General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIMO, it's not that Elizabeth Warren can't win - it's that she doesn't want to win.
That's why she's not running.
She saw firsthand how much of a thankless job the presidency is with Obama. Worse, she saw how much you're forced to compromise your ideals just to gain an inch in the political world. It really isn't worth it unless you're the type of person who feeds off that power. I don't think Warren is - frankly, I really don't think Obama is, either.
She's not running because she doesn't think she can win and doesn't want to go up against the Clinton Machine. She's not running because she probably realizes she could win - and she doesn't want that.
I wouldn't. After watching how many on the left have stooped to right-wing levels to attack the President, I would rather fight from the senate.
Just my take. I think Warren realizes she's best suited in the senate working from there, fighting from the left, instead of moving down to Pennsylvania Avenue and being constrained by a House & Senate that's much to her right.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)Although I think many folks on the left would go easier on Warren if she became President and then compromised.
Warren's skin color gives her a bit of a leg up and more credibility among those folks, if you know what I mean...
Obama was attacked for compromising before he was even sworn in.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)I recall a definite honeymoon, and if I'm not mistaken, didn't we have singing in the streets when he was elected? When he started butting republicans on his team most of us recalled 'team of revivals' and nervously hoped for the best. I don't really remember him losing any of us until the damaged deal that is/was ACA happen. Even then those of us upsets about that still had some hope.
Now? Just hoping for more then a handful of vetoes in his last couple of years. Have to be a realist you know.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)nt
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)She's not-runnning about as hard as HRC if not harder. Incidentally Wednesday is her Iowa roll-out so Warren fans keep your fingers crossed.
In addition to the ex-Obama campaign staffers, the liberal group MoveOn.org committed to spending $1 million to draft Warren into the 2016 race. The organization will hold its Iowa kickoff Wednesday in Des Moines.
http://www.13wmaz.com/story/news/politics/2014/12/15/warren-not-running/20435067/
Travelman
(708 posts)to be making any sort of pronouncements about this sort of stuff.
And this isn't really meant to be some sort of indictment of the OP, but instead the toilet-overflow of Warren posts and threads of late.
She has PLENTY of time to make a decision about running, and there's still no telling right now who else might get in: Biden, Sanders, maybe even Keith Ellison?
It's just a shade less than TWENTY-THREE MONTHS away from election day, 2016. It's WAY to early to get all bent out of shape about this stuff, IMO. There's a WHOLE LOT that can and WILL happen between now and the first Tuesday in November, 2016.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)Super Tuesday (when the winning candidate is usually decided) is 14 months away.
Any credible candidate announces within 6-8 months, tops.
Travelman
(708 posts)But six months is still an ETERNITY in politics.
Think about six months ago We were talking about a time when people were just hearing about some bunch of people called ISIS. Six months ago, Bowe Berghdall (sp?) was just released. It was six months ago that Jay Carney resigned. It was six months ago that Eric Cantor lost in Virginia.
That was all a million years ago in political time.
There's plenty of time to let Warren make her choice. She's undoubtedly looking at it.
Let her make her choice. That's all I'm saying.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)...if she hasn't decided there's nothing to talk about. Even if she decided after that, she would never have a chance in hell of winning.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Campaigns are starting earlier and earlier.
In 2008, both Clinton and Obama announced in January & February of 2007 - nearly two years before the election.
Warren can't wait on the sidelines for too long or she'll find similar traction as Wes Clark and Rick Perry - two candidates who waited until nearly the last minute before launching their bids. Both failed.
Cha
(297,655 posts)then I was in! He won Iowa!. is what I said at work that next day.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)joshcryer
(62,276 posts)She's not running because she knows damn well she can't win and would be a spoiler candidate like Ted Kennedy, making a cat fight out of the primary process, and embarrassing the most qualified candidate in modern history.
Warren rightly realizes the nexus of power will be in the Senate in the 2016-2024 timeframe. By then she will be very powerful and whatever changes she wants to get passed will be passed. Warren realizes that the Democratic Party will vote for and do things that the Democratic Party values, and it doesn't matter who is president by then, as long as they're a Democrat.
President Hillary Clinton wouldn't veto breaking up the banks, for instance. After all, breaking up the banks makes them more valuable. Warren in 2016-2024 with control of the Senate and perhaps some influence over the House could easily achieve "breaking up the banks."
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)I don't think she wants to. If you take that as her not fighting, so be it. I take it as being reasonable.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)They will be 2 years away from immunity. It takes 2 long years to build such a case. Clinton will not waste her time on a distraction like that, because it'd be damn near impossible to make the case that long after the crime was committed.
If Warren thinks she can win and doesn't run knowing the time is running out to prosecute the bankers then that is even worse than I can imagine about her character.
LuvLoogie
(7,028 posts)Remember that letter she signed and her public expressions of support for HRC's run? Perhaps Warren wins with HRC as President. Does Warren even become a senator if Hillary was never a senator herself, or ran for President, or appointed U.S. Secretary of State?
Yes. Warren belongs in the Senate for now. Harkin and Rockefellar bailed out at the wrong time. They should have run for reelection, retired in 2016 and supported women candidates in a special election on election day 2016.
MADem
(135,425 posts)She wants to put her stamp, in her area of expertise, on this nation for the long term.
The only way you get there is to be nominated...!
I also think she wants attention (and that's not a bad or a 'negative' thing). When you get attention, the media will put a camera on you when you need one, and you become a player. She has become a player, and she's working that for all its worth, and good for her. She's getting her POV out there. And why not? Unless you're being accused of a crime, any publicity, pretty much, is good publicity.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that the Congress is to the right of her on every issue. She takes the populist view on Joe Sixpack/middle class/working stiff-type issues, but she's more conservative than some on assorted national defense and pot legalization stances.
And just yesterday, she said--again--"no means no."
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)I wouldn't want her in the Fed. Krugman would be far better.
MADem
(135,425 posts)She is most def a "point of view" legislator.
Also, she doesn't have the knowledge of parliamentary procedure, nor the background that comes from years of watching people pull shit, of Senate rules, to do that job well--you really need to know the tricks and trip-ups. She's just not prepared for that job. IMO, anyway. She'd also have to jump over a slew of other consensus-builders who have been working as whips and herders down the years. It's a real hard job, even though people don't see how hard it is--Harry Reid has a "whole 'nuther" staff just for his leadership duties.
I think if she wants to make that mark, it's either Treasury or the Fed that she'd have her eye on.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)It'd be a disaster if we didn't have a majority, though, I concede. I was thinking more after Clinton sweeps the US and takes back the Senate and House.
I just like a loud mouth partisan, and Warren seems like she can play that part really well. She needs to lay off shitting on administrators, though.
MADem
(135,425 posts)But the top job....naaah. Even when or if we own the road, we still need to dance with ALL the ones what brung us...otherwise they'll turn into little Zell Millers and start caucusing with the other team....
And she already is in the inner circle with that strategic policy leadership gig. That will keep her very busy, and ranking on Banking won't be a vanity job, either (though Chair was surely more fun).
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)Shit's been partisan for the past decade. Hell, the President has never once had a budget passed. It's always been continuing resolutions. Think about that one. Ridiculous.
Again, though, I'm thinking majorities in both Houses. I definitely prefer a Reid in a deadlocked government, at least he could use strategic maneuvers fairly well.
Warpy
(111,339 posts)and supporting Clinton, at least with lip service. I think she realizes the microscope her whole life would be under, past and present, and just how intrusive everyone would be because she'd be the first woman with a chance. She's perfectly happy to let Clinton put up with all of that, instead, and I quite agree with her.
Besides, she knows what damage she could do to the high finance cowboys elsewhere in government.
I don't think anyone's going to manage to shut her up in the Senate. That might not be the case in the presidency where access is tightly controlled and she'd be surrounded by liars with agendas that would run counter to her own.
Besides, she's beginning to smell what I smell, desperation among big banks that are holding too many derivatives that no one knows who and where they lead. She doesn't want to be in the Oval Office when they wreck the economy again, this time with bets on top of bets and all of them unsecured.
Kablooie
(18,641 posts)they WILL run but not yet because it's too early.
That's why her reply is always "I am not running" instead of "I will not be running"
We are in swimming in Semanticland Swamp because the election campaigns have not started yet.
stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)The very fact that EW doesn't want to be President makes her preferable to me when compared to so many of the egomaniacs who care more about themselves and their own legacies than fighting for average Americans' well-being.
Let the draft continue! And, I hope she reconsiders.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Period.
Not my first choice anyway, but certainly FAR superior to Hillary GoldmanSachs Clinton, who never get an ounce of support from me.
I trust Senator Bernie Sanders, a true of We the People and more of a real Democrat than anyone else out there. I will put everything I have into his candidacy.
djean111
(14,255 posts)Starting to seem to me that there are more OPs mocking Warren's supporters. Whistling in the dark, IMO, because, Warren running or not, there is clear and compelling evidence that Hillary is not universally supported. I would be thrilled with Bernie, by the way.
Some days Washington just seems like a big mess of Grima Wormtongues, doing the bidding of their real owners.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)the best position from which to pull the levers of power.