A Candidacy Warrented? (Updated Below)

In the wake of her announcement that she's forming an exploratory committee to examine the idea, it looks like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is going to be running for president in 2020. Here are the Cliff's Notes version of my ringside report on her:

Elizabeth Warren would have probably been happy to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for as long a run as she could manage; she only went into electoral politics because Republicans wouldn't let her.

Warren is basically a wonk with a great deal of expertise in specific areas, not so much outside them. She's often great on the stump--brings the populist fire--but often shows quite poor political judgment, and does herself a lot of needless harm. She's not a politician and, looking for guidance, has shown herself susceptible to the "conventional wisdom" and often-horrible advice of party insiders, a problem that could be amplified by a high-stakes presidential campaign. Perhaps more significantly, she hasn't held up very well in the face of conflict on the campaign trail, a potentially serious shortcoming for one who wants to take on a Trump. Trump in 2020 will be All Hate, All the Time. That's the only card he'll have to play. Dems need a real scrapper to tackle him. She may not be it.

Warren is a grassroots fundraising powerhouse. She's made a lot of the right enemies. Wall Street and corporate America--and the Republicans--outright despise her (which has resulted in some loud public feuds over the last few years). She has a good record of proposed progressive reforms. In general, progressives will find little substantively with which to quibble with her but in areas like foreign policy, defense, etc.--outside her range of specialization--she's been far too deferential to the party Establishment and the Clintonite right, which has hurt her reputation in some progressive circles.

Some have never forgiven her for failing to endorse Bernie Sanders in 2016 but Warren didn't endorse anyone in that race until it was over, at which time she endorsed Clinton, just as did Sanders.[1] Agree or disagree with this, it was a superdelegate taking a principled stand in favor off non-interference while there was still an active contest. If the other supers had followed her example, that race may have gone very differently.

For some of the reasons listed here and because they see her as a serious rival, some supporters of progressive fave Bernie Sanders have greeted Warren's entry into the race with skepticism and even hostility. It's worth pointing out that Warren and Sanders are friends and colleagues. If Sanders were to win the nomination, she would certainly be near the top his list of vice-presidential picks, just as he'd probably be at the top of hers. Still, with Sanders set to run again, I don't know what she expects to bring to the dance and can't help but wonder what she's thinking. A comparative contest between she and Sanders can only serve to highlight the areas wherein she falls short of Sanders. If she's expecting to present herself as a sort of compromise candidate--someone who can get the progressive vote but who isn't Bernie Sanders--I just don't see how it can work. If she foregoes big-money contributions from the oligarchy,[*] there's simply no way the Clintonite right that runs the party Establishment will back her unless absolutely forced to do so, and the likelihood of that will only diminish if Warren makes overtures to get its backing, as such overtures will alienate the progressives. It's nearly impossible to imagine a scenario wherein Wall Street, which views Warren as a mortal enemy and is one of the major financiers of the Clintonite right, would go for her.

--j.

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[1] For some reason--and this probably accounts for some of the bile directed at Warren--a lot of people remember this wrong and think Warren endorsed Clinton during the primaries. In reality, she stayed out of it until 2 days after the final round of contests.

[*] UPDATE (26 Feb., 2019) - Appearing on MSNBC, Warren has stated that, while foregoing the big-money fundraisers during the primaries, she would, if she became the candidate, begin holding them to pay for the general. Worse, she endorsed the false argument of the Clintonite right that continuing to rely only on grassroots fundraising amounts to "unilateral disarmament"--a favorite phrase of those who pretend to support reform of money in politics while engaging in an orgy of corruption and prostitution of their potential future offices to the highest bidders. If this isn't a bid to grab the support of the Clintonite right, I don't know how else to explain it. It's practical effect may just be to alienate Warren's natural base.

As I wrote in the earlier article, Warren's political judgment is often wretched.