"The same forces that worked to marginalize (Cuomo) will be brought to bear against Warren"

[phantom power]

I had one overriding thought when I head that Mario Cuomo had died and that was how long it had been since I'd thought about Mario Cuomo. The only occasions in recent years in which he even came to mind were in the context of his kid, the dark prince of Albany. His time at the top of the political A-list was remarkably brief. The preferred literary metaphor for him always was Hamlet, but I always saw him more as an oddball Horatio, a scholar-politician misplaced in time, an intellectual outstripped by grubby political reality, an attendant lord to princes unworthy of his fealty. He gave remarkable speeches, but he led no movement, not even within his own party, which he saw move away from the principles he articulated so very well, and succeed by doing so. He was most influential as a symbol. He was most powerful as potential. His ideas went straight from his rhetoric into a kind of political diorama. He was rendered such a museum piece that the current governor of New York, who only is Mario Cuomo's son, is unrecognizable as his political heir.

Already, in his obituaries, he is being remembered more as a poet than as a politician, as a phenomenon more than a man. Poets are useful, even in politics.Phenomena can be beautiful. But the marginalization of Mario Cuomo was a deliberate political act, a bipartisan one, truth be told. It was a way to shuffle what he stood for off into decorous irrelevance. The people who sidelined Mario Cuomo from our national discussion did not include Ronald Reagan. It was Bill Clinton who did that and,sadly, Mario Cuomo himself, who, by the end of it, was so politically feeble that he lost to an unremarkable hack like George Pataki. Now Mario Cuomo is dead, and George Pataki is (seriously) contemplating a run for president of the United States. Now Mario Cuomo is dead, and his absence from our national discussion is being used in some quarters as a cautionary tale to the rising progressive movement within the Democratic party. The same forces that worked to marginalize him will be brought to bear at some point against Elizabeth Warren. (Read Panchito Bruni's love letter to Wall Street Muppet Gina Raimondo in Rhode Island, if you don't believe me. Cut them pensions! "Reform" them entitlements! Third Way!) You can count on that. Now Mario Cuomo is dead, and that seems like little more than confirmation of something we all suspected for decades.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Prolonged_Death_Of_Mario_Cuomo

[djean111]

1. Oh, that's already happening to Warren and to Sanders.

I think it works better on people without computers; it is pointless and wasted in a website like this, but will be tried, anyway.

[BrotherIvan]

2. DU is working on it

Never fear. I guess the new one is that her speeches are nice but without substance. The irony makes me laugh.

[djean111]

3. Surely they know they are preaching to their very own special special choir, right?

The seems to be, to me, more substance in one paragraph of a Warren or Sanders speech than any whole Hilary speech.
More specifics, not so much feel good speaking to whichever audience stuff. So, fail.

[BrotherIvan]

4. I don't know what it means

I think some "Democrats" don't feel that economic issues are important--and I have been told that. As that is Warren's speciality, they think she is devoid of substance. Fair enough. I'm of the belief that we've let Democrats get away far too long with just giving lip service to social issues while stabbing us in the back on economic policy. I think that social issues have led themselves and Democrats have jumped on board when the polls told them to. I think that impoverished, desperate people are powerless. I think that hungry, scared, overworked people is a social issue of the highest order. So it is time to work on economic issues very specifically.

[djean111]

5. Absolutely! Exactly! Well said, thank you.

This is why I see Warren and Sanders as a team, really.

[BrotherIvan]

6. A Dream Team!

I'm not sure they're working together, though. Though they are working toward similar goals. I am a little more of a Sanders person just because his long-time record is so impressive. But I would take either in a heartbeat.

[Faryn Balyncd]

7. The difference is that this time Americans have had enough, & we are not going to let them

get away with it.

[DeSwiss]

8. Yeah, it's a fucked up system.

- One wonders why we keep it when all it does is destroy the best we have, and leaves mostly shit behind.

K&R

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. The Not as Bad wing vs the Progressive wing continues.