So now the Hillaryites (disguised as pro Liz Warren people or disinterested Dems) say Liz should not run because the country will view her as another Barack Obama. A first term fluke senator who suddenly becomes the flavor of the week among the shallow ignorant self-impressed dominating the “progressive” wing of the party can not be paraded in front of the American people again. Just ain’t gonna work.
Don’t buy it. Just the old folks doing their devotions to the Blessed Hillary. They know they blew their chance eight years ago but hubris makes them believe the seas should be parted for her candidacy.
Screw them.
Face it folks, making Barack Obama President in ’08 was like putting One Direction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year. Like them, Barack is a manufactured boy band who plays to a much larger audience. With Liz it’s more like a young Aretha just walked in the room.
Don’t believe me? How about the dozens of “present’ votes he took in the U.S. Senate?
Obama was more like a sports prospect a general manager falls in love with. Guy should have stayed in the minors never mind starting game one in the World Series.
And it shows.
Now Liz, Liz is much different. She has a record and would never vote “present” over and over again for political ambition.
That’s just a start.
But the real point is that everyone is afraid of Liz. That says much.
What really scares the Republicans is that Liz plays to Reagan Democrats probably more than Reagan. So they and Hillary have to drown out her message to beat her. That won’t be easy.
BTW why again is it that Liz Warren fans do not want her to run for president? I just don’t get the argument against from her fans.
By Ted Cruz
You better THINK what you’re trying to do me.
Asking Elizabeth Warren to be President is like telling Aretha Franklin to sing opera. No doubt she has the pipes. It’s still a terrible idea.
I’m an Elizabeth Warren fan, and I love Aretha Franklin. Aretha is very good at doing what she does best. She sings soul and gospel. She doesn’t sing opera (at least publicly).
Elizabeth Warren just can’t get no respect.
I can’t follow you. Liz will melt or turn into a pumpkin is elected?
I just don’t follow you. If she has personakl and family reasons Okaye. But all the “liz fans” not wanting her to run are having trouble making the case in political terms. Like you.
I guess you’re not receptive to people building on your analogies. Maybe you don’t actually know very much about Aretha Franklin. She’s a fabulous R&B singer who has a fabulous voice. Singing opera requires a completely different set of skills. Perhaps David can elaborate. Senator Warren is a fabulous Senator who has a fabulous ability to influence the political agenda. Running for president requires a different set of skills.
I’ve already made my view of the political case elsewhere.
I’m not saying Liz Warren should run for president. I think the strongest argument against her running is that she’s scored effective political points, as a senator, in being a champion of the middle class. That might get washed away in a run for president, where there are so many other issues and forces that could dilute her middle class message. But skills to run for president? How do you get them other than by running?
that reasoning sucks IMHO. Dave from Harv. says it correctly.
This woman has a ready made experienced highly sucessful and very large group of people experienced in this stuff and will pull readsy to go to war.
You write as if she’s Ross Perot.
Liz. Her name is Elizabeth.
If she or her people ever start calling her “Liz,” however, then i will believe she is running for president.
is as close to a warm up for running for the Presidency as possible.
Obviously, running for President is a lot tougher, but the same is true for every candidate, including both Clintons, Obama, and so on and so forth.
I guess you can kind of say Hillary has a little more experience in her own Presidential campaign, but it was a campaign she *lost*, despite massive institutional advantages and early fundraising advantages.
What we’ve seen in Hillary’s shadow campaign for Presidency so far is downright frightening, making me think she hasn’t learned anything since 2008.
Liz can unite the grassroots in a way that no one’s been able to do in a very long time. It’s a huge weapon that she’ll have that could easily snow ball to the point where it will be difficult for Hillary to win, IMO, even if she’s a front runner.
And don’t forget, Liz doesn’t have to win to win. If Liz runs and forces Hillary far to the left — including making promises not to put Wall St. in charge of the hen house, making promises to prosecute banks — that’s a huge win.
And if Liz did lose, she’s not going anywhere — she still has a Senate seat from which to lead from the left and keep Hillary honest on the promises she’d make in a campaign, or rally the troops against a Republican President.
There’s really very little downside, politically, if Liz loses. On a personal level, it would be a ton of work for her and draw a lot of ill will from the establishment that Liz may not want on a personal level, but no matter what happens, she’d come out of the race making a huge impact on the issues and with a bigger platform to make a difference.
And if she did win, it would change this country forever — helping set us on a new path. Why not take that chance?
I fear that all the qualities you cite, and that I love, are precisely those qualities that will hurt her in a presidential campaign.
Today’s political process, especially given today’s political funding, is designed to filter out prospects like Ms. Warren. It won’t be just the GOP, it will be most of the big-donor population, Democrat as well as Republican.
Any promises the winning candidate makes during the primary season will be walked back in the general, as we saw so clearly in Mr. Romney’s last campaign.
Senator Warren already has a bully pulpit from which to pressure any candidate from either party. She has very effectively moved a sitting president from her own party who had already won his final campaign. A loss in the primary, or for that matter a win in the primary and even the general will only weaken that position.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Senator Warren’s political position is most emphatically not broken. I don’t want to see her “fix” it.
wht is the downside if she runs tom?
i just don’t see a big downside.
Would you be disapointed is she ran and won?
I was also ecstatic when Barack Obama ran and was elected.
I wasn’t an Illinois resident while Mr. Obama was a Senator, so I don’t know how I would have felt in early 2007.
I love Ms. Warren’s performance as Senator. I would hate to see her run and lose — losing ALWAYS hurts. I would hate to see her run and win the primary and then lose the general. I would hate to see her run and win the general and then betray us the way Barack Obama has.
I see many paths to an outcome worse than the path she has currently stated she wants to pursue. I see just one enormously unlikely path to an outcome that is better.
If she runs, I will enthusiastically support her. I hope she doesn’t.
Liz is a fundraising behemoth. She’ll have plenty of dough to compete in the early states, and if does well in those early states, she’ll never have difficulties raising dough.
Look, all the same complains you’re making about Liz here were all said of Obama in 2006 and 2007.
He’d never be able to compete with Hillary, until he did. He couldn’t outraise her on the campaign trail, until he did. He couldn’t have a bigger ground campaign, until he did. I voted for and supported Hillary in 2008, so I remember all these things quite clearly.
Liz would raise money differently than Hillary — and I’m not saying she’d necessarily raise more — but just through Act Blue type grassroots donations, she’ll raise enough to stay competitive early, giving her a chance to catch on — and that’s all most any Presidential candidate ever hopes for (unless you’re Mitt Romney and can moneyhat the campaign).
The country is what’s broken and Liz Warren is the once-in-several-generations opportunity to fix it. I like Hillary Clinton. I’d vote for Hillary Clinton if Liz doesn’t run. But I’ve seen far too many people struggle, for reasons that are all too clear — and Hillary just isn’t going to be the person who will fix them. Liz actually could.
I admire your faith in the process.
I sincerely do fear that I am just too cynical. For me, the betrayal by Barack Obama (and that’s how I feel — betrayed) makes it hard for me to summon the same faith today that I had in November of 2008.
I agree with you about Ms. Warren versus Ms. Clinton.
Just catching up on my BMG reading. “Sen. Warren can unite the base in a way no one has in a long time”?? There’s this guy named Pres. Obama who did a good enough job motivating the base that 136 million voters over two elections cast a ballot for him. Is it a huge win if Sen. Warren forces HRC far to the left in the primaries? I’m not convinced about that at all. The more inauthentic HRC looks the more likely she is to lose, and the fact of the matter is that HRC is a centrist Democrat domestically, and a bit of a hawk internationally. Forcing HRC to the left might increase her chances of losing. I like the idea of Sen. Warren in the Senate forcing Pres. HRC to the left for sure. Of course, if Sen. Warren turns into Presidential Candidate Warren, I’m with her 100%.
You might want to reconsider your metaphor, Tom.
The Walter Murphy cover of Beethoven’s Fifth is not classical music, even if recognizably similar.
I love Aretha Franklin. I love her “soulful” rendition of “nessun dorma”. As marvelous as it is, standing on its own, an audience seeking opera will reject this.
I suggest that you listen to the Pavarotti version (Ms. Franklin replaced Mr. Pavarotti at the last minute, without rehearsal). You might also listen to the same piece performed by Placido Domingo.
I am no opera connoisseur, I don’t even play one on television. I do love Aretha Franklin. Her “soulful” rendition of this piece is very nice in its own right. To my ear, it is nothing like the same piece performed as opera.
I’m a HUGE Elizabeth Warren supporter.
and I think if Liz ever did jump in the race, she’d make quick work of Hillary.
If. If. If.
I actually don’t dislike Hillary. She was far less mushy in the Senate than Obama, as well as on the campaign trail. Her foreign policy viewpoints are problematic, but her domestic policies are high quality milquetoast.
But Liz is in a whole other league — and you’re right, she strikes fear into Wall St. and the traditional power centers of this country. She isn’t bought and paid for. She’ll go after them, appointing tough regulators to watch over them and she’ll put people in the DOJ who will actually prosecute them, who will actually take them to court and make their records public.
There is no one Wall St. is more afraid of than Liz Warren and that is the #1 reason why she needs to run and the #1 reason why, no matter how much money Wall St. throws at her opposition, she can win.
Please, Liz. Our country can’t take staying on this path much longer. Working families are being crushed. They’ve fought and scratched and clung on for the past 40 years, but they’re at the breaking point, waiting for the straw that will break the camel’s back.
Having you in the Senate is a great thing for this country. It’s one spine in 100 people. But we desperately need a President who can confront Wall St., who can take them on — and win.
You’re the only person in the entire country who can do it, and you have the only chance we may have at doing it for the next generation. If we don’t save this country now, by the time Wall St. is done with our country, there may not be much left.
…that Sen. Warren’s nickname is “Elizabeth.”
It’s not “Johnnie” McCain
It’s not “Jack” Boehner
It’s not “Chuck” Baker
If you respect an elected official, you call them by their preferred name or nickname. Elizabeth Warren prefers to be called Elizabeth, not Liz.
I feel the same, I abhor the practice of using these monikers.
In all fairness, I think it’s worth observing that it’s also not “Charles Baker”. I think your guideline is right on. I’ve never heard or seen Ms. Warren or her staff refer to herself as anything except “Elizabeth”.
It’s not “Liz Warren”
It’s not “Liza Warren”
It’s not “Beth Warren”
The only people who routinely refer to Senator Warren as “Liz: are the reporters for the Boston Herald.
I wonder if the people posting this nonsense are actually paid Herald reporters with their own agenda.
No? Not cool?
I think “Mr. Patrick” and “Ms. Warren” are perfectly acceptable alternatives, and imply no nastiness.
Harry Truman was Harry, Abraham Lincoln was Abe. But we have to call these two by their surnames.
Mr. Cruz, Ms. Palin,
Civilized people refer to our senior senator as: “Elizabeth Warren” or “Ms. Warren.” Also acceptable (although I prefer the first two) is “Senator Warren”. Nobody ever accused you of being “civilized”. You and Howie will call her whatever you like anyway.
The reflection is on you, not Ms. Warren.
Those examples used those names themselves, but I have never heard Sen. Warren refer to or market herself as Liz.
Just dusting off an old Janet Jackson joke
Lizzie Liz Liz it is.
N/T
Matt?
…’Fauxahontas’ or many other names she has become known by.
‘Liz’ is the least of her disrespectful appellations.