This quote is all over the Internet today:
“The game is rigged, and the Republicans rigged it,” Warren declared to a room of 400 boisterous supporters in Minnesota on Saturday while campaigning with Senator Al Franken.
I wanted a bit more context for it, so I looked here among other places.
“Republicans believe this country should work for those who are rich, those who are powerful, those who can hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers,” Warren put it in Colorado the day before, her arm around embattled incumbent Senator Mark Udall.
In both cases, Warren followed the rebukes with some variation of the same rile-up-the-troops pep talk. “We can whine, we can whimper or we can fight back,” Warren challenged her audiences.
Warren took that same message to Iowa on Sunday, making two stops for Senate candidate Bruce Braley, who needs her help mobilizing the Democratic Party base in a midterm race that couldn’t be closer.
Most of the rest of the article is “Will she or won’t she?” speculation. A poll out today shows her with 10% support, whereas Joe Biden has 13% and Hillary Clinton has an incredible 65%.
I don’t think she’s running, but frankly I’d rather she didn’t. I’ve been a Warren skeptic since the beginning, not because of any flaw of hers, but because I just hate to see us anoint candidates. It almost always leads to trouble.
But she’s sharpened her message, and clearly gotten more comfortable with the political arena. I hope that continues, and she can become a real force in the Senate.
fredrichlariccia says
I only have one question ? Why isn’t every Democratic candidate across the country, up and down the ballot,
running on Senator Warren’s populist progressive platform ?
Fred Rich LaRiccia
SomervilleTom says
Many Democratic candidates, up and down the ballot, are just as threatened by Senator Warren’s populist progressive platform as any Republican. An important reason why the game is rigged is that the important rules and referees that too many Democrats choose are little different than those chosen by Republicans.
What do I mean by “important”? I mean aspects of the game that might ACTUALLY cause the wealth concentrated in the 1% to be clawed back to the 99%. While it’s true that a Democrat with good political chops is likely to sound very convincing while explaining that “now is not the right time” to, for example, significantly increase the gift/estate tax for the very wealthy, the result is the same as any Republican who shamelessly repeats some Rush Limbaugh lie.
Even worse, in my opinion, are the numerous cases where Democrats proudly pass laws and regulations that sound marvelously progressive — and that are filled with loopholes and exemptions that cause them to have essentially zero effect on the intended targets.
In my view, support for Senator Warren’s populist progressive platform is valuable as an Occam’s razor to help separate the real progressives from the rest of the pack.
jconway says
Why isn’t every candidate in Massachusetts, up and down the ballot running on her populist progressive platform? Starting with our nominee for Governor, our nominee for Lt. Gov who still hasn’t bothered to post here or articulate his own hope for progressive politics, or our nominee for Auditor who is still running around chasing Herald headlines going after EBT fraud.
johntmay says
Until the people with nothing to lose in this country realize that the system is rigged? I was having this thought yesterday as I drove past a dilapidated but occupied house in Palmer that had a Charlie Baker sign on the front lawn and an old 4’x8′ Scott Brown poster on the back barn.
jconway says
I’ve long felt that people have missed the central thesis of Thomas Frank’s excellent ‘Whats the Matter with Kansas?’, and in conversations with him at the Hyde Park Book Store at his launch party for Pity the Billionaire he confirmed this.
Too many people in the media, even on our side, viewed it as a confirmation of the ‘they cling to guns and religion’ comment that Obama discussed. Others took the comment to mean its time for the party to tack to the right to win values voters. Both sentiments are incorrect.
In reality, there are two economically conservative parties, one that supports abortion and gay rights and one that pretends to oppose them. What we have to do is tack to the economic left, utilize populist rhetoric, and organize and lift up workers again rather than look down on them as culturally conservative backward thinking reactionaries. I got plenty of pro-life voters in Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana to consider voting Obama in 2008 by focusing on his differences with Hillary as well as the Republicans on economics. It’s a harder sell now since he largely continued Clintons agenda, but, its something we have to continue to work on.
Too many people on our side see the NRA decals, confederate flag decals, and fetus decals on the truck and move past the house, but there are voters to be had there focusing on the bread and butter issues that have fueled our party since Roosevelt. His coalition is out there waiting to be reunited. We won the culture war, most cultural conservatives recognize it, let them eat at Chik Fil A and attend their megachurches in peace while offering them the universal healthcare, fair wages, and good jobs they want as much as anyone else.
johntmay says
Yes, I read it and yeah, I get it, sort of. What seems clear to me is that these poor “Scott Brown” and Tea Party people need a very simple, clean message and they are not getting it from the Democrats. That’s where Elizabeth Warren has it. These folks don’t want to hear about “living wage” or other arcane slogans, despite the validity of the slogan. Saying “The Game is Rigged” is something that anyone can understand without having to have it explained.
fenway49 says
is that antipathy for liberals among those voters that stems from cultural issues, anger over Vietnam protestors, welfare scapegoating, you name it, has resulted in many of them giving knee-jerk support to conservative economic orthodoxy as well.
jconway says
Though admittedly the Midwestern basis of my personal experience in these areas might be a mitigating factor. A lot of proud union home signs or decals adorn the same houses that have mary statues in the front lawn and pro life and NRA decals on the truck. A lot of white ethnic blue collar burbs of urban neighborhoods that lean red but remember to vote blue during hard times.
In MA there is definitely a stronger anti-tax vibe that fuels a lot of the conservatism. The registered Democrat in my neighborhood on the list who called Deval a communist did so on the basis of anti-taxation rhetoric and the “Kennedy cut our taxes rather than wasting it on welfare”, and I got a few who said we hadn’t had a “good one” since Ed King-largely on the same lines.
But on the UP, in suburban Cleveland and the white towns adjacent to Gary it was a lot more economic populist/cultural conservatism. A combo that worked well for Joe Donnelley when I reluctantly campaigned for him (getting paid a stipend by the DCCC didn’t hurt).
Christopher says
It’s been 40 years – time to put that one to bed it would seem.
fenway49 says
a generic “support the troops” thing. Ever since Vietnam there have been people who think any liberal who opposes a particular war or bombing campaign is anti-troops, un-American, etc. We just had a troll on here a couple of days ago saying Democrats are against the Republican running for state rep on the Cape because he’s a veteran and “We liberals from Cambridge and Newton hate veterans.” Cultural disdain in some areas for anything liberal, because of these perceived divides, has never gone away.
merrimackguy says
Then everyone is 150% behind the military-industrial complex.
SomervilleTom says
The real GOP lie, that a great many of those “Kansas” voters respond to, is that the GOP promises to welcome each and every one of them to the moneyed upper crust, and that Democrats strive to block that progress. They truly believe that if they just hold on a bit longer — and continue to support the GOP — they, too, well someday be prosperous and happy.
The uncomfortable truth that we Democrats need to face is that there is more truth in that lie than we like to admit. Too many of our programs and policies, as rolled out, DO have the effect of raising rather than lowering barriers to genuine wealth. This happens NOT because of the knee-jerk rhetoric promoted by the media on behalf of the GOP (“raising taxes kills jobs”), but because of our more insidious habit of making sure that our programs and policies don’t really change the wealth and income concentration that benefits our major Democratic donors.
For example, we allow and encourage the “austerity” narrative, even though it violates both our espoused values and also economic reality.
In my view, this dynamic is helpful in explaining the reality here in Massachusetts as well as at the federal level.
merrimackguy says
would be if there was ever any discussion about what works, how to do it better, etc.
I remember hearing Robert Reich in an interview talking about his time as Sec. of Labor. He says he thought labor=jobs, so that job training programs, something like 70 federal ones at the time scattered across all departments, should be consolidated in his department for more efficiency and effectiveness. Did that go anywhere? No.
So when non-progressives hear “spend more on job training” they think about pouring money into a hole, and if there’s 70 programs with their hand out (maybe more now), that could be the case.
I agree totally that
th.
and would be much happier if that was not the case.
jconway says
On the GOP lie-Actually I’ve had voters confess to me that they know the GOP screws them on the economy but will always ‘protect the unborn’, so when confronted with two Wall Street parties they pick they one that wants to outlaw a procedure they find morally repugnant. I am not defending the logic, but I am saying few working folks I’ve encountered by into that trickle down nonsense. Certainly the blue collar largely elderly base does by into that logic, and certainly that’s the way the media reports it to the rest of the country-having long given up and basically backed neoclassical economics as the only legitimate kind.
By actually having Democrats keep their promises we can ensure we get to keep and expand our electoral base. One of the biggest lies I had to counter is that Obama wanted to kill Social Security and Medicare. And the Ryan lie about Obamacare ‘cutting’ Medicare also convinced some folks, particularly the folks in his district who viewed Ryan and Reagan as Social Security saviors. Having a President openly talk about chaining CPI, having a prominent Democrat write an Op-Ed blaming “the left” for not “being serious” about entitlement reform is part of the problem. And having folks like Schumer, Gillibrand, and Corey ‘dont attack private equity’ Booker as spokespersons on any economic issue undermines it as well. Or guys like Goolsbee saying the President wasn’t serious about tackling outsourcing. I think once we deliver on some of these basic promises we can recover some of the New Deal coalition.
dasox1 says
Good post, but I’m curious about this line: “I’ve been a Warren skeptic since the beginning, not because of any flaw of hers, but because I just hate to see us anoint candidates.” How was Sen. Warren anointed? To the Sen? To the Democratic nomination should she run for president? I don’t get it. My concern is that HRC will have too easy a time in the Democratic primary/caucus process. It’s one thing to move into the general with momentum and money but I think that there’s real benefit to having to run hard in the primaries. It makes you battle tested, gets you ready for the debates and the media scrutiny, and forces clarity of thinking on key issues. I’m prepared to support HRC (although she’s always been too much of a foreign policy hawk for my taste) but I would like to see a competitive nominating process that includes positions on the right (Webb? Manchin?) and left (Biden? Warren?) of the party.
JimC says
The only challengers were Marisa DiFranco and a guy whose name I can’t recall (I think he didn’t get enough signatures). Capuano, Markey, Lynch … all the usual suspects stayed away.
There was also a strong movement to keep DiFranco off the ballot. I do think it happened organically during the convention itself, but there was also plenty of chatter about not having a primary.
dasox1 says
I recall some potentially good candidates starting the race, and then pulling the plug because she was so formidable (Setti Warren, Conroy, Khazei, Massie). But, I understand your point.
jconway says
Brown was at 54% popularity then, about the same amount of votes Warren pulled in. I know more than a few libertarian leaning friends who split their tickets Romney/Warren or Johnson/Warren since they saw her as being a lefty foe of crony capitalism. I think there is a strong populist undercurrent to our libertarian leaning independents (the Perot types) that we refuse to recognize at our peril. Russ Feingold and Liz Warren show how to win them over without moving right.
merrimackguy says
Just about everybody has a crazy story about how they got screwed.
Everyone I know was shaking their head during the whole housing bubble when the loan crisis was fermenting. Either personal stories or things they were hearing.
Note their was no media coverage whatsoever in 2003-07 despite lots of examples of predatory lending, fraud, bad documentation etc. It was all out there at the blog level.
dasox1 says
that Brown would have beaten the others that I listed. I like your point about the libertarians too. It’s like Rand Paul’s foreign policy ideas, some of which are so far right, they’re left.
JimC says
But winnowing the field is an unwise impulse that we need to get away from.
Look no further than our 2016 field. Where’s our bench?
jconway says
It’s not her fault that Marisa di Franco was a candidate of brobdingnagian ineptitude. Capuano couldn’t light a fire to beat Coakley so he wouldn’t have beat Liz (though I am a big fan of us). Ditto Khazei. And Seti was a little too green and a little unclear about why he wanted the job. I do wish Seti had challenged JK3, he had a lot more experience and it would’ve been a civil contest instead of a coronation.
But she got a ton of grassroots support and was drafted to run, and has made it quite clear she doesn’t like being a politician and might only serve a term or two more. Way different than Hillary Clinton who has been running since the day she conceded in Unity, NH.
Hillary is also the most assured frontrunner since Nixon in 68′, right down to the ‘new Hillary’ meme, having lost a major presidential campaign before, and having a national network waiting to be reactivated with a lot of chips to cash from a variety of politicos in her party. I don’t mean to compare her to him in policy or ethics, just in terms of the advantage she has. Maybe Mondale comes close on our side, or Al Gore. Even then, a much smaller constituency for those candidates.
It will take someone with the progressive credentials to out flank Hillary from the left while being a more viable general election candidate. And short of reincarnating Obama from 2007, I don’t know who that is. Certainly not Liz Warren, certainly not Bernie Sanders, Martin O
Malley or Russ Finegold. It’ll take a Schweitzer or a Webb, and both of those guys have significant flaws with the base on their own.
SomervilleTom says
The only people I heard that meme coming from were the execrable Marisa DeFranco “campaign” and a handful of disappointed politicos and talking-heads.
Elizabeth Warren was drafted by people who sensed the power of the Occupy movement and who correctly surmised that she had the chops to both win and also carry the office well after winning.
The only “movement to keep DiFranco off the ballot” was the hostile reaction of, apparently, just about everyone who came in contact with her — specifically convention delegates. I would say, in fact, that from my vantage point Marisa DeFranco decided to anoint HERSELF, and the rest of the world thankfully rejected her attempt.
I agree that we have a weak bench indeed (I think the team currently on the field is evidence enough without looking to 2016). I blame that on an excess of power concentrated in the Speaker’s office rather than excessive desire to winnow the field.
I think that in order to build our bench, we should be mounting primary challenges targeting the DINO faction of our lege with loudly progressive candidates.
I would like to see those candidates LOUDLY repeating Ms. Warren’s observation that the game is rigged, and aggressively advocating tax and economic policies that truly change the game.
JimC says
But there was no primary, for the Democratic nominee for the US Senate, in MASSACHUSETTS.
I don’t think we need primary challenges, necessarily, but it would be nice to see more and better candidates in places like Texas. Wendy Davis emerged early, but she’s a mediocre candidate and probably won’t win. A real primary there, even if she won, would have helped not hurt.
SomervilleTom says
You chose the term (“annointed”), not me. That term is freighted with a lot more baggage than you seem to now admit — surely those connotations are why you chose it.
There was no primary because no candidate besides Ms. Warren was able to meet the ballot requirements. Failing to get a 15% delegate vote is no different from failing to get the requisite number of signatures — no cigar-smoke laden back room need be or was involved.
Ms. Warren was not “annointed”.
I think the most salient division is between the 1% and the rest of us. I think a huge part of how the game is rigged is to insure that only candidates loyal to the 1% gain office — regardless of party affiliation.
I agree that we need more and better (in the Elizabeth Warren progressive populist vein) candidates, locally and nationwide. Here in Massachusetts, I would like to see such candidates join primaries as Republicans, as Democrats, and even as a third “Progressive Populist” party.
I think it is the 99% who needs a deeper bench, more than either established party.
JimC says
I’ll own the word.
She was anointed.
I agree with you that she was not anointed in the classic sense, she had support from a range of people. Call it collective anointing if you want, but that’s different from a contested Dem primary. When everyone else stepped aside, we took a big gamble on an untested politician. Fortunately it paid off.
jconway says
That point is rubbish. We are taking a huge gamble on a tested politician right now in our Governor’s race, one we are likely to lose. Additionally, there was not a lot of muscling from state party poo bahs that kept other candidates off the ballot. Seti, Massie, Capuano, and Khazei choose to pass. The latter two did terribly in a similar primary already, and the former two were not well known statewide. Di Franco is a joke and a gadfly, a point I hope we all agree on, so let’s not perpetuate her narrative which was irresponsibly picked up by the Globe and Herald that this effort was somehow “rigged”.
The DSCC, the vacating incumbent, Planned Parenthood and a host of other big interest groups did try and clear the field for Markey. We can’t argue with that, and you would be right that we could’ve benefited from a bigger field there.
JimC says
n/t
jconway says
Undecides break for the challenger, and who do you think Falchuck and McCormick voters will pick as a second choice? More of them will pick Baker than Coakley. You’ll see these polls start to shift his direction as they did at this point in her race against Brown.
By all means-she is down and against the corner and needs our help, not trying to discourage simply trying to get my fellow Dems to wake up as I did before Brown. I don’t want that same night to repeat itself.
merrimackguy says
Independents get less votes in close races.
I think all the leaning undecideds have “come home to roost.” leaving only a small number out there.
Trend is against the President, against the incumbent (which one could read here to mean party).
GOTV could prevail though. Can be worth +3 or 4 and I think that would be enough.
dasox1 says
I think that we have to be prepared for MC to slightly underperform her final poll numbers. I expect some of her soft support will be lost either because they won’t actually vote, or because they will change their minds at the last minute. Also, I agree, that in this environment (even in this blue state) that independents and undecideds will break for the perceived challenger which is clearly Baker, in this case. Rightly or wrongly, he’s the “outsider” in the voters’ minds. She is from the governor’s and president’s party, and she’s a current office holder. I’m deeply concerned that a lack of excitement is going to hinder the GOTV efforts. I hope I’m wrong, and that she pulls it out but the signs don’t look good. If there’s some way that the undecideds move towards her in the next couple weeks, perhaps she can pull it out. I have this sinking feeling that if she’s going to win this race that she needs to be much closer to 47 or 48%, instead of hovering around 43% (polling avg). Also, I’ve seen a couple of polls (WBUR, and Globe) that show her with negatives just above or just below 40%, and Bakers negatives in the high 20’s%. That delta (10%-12%) in the unfavorable number is not good.
SomervilleTom says
I’ve been robocalled twice by apparently legitimate polls regarding this race.
After confirming that I am a Democrat who is likely to vote and who cares about the election, the poll DID NOT ALLOW me to say “None of the above”. Instead, the poll allowed me to choose either one of the candidates on the ballot or “undecided”.
Some number of people will, like me, pull a ballot, either blank the governor’s race or write in somebody not on the ballot, and vote for the other offices. I don’t know how many “undecided” voters are like me, but the poll is reporting incorrect results for that segment.
SomervilleTom says
Everyone else did NOT “step aside”.
One candidate (Ms. DelFranco) attempted to make the ballot and failed — miserably. She was not “blocked” by some cabal, she was not the victim of any vast conspiracy, no “collective” decided against her.
She was unable to persuade even 15% of the delegates to vote for her. I see that as little different from running, and losing, a contested primary — except that it happened sooner and wasted less political capital getting to the same result.
An “anointed” candidate, in my view, is a candidate who ensures that he or she is nominated by bypassing or subverting the processes in place that govern our nominations. Elizabeth Warren was NOT anointed.