candidate who is most popular with Democratic voters, not to ratify the candidate that any particular group, in this case political feminists, has decided is the most "competent progressive." Voters make their decisions based on what's important to them. Obviously, even in her own state, Warren didn't meet the criteria that voters, even women voters, thought were most important. Most Warren voters will vote for any Democratic man or woman before they will vote for a Republican woman or Tulsi Gabbard, which shows that even they think that being a woman is not the most important thing for them, either.
6
After President Trump's second term, I recommend that we elect Senator Lisa Murkowski as our first woman president! She is ideally positioned. She has not been unduly loyal to Trump. She is independent minded and will not threaten abortion rights. She can pass a lot of litmus tests. She is legally trained and very smart. She has overcome a lot of political adversity. I think she and Mitt Romney might be unstoppable in 2024 and give us our first female president. After Trump's second term a lot of people might be asking "should we elect another Republican president?" Well, if the Democrats offer up more Warrens, Sanders and Bidens, I think the answer is an overwhelming yes!
1
@JW Not unduly loyal to Trump? She voted with him 75% of the time.
1
There were a couple of things that worked against Warren. First off, this is a year where democrats are looking for anyone who can beat Trump - so they were not necessarily choosing who they liked the best, but who had the best chance. She was risky - a very progressive candidate when conventional thinking said to go with a moderate. She is also a woman, which people thought may work against her in the general election and they weren't willing to risk it this year.
Second, she hitched her wagon to Bernie Sanders. Many women at least partially blame Bernie for the Trump win. He attacked Hillary unfairly during the campaign, then acted like a petulant child when she won the nomination. He sulked in the corner and only paid lip service to his support for Hillary. As a result, his supporters did not vote for her. The Bernie Bros remind us of Trump supporters - mean and intolerant of opposing views and Sanders does not adequately discourage their bullying behavior. Many women (like me) can't stand the man.
38
@RAR
More Sanders supporters voted for Clinton than did Clinton supporters who voted for Obama. To blame sanders for her loss is ridiculous. There is one person to blame for her loss: Hillary Clinton.
Now the democrats appear poised to do something against astronomical odds. Pick the one candidate who can blow an unblowable election to Donald Trump for the second election in a row.
4
@RAR Your error: "conventional" look at the real facts and stop drawing conclusions from a past that is NOT now. It guarantees repeating the same error over and over again.
@RAR
Many men, too.
1
When I was in first grade I remember being asked to calculate how old we would be in the year 2000. For me it was 42, an eternity when 6. When I was in high school in the 70’s a girlfriend and I talked about when we would see a woman president, and that we, in the year 2000 could be potential candidates for President and Vice President, surely possible and within reach. We were game! Although we are politically active we did not become politicians but in this year, 2020 when we will both turn 62 (!) I am devastatingly disappointed that a candidate like Elizabeth Warren cannot carry the torch for us into another decade. As the mother of two daughters and stepmother of a third I am exceedingly disappointed for the prospects for even my daughters generation.
11
@Kimberly Baumhofer: You should not be disappointed. The reason that Warren failed was not because she was a woman. She was simply the wrong person. In the fall of 2019, she was actually leading the race. Then, she made several unforced errors -some really bad- and never recovered. She is intelligent, but lacks emotional intelligence which is a gift for successful politicians of either gender.
The US election system is particularly demanding and requires a lot of charisma for success. Things would have been much easier for women in a parliamentary system. In any case, women politicians must find a way to perform well in the US system. Warren never did. However, this does not preclude a successful bid by another women in the near future.
3
I voted for hillary in the 2008 california primary. Then the dream ended. The next dream ended when hillary lost in 2016. Yet another dream ended when kamala harris ended her campaign.I had hoped she would stay in the race long enough so I could vote for her in the california primary. Then the papers endorsed amy klobuchar. i waited and watched till the south carolina primary was over. but then it was clear that amy was not going to make it either. There is a common thread in all of it. The hope that a woman, brown, or latino, anybody other than a white man will be president. it could happen in the next 50 or 100 years but the presidential race will always be fiercely competitive, with no holds barred. America's demographics are changing.
We were more than ready for President (Hillary) Clinton. As a supporter of Elizabeth Warren's efforts in the Senate, I was disappointed and even troubled by her presidential campaign. So, I'll never be ready for a president Warren and as long as Ms. Cottle and others demand that woman be president because, well, they're women, I think they will also be sorely disappointed.
3
It seems worth remembering that Hillary Clinton did get the nomination, won the election by 3 million votes, and but for what appears to have been a poor tactical decision by her campaign not to spend sufficient resources on Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, would, in fact, be president.
15
@JChicag And don't forget James Comey sabotaging her chances just days before the election with email allegations that proved groundless.
8
@Rebecca And kept quiet about other investigations that were not groundless... And she still "won" the votes; and many Dems still repeat GOP unfounded smears.
1
@JChicago the popular vote is and has always been irrelevant.
2
The answer: when the right one comes along. I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and knew other men who did, as well. I also voted for Obama. In Clinton's case, she had been the target of a concerted, multi-decade smear campaign that continues to this day. It wasn't fair, but that is politics.
As Chuck Noll, the former Steeler head coach would have said when evaluating talent in the NFL draft, I just want the best available athlete. Warren, for all of her prodigious talents, was not popular within her own state, losing to both Biden and Sanders. Neither Kamala Harris nor Kirsten Gillibrand exhibited the staying power that allowed them to survive the Darwinian winnowing that is a primary. But they will live to fight another day.
Nancy Pelosi attracted a fair amount of moderate, highly talented women in that last draft, called the 2018 election. I anticipate that this best practice will continue this cycle. My guess is that one of them has the right stuff; Noll's 'best available athlete". Moreover, that ability to draft a deep bench of women candidates will be a continuing source of comparative advantage in the Democratic Party going forward.
2
Lord, give it a rest already. She came in third in the state that elected her - over a MALE incumbent - to represent it in the Senate. She turned off people, even in her in own party in her own state. It's that simple.
33
Has everyone here forgotten Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee for president in 2016 and won the popular vote? It was only through the oddities of our Electoral College that she didn't occupy the oval office. A woman can be elected president because a woman was elected president. Enough with the whining already. A lot of candidates were knocked out in the early phases of the campaign, including white men. Bernie and Biden are left standing because the voters think they are the strongest candidates.
14
@Frank - have you seen the person Hillary lost to? Could you imagine a worse candidate? Even the Republican party were openly against him (back then at least). And Hillary still lost. She lost to THAT.
Yes there were lots of contributing factors to her loss, some self-inflicted. But misogyny was surely one of those factors, and given the tightness of the race (against THAT!) it seems reasonable to assert that Hillary would be president today if she was a man.
8
@Frank popular vote is and has always been irrelevant
so try again
1
When a majority of the electorate vote for her.
3
@Calvin
Right on
Elizabeth Warren just doesn't have ''it''
She doesn't have leadership qualities that makes one want to follow.
As a life long Dem who has spent the last 5 months trying to make up my mind....from Pete to Yang to Mike to Bernie to Kamla to Corey to now Joe.....never once did I stop at the Elizabeth doorstep.
She may have had a plan but she never sold me on the fact that I wanted to be part of it let alone that she could deliver
2
Clinton won. Let's not forget that. I voted for her. I voted for Warren in our primary. But Ds I know couldn't separate her from Sanders. She had plenty of territory to stake out between Sanders and the other last 4 serious candidates. The people I know are educated and listen. Clearly they didn't hear her articulate anything that made her sound a whole lot different than Sanders, who scares most of them.
Presidents are as much as anything a product of their times. Kennedy was an inexperienced dilettante but highly telegenic. The word telegenic may have been invented for him. 12 or 8 years earlier, before wide distribution of TVs, who knows. Carter was another inexperienced guy who snuck in because right after Watergate, the sense that he was highly moral was more important than his policies. Reagan blew in because after Vietnam and the Iran hostage situation, the country felt humiliated and he exploited simplistic flag waving.
So now we've had 3 years under a hate-mongering, lying, divisive bully. Most Ds I know think that a doctrinaire progressive will just divide the country more. Biden, especially compared to Sanders, comes across as a uniter. Warren apparently didn't. I'm almost 65. I'd love to see one or more women be president if I live long enough, and I feel bad for girls and young women who are discouraged. But a lot of things have to break right for anyone.
11
"When Will We Be Ready for a President Warren?"
Not soon enough.
The most accomplished person, and best retail candidate in the race, Elizabeth Warren ran a campaign that was not without mistakes.
However, the amount of demeaning and insidious sexism in media coverage and punditry (borne of deeply embedded patriarchy) that was thrown at Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris every single day, reflects the sad state of our society.
Just two of the worst: Male candidates are "assertive" "passionate" and "know how to play hardball";
While women are "strident", "pushy" and "shrill"; and,
Find me one negative comment about a male candidates' clothing or looks (yes, people comment about Bernie's rumpled suits and disheveled hair, but in a respectful way: "he's professorial").
In contrast, constant comments about women candidates looks and dress, and yes, even a prominent question about "which moisturizer do you use" ? (that was graciously answered) almost made me physically ill.
Google "pant suit" and "Hillary" for the 2016 version of this.
2020 was worse, in part, because many Men and Women who loved Warren's ideas and would have loved her as a president stunningly convinced themselves that she couldn't be elected.
89
@Mark Keller
"...many Men and Women who loved Warren's ideas and would have loved her as a president stunningly convinced themselves that she couldn't be elected."
That is what centrist Democrats do: attack their own candidates while refusing to really attack the Right, even though the Right is MORE extreme than the Left is every way.
The Left wants to tax the rich and gets rude sometimes?
The Right raises the taxes of workers while cutting the taxes of billionaires, and commits 90% of hate crime, and 70% of mass murders. (The rest of the mass murders are not from the left and not political, but personal.)
Left activists block traffic. Right activists beat people up. Centrists need to figure out the difference.
Incremental compromise with those who are trying to destroy the Constitution so that they can have a white king can only destroy the Constitution.
You cannot have incremental improvement until we outnumber the Right and force THEM to compromise for a change. You cannot outnumber the Right until you stop attacking the Left, and start attacking the Right.
Yes, controlling shares in corporate mass media are owned by, for, and of global billionaires. Trump calls corporate mass news "fake" because he understands he can manipulate the news by attacking it.
But, just because Trump attacks corporate news, doesn't mean that it never lies to you.
Corporate media doesn't want Warren or Bernie to raise their taxes, so they call them extreme and unelectable.
9
@Mark Keller
It isn't only women. There is one male candidate who is "strident", "pushy" and "shrill". Guess who? He's the one who would try to shake up the system that tilts toward the rich.
1
Hillary Clinton won 66 million votes in 2016. She was the most qualified candidate in decades. But she lost the general election due to a perfect storm of negative circumstances.
She won the popular vote by over 3 million votes. Had some Dems not tossed in with Jill Stein, Hillary would be sitting in the WH right now leading our nation.
We were ready for a woman in 2016. The majority of us voted for a woman. That amazing woman should have won. She would have had she not been sandbagged by Jim Comey and Bernie Sanders voters.
Sadly, we missed an incredible opportunity in our Republic's history. In 2024 that time will come again. Joe Biden will pick a female VP this time around and she will take over the Oval after one term.
For now we simply reset the levers of kindness and civility in the WH. Amy, Kamala and Stacy will do all the heavy lifting. Count on it.
26
@Tim
She was the most qualified candidate in decades.
How laughable. Bill Clinton, Bush 1 & 2, Carter, Ford, Reagan, Nixon all more qualified than Bill Clinton's wife.
@Tim , you really should learn the things Harris did to minorities, prisoners, and immigrants in California as a prosecutor and Attorney General. It’s stunning that people don’t know. Check out the article “Kamala Harris Was Not a Progressive Prosecutor” in the NYT search or on google.
1
I suggest that Warren failed to win the nomination was NOT that she is a woman, but it was that she promised that her administration would (i) implement many policies that would unfairly allocate substantial benefits among citizens and non-citizens. Example-- free college to all who go to college after she takes office-- but nothing for those who completed (and paid for) college immediately prior to her election; and (ii) provide medical benefits to all -- an impossibility given the realities of the number and geographical location of doctors and hospitals. Moreover, there are plenty of Democrat voters who have been turned off by her opportunistic claim to be of "American Indian" descent (see her handwritten description of he ethnicity on her application to the Bar)-- an ethnic reference that true descendants of Native Americans find "offensive". On the other hand, I suspect many Democrat voters (myself included) hope that Klobuchar ends up Biden's running mate, and then is the Presidential nominee in 2004.
4
I voted for Elizabeth Warren even though I was sure she would not win. There is a widespread emotional resentment of assertive, successful women such as Warren, particularly among other women. I don't see how to overcome that.
42
@archipelago
I agree. And apparently it is even true among young women - and men. The fact that so many young women and men would choose Sanders over Warren does not bode well for the future imo. You would think such a brilliant and visionary woman would appeal to young people - her mere existence is revolutionary. That so many prefer a grumpy old man who had a heart attack - and should have had the decency to bow out of the race at that point - is very hard to explain - except by sexism.
11
It's impossible to discount sexism and misogyny as a primary reason why women have failed to win the presidency of the US.
In the case of Warren, I think the media's post-mortems miss a serious point, though: in the present moment - one in which populism is a serious political force - a candidate whose appeal is strongest among highly-educated, relatively well-off people is probably not going to win a national election.
One of the Democrats' blindspots - and this is a relatively recent phenomenon - is that they're seen by many voters as a party of the professional classes. Highly-educated professionals are probably not the most effective avatar for a political party in an increasingly downwardly mobile country. Warren fits that stereotype to a tee (as did Buttegieg, btw). It's no surprise that the three candidates vying for the presidency are Trump, Biden and Sanders, all of whom have wide appeal among the proles (in the case of Biden and Sanders, it's a multi-racial working class appeal).
This isn't to discount the role sexism plays in American life. It does. In the current American zeitgeist, however, being the preferred candidate of the affluent professional (and overwhelmingly white) class is quite a hurdle to cross.
5
Elizabeth Warren may have been the single best qualified candidate. Sanders is too divisive, Biden is too timid, nobody else had equivalent brains and experience.
She ran a truly terrible campaign. As others have pointed out, 'Betsy from Oklahoma' was nowhere to be seen and Betsy was the vital connection that was not made.
The idea that a woman can't win is worse than absurd. It's already happened, here as well as in many other countries.
Hillary Clinton won by almost 3 million votes. Even with the anti-democratic Electoral College, if 3 out of 10,000 voters had switched, she would be President. All it takes is the right person; not just right by brains and qualifications, which Warren has in abundance, but right in touch with the electorate.
Dan Kravitz
15
Well, let's look at the women who have won. Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Ella Grasso, Angela Merkel - how did they present themselves to the voters? Where did they fall in the political spectrum, how did they persuade both men and women to vote for them?
In fact, there are eight women governors right now - two Republicans and six Democrats. One of them, Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, probably would have made a more effective candidate than Warren, because she focused in on practical solutions to the most important issues facing the voters in her state, and didn't try to solve every problem.
The knack of appealing to the voters is an art, and not everyone has it. If you propose to be a leader, you have to focus on just a few issues, and emphasize practical solutions that have a chance of getting through the legislature. Voters are not going to accept plans that everyone knows have zero chance of passing.
13
@Jonathan
Then how do you explain Bernie’s popularity?
1
i'm a septuagenarian, married white male. i gave the legal limit to warren's campaign and would have given more if i could. three comments:
1. i am extremely grateful that liz warren is alive, just as an example of what a human being can be. i cherish her example of grace, intellect, perseverance and courage.
2. "now liz warren won't be president." THIS TIME. at my age i've learned that my window on the future is very small.
3. for all the talk of sexism, misogyny, bias, patriarchy, the fundamental force operating in the electorate is fear and loathing, not just about present threats but overwhelmingly about the future.
trump and biden are alike in the backward looking, nostalgic and wholly irrational belief that we can hang onto the past for another four years.
meanwhile, in the leadership vacuum that results, big tech pushes forward their grand vision of a world entirely run and regulated by robotics, data and digital technology -- owned and operated, like our government, by corporations.
87
@drollere I am so with you there - excellent points, as well as scary ones. One thing though - whoever gets in and (hopefully) wins, will have the pick of tons of decent, honest, competent women & men for their executive.
7
I was a Warren supporter until she starting talking about bypassing congress. She promised to cancel student debt via executive action.
That's what Trump is doing. Warren's promise reeked of how Trump has imposed tariffs and funded his wall vanity project by fiat, as if he were a monarch. It's got to stop.
Yes, the Senate is currently a disaster, and McConnell is largely to blame. But continuing to abuse the Constitution is not the answer.
If she'd gained the nomination I would have voted for her. But I'm happy enough at this point that she didn't, and it wasn't about her gender.
9
Warren's portrayal of herself as a schoolteacher instead of who she was, an academic and bankruptcy lawyer, rang false. The perpetual instruction ("understand this") seemed cavalier. "I have a plan for that" is simply not a program to generate voter enthusiasm. Even more, the underlying message of Warren's candidacy was the inequitable treatment and bias against women, worth exploring and yes, fighting for, but not as the driving factor of a campaign. This was the theme of several blunders she made during the debates. Somehow, her approach signaled not strength or power, but vulnerability, defensiveness, and anger. Next time, give us a female presidential candidate like Val Demmings who doesn't exhibit Warren's shortcomings.
16
@Cindy Brandeau
You do realize academics teach? She was considered one of the best profs at Harvard Law because of her Socratic method in class and she sat on the time consuming committee (80 hr weeks when combined with class prep) that determined who got in and had financial aid. The hours on committees are beyond draining and required witnessing qualified young people being rejected.
9
If Warren is holding out for a VP slot with Bernie, he might want to wait until March 20 when we'll apparently know the names of the donors in that 11th hour super pac donation she changed her mind about.
3
@carl bumba
If Biden beats Bernie and selects Klobuchar as his running mate, their chance of winning is excellent. The chance of a Bernie and Warren ticket winning is negligible.
3
Because everything’s a conspiracy, right?
1
This country is not ready to elect a woman president. Liz didn't stand a chance.
We were in denial about 2016. And before all the clamoring about Hillary and her "flaws" begins, try this thought experiment. Had Hillary been a man even with her "baggage" she would have garnered at least 65% of the votes. And then imagine this - had Donald Trump been a woman with all of his "baggage" he wouldn't have gotten 6,000 votes, much less 60 million. We know that sexism played a role in Liz Warren's failure to become a Democratic front runner.
In 2016 the purists denounced Hillary Clinton as "too centrist". But we had Liz Warren with undisputed progressive bona fides. And what did we hear from Democrats? She was too extreme, and we need to nominate a centrist like Biden. Are we to believe that all of a sudden Democratic purists became hardened pragmatists?
So let's take a look at both the progressives this year. Liz Warren is nearly a decade younger than Sanders. She is in excellent health. She didn't have a heart attack on the campaign trail. And she offered specific plans and programs, unlike Bernie's rants. So why didn't more Democratic voters support her? You tell me.
Women candidates are still judged by a "Goldilocks" standard - either too aggressive, or too weak, or too timid, or too "shrill". Men, on the other hand, may have all manner of "flaws". I've been a proud Democrat all my life. I'm in my 60's. I am a lawyer, and a woman of color. And I know sexism when I see it.
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@Orion Clemens If Don Trump had been a woman--for example, if he had been Sarah Palin--he/she would have gotten exactly as many votes as Don Trump the man did. Sarah Palin is a Don Trump clone, maybe without a lot of Mr. Trump's meanness. Both have kind of a simple-minded, social media level of thinking and speaking. People vote for beliefs and personality. The people who voted for Trump would also have voted for Palin. The fact that she was a woman would have had a minuscule impact on the number of votes she would have received.
4
@Orion Clemens. There is another element here as well: Elizabeth Warren was the only one up on the stage who was a professor at an elite institution. That puts a target on her. To some extent, it affected Obama too, but in 2008, with the economy cratering, it was minimized. Yet it came back as part -- along with race -- of the vitriol aimed at him during his administration.
Americans do not like being told that they do not know as much about policy as those who have studied it. That's one of Trump's appeals: he has dismissed (literally) the experts in government and exalted his own ignorant views in place of expert views. While many of us thought that Warren's detailed plans were a strength of her campaign, in many quarters it reminded voters that she was telling them she knew more than they did. Why we have made elite knowledge a dirty word is beyond me.
21
@Orion Clemens
"This country is not ready to elect a woman president."
Really? Hillary Clinton got 2.8 million more votes than Donald Trump.
11
Elizebeth Warren should endorse whoever agrees with her on principles - on what she thought was important when she was running.
She might also endorse someone who has the potential for advancing her personally.
I'm looking forward to seeing who, if anyone, she endorses.
She was the smartest and the only one that worked out the plans for whatever was important. She was the best debater. She ripped the N.Y.City billionaire to shreds showing she had the cred to do the same to Trump. Warren was the best choice for President and we let go of that - of her. I thought she was going to win it all but suddenly the press started to ignore her and she disappeared. It took America almost 50 years to give women the right to vote after they had given black men the right to vote. Will it really take until the late 2050's for a woman to become President? Joe Biden? You really think he can win it? Trump is going to have a field day with 'Slow' Joe as he throws out ums and ers and wanders afield with his thoughts. Warren will be missed and a lot of Democrats are going to rue overlooking her.
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@Ed Smith Jimmy Stewart could barely get a word out and is considered the iconic and definitive American actor. As for smarts, I suppose Adlai Stevenson, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry should have won, too. They didn't. People who heard Nixon and Kennedy on the radio thought Nixon won. People who saw the debate on television thought Kennedy won. Telegenics isn't optional, and denying that isn't shrewd.
10
@Ed Smith
When Trump attacked Warren with the insult (not), Pocahontas, I (a man who often votes for women) had to defend Warren from dozens of Democratic Party women on these very pages who accused Warren of identity politics and being "un-electable" because Trump would call her Pocahontas, as if he doesn't have a degrading nickname for anyone that dares to disagree with him.
You would think that more women would have pointed out that Warren was repeating her family history as told to her by her mother (the oldest kind of history in the world), and gained no actual benefit from claiming native ancestry, because she already had the position.
Trump bet her $1 million she couldn't prove it, so she did with a DNA test.
Democrats attacked Warren, though Trump was the welcher!
It is centrist Democrats, including women, that helped Trump weaken Warren by blaming his "identity politics" on her, not him.
It is the Right, not the Left, that divides us by identity to expand their power over others, including women.
The Left argues AGAINST identity politics and for political equality for all, as demanded by the 14th Amendment.
The Right is Extreme.
The Left is moderate.
Centrists need to figure out the difference.
Warren would have cleaned the floor with Trump, because she doesn't let Republican lies go unanswered, as centrist Democrats habitually do (when they are not repeating them).
Anyone who said Warren was unelectable, because Trump would call her names helped Trump.
14
@Ed Smith
"Suddenly the press started to ignore her."
Elizabeth Warren finished 3rd in Massachusetts (21%) and 4th in Oklahoma (13%), two states in which she has spent a significant part of her life.
You cannot blame the press for such a poor showing.
3
"Though enthusiastic and energetic, she did not create that emotional bond with voters. They (especially nonwhite voters) did not feel she really knew them."
These were another columnists words yesterday.
I think this is a key. Warren is obviously bright and determined. You can't go from down and out in Oklahoma to Harvard Law School without smarts and self-discipline.
But there was something unnerving about her, perhaps her intensity that made her for me like watching a flickering flame that could start a fire in a hurry.
She is always thinking, and perhaps that cerebral quality is not attractive to people who fear falling short of expectations from a parent or a teacher.
I have a theory that people who were good students, but not so popular in school liked Warren a lot, and those, more popular but not serious about their studies, didn't care for her. Just a theory.
I don't think Democratic voters collectively are sexist. We voted, most of us for Hillary last time because we wanted our first woman president. Hillary lost because she failed to heed warnings from women who urged her to visit Midwestern states where factory workers were not supporting her.
She was complacent and so she was defeated. Old story repeated over and over through history.
But don't count Warren out. She has a loyal and ardent national constituency.
Her voice speaks loudly in the Democratic Party . As she often says, in a commanding tone "Hear this...."
11
@Dennis Since when is intensity and being someone who is "always thinking" bad qualities in a president? Do people accuse Bernie of being too intense as he yells at people on the debate stage? No, they think he's inspirational and authentic.
I see intensity as "passionate" and "always thinking" as problem solving. I want those qualities in my president.
I see a double standard at play here.
39
@Dennis
"I have a theory that people who were good students, but not so popular in school liked Warren a lot, and those, more popular but not serious about their studies, didn't care for her. Just a theory."
Shrewd insight, Dennis.
3
@Richard
Theory doesn't work. I was both very popular and extremely serious in my studies. Amanda Marcotte was right, we don't deserve Elizabeth Warren.
I liked Klobuchar because she was culturally familiar and seemed completely authentic. There were also times I heard Warren speak and found her intellect quick and appealing. That said, her politics, despite what the true believers say, might be out of tune with the times. Her message didn't even play in Taxachusetts. Do we really want to base a plaintive feminist lament on what might be a non causa pro causa? The country is ready for a woman president who isn't Warren.
17
I like Elizabeth Warren overall, but take issue with her emphasis on gender as the reason she has not received greater support. To me she appears to have a chip on her shoulder about being a woman and I am tired of hearing her complain.
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@Alex
I’m sorry you are tired of hearing about it. That doesn’t make it untrue. Even a quick glance at these comments shows the intense scrutiny and double standard a serious female contender faces. Most of the commenters didn’t reject Elizabeth because of her policies but rather because of her behavioral qualities such as wonkiness or preachiness. Yet, Biden can stumble and bumble and seem airheaded, Bernie can be angry and strident and vague; nobody cares. That’s the difference.
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@Michigander many people including myself, never found her authentic whatsoever. Tremendously flawed for the office she sought.
6
@Michigander I do not dispute the fact that being a woman (or a minority candidate for that matter) makes it harder to get elected in America. I am only pointing out the fact that constantly assuming sexism as the only explanation for one's failures seems a misguided approach. I would like to see Elizabeth Warren become the president of the United States in the same way Barack Obama did: by uniting people rather than playing the identity politics card. Just my 2 cents as a "privileged" white man.
2
Maybe if I ask this question early I'll get an answer this time. (There are only seven comments as I write this.)
It seems to me that in the debates (and maybe on the campaign trails) the female candidates, especially Elizabeth Warren, never missed an opportunity to bring their gender into the conversation. Why did they do this if it's such a liability to be a female candidate? Is it possible that they are not victims in this situation... and maybe it's actually an asset? (I'm probably missing something here since I'm male.) I can surely imagine that in the general election the pros do NOT outweigh the cons for female candidates. But among Democrats, this may not be the case. There does seem to be more positive press than negative press regarding women in politics. (I should add, to quote the elephant man, I am not a monster... I have two daughters and a wife who are better than me - and I think Tulsi Gabbard should at least be our vice president.)
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@carl bumba
While I appreciate your attempt at mansplaining, I think you might be missing the point. And the flaw as I see it is your statement: “I can surely imagine that in the general election the pros do NOT outweigh the cons for female candidates.”
The point is there should be no pros and cons between any of the candidates based on unchangable characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation. Every candidate should be evaluated on their experience, their proposals, their vision of the problems and potential solutions facing our country in this moment.
2
@carl bumba I don't recall Hillary used gender card.
Wasn't she disliked by many women?
@carl bumba Yes, women are perceived as such an asset on the presidential ticket that the Dems have nominated exactly one female vice presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and the Reps exactly one as well, Sarah Palin in 2008. That's it. All. In the history of this grand Republic.
2
I am 63 years old. When I was a little girl, family and friends laughed when I said I wanted to be the first female President. They thought it was hilarious that ANY girl might have that goal, not just me. I knew that at the time and I knew it wasn't funny.
I became a teenage feminist and decided that if I personally couldn't be President, it was ok, but I wanted a qualified woman to be President. Over the years, no woman until Hillary Clinton got nominated. I was shocked when Trump was elected instead. Now I am again disappointed that Elizabeth Warren has been passed over. Beyond disappointed. Speechless and infuriated.
Women were granted the vote 100 years ago this year. In my lifetime, I have seen a few changes, but women are still not equal under the eyes of the law and we are losing what few rights we fought so hard to get.
I guess I should be grateful that Warren is still in the Senate. But unless Trump is thrown out, women's rights will continue to be eroded. I am discouraged and demoralized...
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@sfdphd
One of the best and most successful politicians of the 21st Century comes from San Francisco.
And she is a woman.
6
@sfdphd
Women need to convince women that women can lead.
There are plenty of men like me that have no problem voting for a woman, and women are a majority of the voters.
Women have to talk each other into voting for a woman. Too many women on here attacked Warren. There was no reason for that.
Her debating skills would have crushed Trump's insult barrage like a shoe stomping roaches.
If Biden trades insults with Trump, and keeps talking about violence ("take Trump behind a barn"), he will be fighting on Trump's home turf and lose.
"Women were granted the vote 100 years ago this year." Yes, that was done by the Left, who keep having to undo identity based policies created by the Right.
The Left argues passionately for political equality for all.
The Right uses identity to divide our union.
Centrists need to figure out the difference.
The French resistance was saving lives from, and weakening, the Nazis. Centrist Democrats would have accused the French Resistance of Identity politics.
There is no half a Constitution. If you compromise with those that think calling Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" is funny and good campaign strategy, then we will never elect a woman, because you will keep compromising with them to weaken the Constitution.
Incremental change based on compromise with Republicans is incrementally weakening the Constitution, because that is their goal. The 100% support of Trump from the Right proves that.
Stop ignoring all the evidence.
3
@sfdphd ...put faith in the a Biden-Schumer ticket. /they’re both fighters. On a man, that’s attractive. On a woman, its not.
If Bernie Sanders had really wanted his left-wing revolution (or whatever it was), he could have had it, by endorsing Elizabeth Warren, a younger, articulate, very promising candidate with good organization skills and a proven record for getting things done. Backing Warren to promote his left-wing causes wouldn’t have been a fool-proof strategy for Sanders, but many moderate and center-left voters would have voted for Warren. She’s likeable and competent, and she would have had a chance. I wonder if the idea ever occurred to Bernie, or if he just wanted to be PRESIDENT, period.
Better luck next time, Senator Warren. I know you’ll be back.
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@Constance Warner
Why on earth would Sanders, who started a movement, who forced the party to the left, who made ideas like a $15 hour minimum wage a realistic thought, hand the baton to Warren?
She had her chance to do all the things that Sanders did in 2016. She declined. Sanders picked up the ball and ran with it. She had to take the votes away from sanders. She failed.
5
@Constance Warner
Agreed. But Sanders is backed by the Russians for a reason.
Both Warren and Clinton were better than he in making real progress, but if the Russians can't get an incompetent corrupt reality TV dictator re-elected, they would rather have an angry socialist with a long record of achieving nothing in office.
4
I would like to think we would be ready for a President Warren in 2020, but that was not to be.
Looking ahead, though, I'm surprised how quickly her supporters have turned to Biden, a man who operated in direct opposition to her when she initially came to Washington to speak on behalf of all Americans, not just the bankers and credit card companies.
Those who have not seen it, I urge you to look at the youtube of Warren vs. Biden and ask yourself which of those individuals you would want as president.
As for me, I'm sticking with the values Warren has promoted her entire political career, and will now vote for Sanders. I know I am in the minority here, but I think it's important to place my vote where my values are.
19
@avrds
How do you know her supporters turned to Biden?
@avrds I completely agree - but one proviso, Please vote Blue no matter who... (PS if Bernie took on Liz now... dream on)
I would never consider a candidate's sex in deciding which one to support. I was 100% with Amy Klobuchar. Warren never appealed to me at all.
It seems that the small percentage of people that supported Warren thought she was somehow close to perfect. To the rest of us, she was a very flawed candidate.
I hope Klobuchar makes it to the presidency someday. I don't want to see Warren run again. But for now, Biden is good enough.
21
@Polaris
Exactly my thinking! I would love to see a woman becoming the president - intelligent, strong, compassionate, someone who is able to bring out the best in people and bring them together.
I don't view EW as this kind of candidate.
6
@Polaris I'm a constituent of Sen. Klobuchar, but supported Warren. I never seriously considered supporting Klobuchar. I have found her frustrating at times as a Senator, slow to take a position on issues or bills. I can't count the number of times I've called her office inquiring about her position on something, and they'll tell me she hasn't made a statement about it. I wanted someone bolder, which was Warren.
I'm not excited about the remaining candidates, but I will vote for anyone if it means getting Trump out of office.
18
If the real question you are asking is when we will have a woman President, the short answer is no one really knows. If the Russians had not interfered, I would have said it already happened in 2016.
49
@Enrique Puertos
Add to Russian interference, the Bernie torpedo effect.
2
I would not call it a “near perfect camaign.” Her ideas were disturbing to plenty of people supporting other Democrats - like the constitutionality of the wealth tax, or the demonization of business in general and wealth in particular. Not mention the threat to scrap our current health insurance system for an unknown. The quality of the campaign is not just the energy - it’s the ideas, and winning people over to them instead of alienating so many other Democrats. Don’t blame the loss on her being a woman - this just cheapens the legitimate debate over our national policies.
18
@David Kahn
"Her ideas were disturbing."
A point of view that has eluded many who have lauded Elizabeth Warren for having well laid out plans.
2
@David Kahn
Yet Sanders — an old white guy — is flying high by espousing those exact beliefs.
Even though Warren would have been a terrific candidate and no doubt would have opened doors for more women in politics, we must not forget that the Democrats are actually likely to nominate one of America's most maligned minorities for President, A minority that faces public scorn and disdain at every traffic light change and in every ATM line in the country- Old People.
2
@Martin Elizabeth Warren is also old, and white, but why is it that no one criticizes her for that? Does sex trump both age and race?
@Martin
Since when is the fastest growing demographic in the history of civilization —white people over the age of 65– a minority??
The first rule of politics is get elected, because without that crucial step no politician gets to govern. All the "right" or "best" ideas of a candidate, other attributes, or their gender don't matter unless elected. Sen. Warren proved a very poor candidate at winning voters and other forms of support. Even in her home state she came in third.
Some of the reasons Warren didn't win votes was undoubtedly because of bias against a woman, combined with the unlucky timing of running after Hillary Clinton. There are many other reasons why she fell short. Ultimately she did not do what winning politicians need to do: attract large amounts of support and voters.
4
@wts If the electorate has a bias against Warren, I guess we have to blame women because the majority of voters are women.
I don't think Biden can beat Trump without a woman on the ticket. Rumor has it that Trump will dump Pence for Nikki Haley.
Biden has a huge problem with progressives because he simply refuses to budge and move left. M4A is a winning issue and long overdue.
Ok, Biden can hold his stubborn antiquated positions, backed by the donor class and the military industrial complex, if he chooses a progressive woman to bring the party into unity against Trump.
I supported Bernie, but I am hoping Elizabeth Warren makes a deal with Biden: Her endorsement for the Vice Presidency.
And as long as I'm asking, I'd add a Biden resignation halfway through his term, due to age and mental acuity.
His resignation will make Elizabeth Warren our first female president without waiting four more years and trying to convince skeptical voters she can do the job. She will have two years for people to get used to a female leader. She will run as the incumbent.
Biden will go down in history as one of our greatest presidents. He will have credit for beating Trump and saving democracy from a dictatorship.
And then history will record his courage to resign at the right time and give a woman a chance.
Biden will bring the country together, ending the tyranny of minority rule by the GOP, end give us our first female president. That will insure his greatness in the history of American democracy.
Biden or Bernie, neither will seek a second term.
13
@Norm
Yes, I would live at this point for Biden to chose a woman for VP.
Amy Klobuchar is the one!
@Norm
Biden needs to nominate someone much younger than he is and a woman of color would be ideal.
Stacey Abrams is beloved by progressives and would make a great choice.
Nobody should believe Biden will become president and then resign from office absent some catastrophic medical issue. He's wanted to be president for over 35 years and won't give up his office to hand it off to someone else.
1
It was hard to see Kamala Harris self-destructing from 15% to 2.5%, and then Warren self-destructing from front runner to also-ran, but we watched it with our own eyes. Each self-immolated on a pyre of inauthenticity and poor political instincts. The United States is the only western nation ever to elect a racial minority member as its leader, and I predict we will have a female president long before another western nation elects a racial minority leader. In fact, the great likelihood is that our female president will also be a member of a racial minority, and her name could well be Nikki Haley.
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@Snowball
The prime minister of Ireland is half Indian.
2
@Snowball
Perish the thought.
2
@Snowball
Please not Nikki Haley. [Rest of comment suppressed.]
1
The final line gets it. Gender bias is one issue, but not her only one. She is, in a certain sense, a policy wonk comparable to Mayor Pete. Or Hillary. But more than anything this system requires you to capture the TV audience (and the Electoral College), too. Without overthinking it, Joe and his orange hued counterpart have bluntly captured a large element of the populace without fine tuning the policy rationales. And that's the way it is. You have to work with the possible, not the perfect.
6
@PKBNYC
And yet Hillary’s loss has been widely attributed to (among other things) “not enough details.”
Whatever a woman does, somehow it’s the wrong thing. Therein lies the problem.
The time to say this was when Warren was on the rise and our billionaires had a freakout and all the major "liberal" media responded with three consecutive weeks of devastating negative coverage and opinion pieces that successfully tanked Warren's campaign. Then it seemed protecting the rich from taxes trumped gender, even for women reporters and columnists.
111
@RRI Exactly. People are forgetting the way in which her rise in popularity was quickly shot down, aggressively. I think they went after her more aggressively than Sanders because they really did fear that should could actually do what she was promising.
42
@RRI
You make a very good point there. The media reaction to Warren played a large role in her decline. The powers that be clearly saw her as a threat.
She ran a great campaign—even more remarkable because she’s a relative newcomer to Electoral politics.
She did however do some things which in the long run hurt her campaign. First was her insistence that, unlike Sanders, she would fund Medicare for All without raising taxes on the middle class. This struck many as disingenuous. The second was when she went after Sanders for having said in a private conversation that it would be harder for a woman to defeat Trump.
Assuming Biden serves one term or Trump wins the election I do think she will be back in 2024. She’ll be in a stronger position then without a progressive icon like Sanders in the race—that is unless she ends up as Bernie’s running mate and they send The Donald back to Mar. Lago in which case she’ll be in an even stronger position.
An old lefty can dream, can’t she.
6
@RRI I agree and why I think the mistake Warren made was going only on share sourced funding. She needed to show she could play with the big boys and big boy money. If you get right down to it regardless of what Trump voters say they like about Trump, in some way or other it's his claims to money that prove to them whatever their reason for liking him. Warren Would have to eventually do this anyway and she waited too long, shooting herself in the foot when she needed to be taking big strides.
Is it possible--just possible--that voters analyzed her qualifications and positions and found her lacking? This is the same Democratic party that nominated a woman in 2016; a woman who garnered more popular votes in the general election than her opponent. Warren botched her Medicare for All position, eventually devolving into a tangled mess. She often tried to appeal only to the most extreme positions (e.g., promising a transgender child that she'd let the child vet the secretary of education). Maybe people just thought she is out of touch with actual governing.
Out of curiosity, why didn't Klobuchar's withdrawal prompt the same "is it misogyny" cycle?
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@ YOu are 100% correct: Warren lost out because she wasn't a good candidate and, most importantly, would never beat Trump. Her (i) free college for everybody, (ii) medical care for everybody (effectively preventing people from having medical coverage tailored to their particular needs), and (iii) mandating other very specific "benefits" whether folks want those specific benefits in the form she establishes them, reflects her arrogant "I know best what everybody should need, want and get from a government controlled by her, all as specifically crafted by that government . On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that Klobuchar was the second best candidate to Biden: hampered only by a perception that she is less likely to beat Trump than Biden (and beating Trump is the primary Democrat objective. But whether that Democrat ticket wins or loses this election, Klobuchar should be the leading potential candidate going into the 2024 election. Hopefully, that election will put to rest the claim that a woman cannot be elected President.
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@James
Actually, no, it's not. Compare Warren's initatives to Bernie's positions, which map closely in general approach and priorities but lack specifics. Given almost identical age and philosophy, one candidate who is massively qualified and has detailed, comprehensive project outlines is sidelined and dismissed while the other has massive support.
And no, I'm not whining. If you study how sexism and misogyny work, you will see that Elizabeth Warren encountered classic bias.
Including people who overlook the bias and hunt for justifications for that sexism in nit-picking her campaign.
Just sayin'.
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@James - you can offer up all kinds of rationale or excuses why a particular woman didn't manage to triumph in a particular year. It's harder to dodge the question of why no woman has ever been president or vice president in the entire history of the United States, despite making up more than half the population - particularly given the number of grossly incompetent male presidents there have been, current occupant being exhibit #1.
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I wanted Warren for the nomination. I don't want her for VP. My wife wanted Klobuchar for the nomination. I do want her for VP.
Why? Warren's governor is a Republican, and Klobuchar's is a Democrat, and we need to keep every Senate seat we can. If we can win the Senate, keep the House, and win the Presidency, we can start to repair the damage the GOP and Trump have done these past few years.
Fixing the damage requires all Democrats to think strategically and pull together, and not get into snits about this or that particular job. Being a Senator is a pretty big job, and if we are the majority, then Warran can have a huge impact.
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Massachusetts uses a special election to fill US Senate vacancies. An interim senator appointed by the governor would serve for only a few months.
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@Bailey T. Dog No, Make some other guy fall on his sword. Women are always expected to do this for so many men you don't even notice anymore. You do it. Stop making us do it for you.
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