At the close of his must-read The Rise of the New New Left, Peter Beinart at The Daily Beast makes the case that the Democratic Party’s presumed standard-bearer in 2016 may be vulnerable to a challenge from the left – in particular, from Massachusetts’ senior senator:
Still, Hillary is vulnerable to a candidate who can inspire passion and embody fundamental change, especially on the subject of economic inequality and corporate power, a subject with deep resonance among Millennial Democrats. And the candidate who best fits that description is Elizabeth Warren.
First, as a woman, Warren would drain the deepest reservoir of pro-Hillary passion: the prospect of a female president. While Hillary would raise vast sums, Dean and Obama have both shown that in the digital age, an insurgent can compete financially by inspiring huge numbers of small donations. Elizabeth Warren can do that. She’s already shown a knack for going viral. A video of her first Senate banking committee hearing, where she scolded regulators that “too-big-to-fail has become too-big-for-trial,” garnered 1 million hits on YouTube. In her 2012 Senate race, despite never before having sought elected office, she raised $42 million, more than twice as much as the second-highest-raising Democrat. After Bill Clinton and the Obamas, no other speaker at last summer’s Democratic convention so electrified the crowd.
Warren has done it by challenging corporate power with an intensity Clinton Democrats rarely muster.
At the convention, she attacked the “Wall Street CEOs—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs—[who] still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.”
And in one of the biggest applause lines of the entire convention, taken straight from Occupy, she thundered that “we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people.”
Don’t be fooled by Warren’s advanced age. If she runs, Millennials will be her base. No candidate is as well positioned to appeal to the young and economically insecure. Warren won her Senate race by eight points overall, but by 30 points among the young. The first bill she introduced in the Senate was a proposal to charge college students the same interest rates for their loans that the Federal Reserve offers big banks. It soon garnered 100,000 hits on YouTube. […]
Of course, Warren might not run. Or she might prove unready for the national stage. (She has no foreign-policy experience). But the youthful, anti-corporate passion that could propel her candidacy will be there either way. If Hillary Clinton is shrewd, she will embrace it, and thus narrow the path for a populist challenger.
Polls show Hillary remains the clear frontrunner, though Warren has been gaining ground on other potential candidates.
What do you think? Should Elizabeth run, and if she does, what are her chances of winning the nomination over Hillary?
We elected her to serve her full term, and hold that seat for another six years if she so chooses. She can do two Senate terms and finish just in time for 2024.
in 2024.
As different from merely electing her?
Senators serve six-year terns. Did she say, in effect, “Elect me to serve Massachusetts for six years” or “Elect me so I can be in position to run for President?”
Which means you are wrong to have assumed she said anything at all. Of course if the opportunity presents itself for a sitting Senator, no matter how recently elected, to serve her country as President, she should take that opportunity. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Obama didn’t serve a full term in the Senate.
Of course she didn’t literally say anything of the kind. But I’m getting a little weary of politicians jumping at jobs because they have some flash. How about she gets some actual Senate experience for a full term? How about we spend some time developing party leaders and not throwing all our money and time at (lying) lightweights like Cory Booker?
The frontrunners on the GOP side are Rand Paul and Ted Cruz — two first term Senators. Fortunately that’s their problem not ours, but still it’s a shameful reflection on our political culture.
I like Elizabeth Warren and would certainly consider voting for her if she ran. But what’s the bloody rush? We are still miles away from the power and influence we had because of Ted Kennedy, and maybe historical evolution dictates that we shouldn’t get it back, but it would be nice to have two effective legislators representing us.
You are right tha Obama didn’t finish his term, but your logic is wrong, because the Obama phenomenon will not recur. Something different will, at some point, but comparisons to Obama get us nowhere, and certainly don’t justify any other candidate cutting short their term. It’s called public service, not self-service.
And by the way the real GOP scare would be Rubio, but I don’t think he can nominate.
I have never doubted where Ms. Warren is coming from or where she is likely to go. I cannot say the same for Hillary Clinton.
I feel compelled to add, parenthetically, that I’m not sure I would ever have known who Ms. Clinton was were it not for her husband — I don’t know or care who Mr. Warren is.
As a senator, I found I was too often excusing positions Ms. Clinton took as “necessary”, even though I disagreed with them. This has not yet happened with Ms. Warren.
On their respective merits, I therefore prefer Elizabeth Warren.
New York City isn’t the Democratic Party Primary universe; nor is it the electoral college.
While millennials tend to be socially libertarian, they are not as a whole supportive of entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.
In fact, there is some evidence that millennials as a class are less communitarian then prior generations.
There is a tendency to forget that romney got a majority of the white millennial males and tied among white millennial females in 2012.
It’s therefore not a slam dunk for Warren, either in the primary or general election cycles.
It might be a good idea to remember the 1972 election, where a similar false premise came into play:
Let’s remember the GOP has gone all-in on the white vote, so if it’s only winning half of whites, it’s getting destroyed in the actual election. Obama won 60% of voters 18-29 nationally.
One of the biggest assets for the Obama campaign was Republican racism, which pushed up black turnout, and induced swing-vote Latinos, and nominally Republican Latinos (the most obvious example of the latter being Cuban-Americans) to vote Democratic.
That was what made the difference in 2012.
Exclusive of black voters, turnout was down across age and ethnic cohorts. (Massachusetts turnout, for example was down 2.3%, compared to 2008.)
I consider it to be ill-advised to fall for the demography-is-destiny fallacy.
We can’t always assume that Republicans will allow bigotry to trump their electoral interests.
I have seen no evidence of any “electoral interests” from the GOP except racism/xenophobia/misogyny since at least the tea-party era.
It appears to me that you assume that the GOP has “electoral interests” that it is allowing to be trumped by bigotry. The only such interest I can discern is concentrating even more wealth in the already wealthy — that interest is itself demonstrably racist, given the demographics of the US.
The “liberal Republican” is extinct and is, today, an oxymoron.
…but opportunistic Republican is redundant.
Don’t underestimate your adversaries.
I don’t think I’m either over- or under-estimating the GOP. Instead, I think I’m simply describing the truth.
Let’s not forget that we should “Know thine enemy”.
Of course they’re opportunistic, I agree with you about that.
I’m just saying that their racism/xenophobia/misogyny is so deeply engrained that it will not be readily obscured. Further, I’m saying that they have no actual “electoral interests” to pursue — unlike the Democrats, racism/xenophobia/misogyny (together with plain old greed) has been the organizing paradigm of the GOP since the Reagan era.
For example, the GOP pat themselves on the back for putting Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. They proudly cite that as a response to claims of GOP racism. If they truly paid attention to how minority voters actually feel about Mr. Thomas, and about the process that put him on the bench, they might not be so quick to cite Mr. Thomas in this regard.
Since they don’t care a hoot about those minority voters (because they hold them in such contempt), they continue to tell themselves (and others) that Clarence Thomas was a great step forward in the fight against racism.
business?
I group the interests of “large business” within the category of “concentrating even more wealth in the already wealthy”.
Local sociologist Jennifer Silva has documented and explained how young working-class adults have turned inward and rejected social commitments, let alone communitarian politics. In practical terms it’s because economic conditions frustrate traditional social bonds and punish self-sacrifice. I think selfishness among middle class millennials is a reaction to that same inequality, stemming from knowledge of how high the stakes are of maintaining even marginal financial security.
IN order to shift such a bone-deep knowledge of systemic inequality — not to mention decades of clear evidence of the Democrats’ role in bringing it about — I think it will take a message more confrontational and populist than many self-styled progressives will be comfortable with. I hope Warren can provide it.
As a Millenial, let me say that I think we came of age in, as Chris Hayes pointed out, during the ‘failure decade’ of Iraq and Katrina leaving us deeply skeptical that government cares or wants to help us. As I pointed out in a longer response to this I made on facebook, we already elected the progressive champion we thought we wanted and his name was Barack Obama. I think we are all feeling a little burned by him and skeptical of the next comer, though many of us like Elizabeth Warren.
I would argue that we are similar to the greatest generation, in the sense that we are coming of age in a period of declining American influence abroad and declining purchasing power at home. We will be innately more fiscally conservative and conscientious than the previous generation, but also united by age and class and aware we are in a shared struggle. This is why we are generally more racially, religiously, and sexually tolerant. We also grew up under a more progressive education (at least in the blue states) and learned a more nuanced take on history than previous generations. We grew up with ribbons and merit based competition from an early age, and are skeptical of redistributive programs that are not merit based while recognizing our meritocracy is broken. So long as labor, immigration reform, redistributive equality, and election reform is framed in a way of serving the community and defending and expanding meritocracy-rather than expanding government, than I think its fine. We need Clintonian third way rhetoric to justify FDR style progressive public policies. Whoever can tap into that can take us very far as a country.
From a response I made to a friend posting this on Facebook, incidentally a friend who was involved in Sen. Warren’s campaign and serves on her DC staff:
einart paints with a characteristically broad brush, but makes important points. The problem isn’t the candidate it’s the system. Obama made overtures to Clintonianism, but ran against it and tapped into the Dean zeitgeist and due to his background and more even keeled temper made it palatable for the nomination and general election.
Millenials already had their progressive candidate and overwhelmingly elected and re-elected him against better funded opponents. Yet he has been a tremendous disappointment on the issues we care about. The problem with de Blasio, already making overtures to Wall Street or Warren is will they be able to undo the system and make the changes solid majorities of Americans want?
I trust de Blasio and like him for a lot of reasons (Cantab roots and Red Sox fandom merely being icing on the cake), and like Warren’s message. It’s been shown a bona fide progressive can win not one but two Presidential elections. Beinart fails to identify that the right had a permanent movement and permanent opposition shadow government of think tanks and lobbyists ready to take over at the flick of the switch. Even when they are outnumbered and out of power they make themselves the center of debate shifting the narrative rightward and punching above their demographic weight.
How can we counter that? The problem with America is that the radical left sits in a drum circle while the radical right runs DuPont Circle. In the 50s conservatism was a dirty word tainted and tarnished and both parties raced to claim the liberal mantle. Then William F Buckley and others made liberalism an epithet. It’s time to reclaim it and proclaim it since its our word and Americas best political tradition. How that happens and how we shape that is crucial to long term success.
about the radical left and radical right, but historically speaking, the Far Left ‘s wings have been clipped since the 1950s with the American government’s persecution of communists, their fellow travelers, and sympathizers. I’m not defending the Russians whose infiltration of the American Left helped bring it down, but a lot of Lefties interested in economic justice were persecuted to the point of ineffectiveness.
The New Left–the Far Left of the 1960s–was more concerned with cultural and social issues. They helped with deliver civil rights, but they didn’t accomplish much for economic justice. The fringes toyed with revolution, Maoism and such, but that was about it. By Carter’s presidency, the Democrats were already turning right, economically speaking. By the 1980s, the academic left had more interest in deconstruction than Marxism. The 1990s saw the rise of cultural studies whose practitioners were less interested in practical improvements in society than celebrating the wisdom of mass media audiences. In this decade, we can thank Occupy for bringing up the 1%, but they were too anarchism for continued pressure or useful organizing.
There really isn’t much of a radical left these days. As you suggest, the Right hires its organization. The Left lives in tents.
Beinart, to his credit never bought into the meme of the anti-(Bill) Clinton Obama, and accurately analyzes how conservative Obama is, based upon his own words. Below is an extended quote (for context) from Beinart’s piece (emphasis added):
Think Bob Neer and his book would take issue with that interpretation. I would also argue the vast majority of Obama volunteers would as well. Obama’s voice against the war was a voice against the DLC establishment which was similar to the voice of the Deaniacs. I was a proud Deaniac and it was the first presidential campaign I got involved in, donated to, and volunteered for (at 14 and 15 years old I might add). Many of my fellow Obama campaigners in college were veterans of the Dean and Deval campaigns (a lot of great Deval 06 staffers went to U of C and formed the early core of our Students for Obama U of C Chapter).
Granted we viewed him as an electable Dean, but that was due to his rhetorical skills and unique background. Also his voting record was consistently more progressive than Hillary’s. This is not to re-litigate the 08 campaign, if anything we are in full agreement that he has continued Clintonian principles as he has governed. I think he underestimated his ability to be another Reagan, someone with the rhetorical gifts to move the country and the center to him rather than the other way around. He underestimates what the center is and consistently pivots to the right of where he has to.
He also drastically overestimated the good faith of Republicans and squandered two political mandates that were far more affirmative than any Clinton ever enjoyed. He will always be a political mystery, and its because his inner circle are all Daley acolytes that cut their chops as Washington supporters who switched sides to Daley the II in the early 90s and embraced neoliberal urban policy.
It’s telling that Barack Obama started his career as an antagonist of that regime. He backed Danny Davis’ bid against Daley in 97, joined the anti-machine New Party (an attempt to mimic the Working Families Party in New York). He was the Toni Preckwinckle, lakefront liberal backed progressive against a machine incumbent State Rep. He backed Jesse Jackson’s aborted bid against Daley in 2003 and backed Burris over Daley backed Blago in 2002. By standing up against the war he put himself to the left of the IL Democratic party in the 2004 primary. But once in office he hired Daley’s people (Axelrod) and courted his acolytes (the Daley’s themselves, Emmanuel, Pritzkers, Crowns, the Madigan’s, former 04 primary opponent Dan Hynes, and other corporate backers). I think he started out as a Dean style progressive but learned to fashion himself to be palatable for a general electorate. One wonders how he would’ve voted on the War had he been in the Senate two years earlier.
but I’d support a Warren campaign over literally anyone else in the US.
I just don’t think she’s going to run, no matter how many people try to recruit her. I don’t think she wants any part of running against Hillary and I don’t think she feels the need to run from President — when she can get so much done in the Senate.
It would be a bloody campaign (even worse than ’08) — and maybe not the greatest stage to set for a general election — but I couldn’t not support her if she did it, and I know she’d only do it if she felt she had to. I just don’t think she’ll feel that way, because Hillary isn’t perfect, but is a solid choice who Liz could at least work with from the Senate.
This includes Liz Warren, Rubio, Rand Paul, Christie, ect. Once one officially seeks the presidency, they must resign from their current office. I am sick and tired of people running around the country and getting paid for it and missing votes or not paying attention to their home state. At the very least, they should not get paid, perhaps a temp leave of absence would suffice.
They should collect their pay as well since being a candidate is generally not itself compensated. I understand your point, but very much disagree.
Have the governor appoint the replacement senator to fill out the term. No more special elections, save taxpayer monies. Being a presidential candidate is by choice, nobody is drafted. If a governor runs, the LT Guv becomes acting governor. The one exception is VP, that position ain’t worth more than a bucket of warm spit, so some ex-prez once said.
You’re right about the others though specifics vary a bit by state. I still disagree on the merits. Requiring this would also need a constitutional amendment.
It was a Vice-President, John Nance Garner, and the correct quote is “not worth a bucket of warm piss“.
I prefer the symbolism go to the number two slot. This is why Edwards wasn’t my choice for the nomination in 2004, but I thought Kerry was good to tap him as running mate. It’s why Obama was not my choice in 2008, but I thought a Clinton-Obama ticket would be swell. Likewise, Clinton is again in the best position to be President, but if she were to tap Warren for VP I’d love it.
We finally have two Senators who seem to know what to do with the office, after 28 years of having only one. Why should we give up our awesome Senator so Madam Triangulation can borrow her cred? It would be a waste of talent for Warren to run for VP.
What you refering to? With the exception of Brown MA has had excellent Senators for my entire lifetime. VP is pretty much by definition a waste of talent, but I for one am firmly “Ready for Hillary”.
Kerry phoned it in for his whole term in office, except for pandering to the warheads when he decided to run for Pres.
hear his voice uttering warnings to Syria?