Elizabeth Warren Seizes Democratic Hearts; Will Hillary Risk Another Embarrassment?
Hillary Clinton remains the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee. Her only potent competition is a freshman Democratic senator who, while enjoying the support of the party’s progressive elements, is relatively unknown and makes the party’s traditional donor class nervous. Nothing, it seems, can stand in Clinton’s way.
Sound familiar?
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the darling of her party’s progressives, is on a media tour promoting an autobiographical book some believe lays the groundwork for a campaign. She has appeared this week on friendly venues ranging from The Daily Show and The Rachel Maddow Show. Warren is venerated by her party’s most influential, many of whom appear to struggle in the perfunctory effort to summon up enthusiasm for a potential Clinton candidacy.
The freshman senator, who has already captured the hearts of the Democratic Party’s dominant liberal wing, is emphatic when she denies that she is considering a presidential bid. And Warren is probably being honest when she says she has no plans to mount a campaign in 2016, but nobody commits to a run for president until they believe that it would best serve their future ambitions. Warren’s allies are pushing her in that direction.
Democratic aligned pundits cannot help but display their passion for a prospective Warren candidacy when opining on the ideals they say she represents. On Tuesday’s Special Report on Fox, reacting to what read like an endorsement of a Warren candidacy from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, The Hill columnist Juan Williams outlined the many ways in which a Warren candidacy could be superior to Clinton’s.
Williams said that Warren has a “sense of conviction,” and “can talk the way President [Barack] Obama did back in the ’08 campaign about what is right, and doing what’s right, and ‘yes we can.'” Moreover, Williams added, unlike Clinton, Warren does not hedge when asked if some unnamed financial executives should have been imprisoned after the 2008 crash. Eyebrows raised, smiling and nodding, Williams allowed only his body language to communicate his enthusiasm for this position.
Williams’ sentiments were shared by a panel of analysts on MSNBC on Wednesday. “I’ve been to this movie before,” Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet, noting the similarities between Warren’s current station and President Obama’s rise to prominence.
The Hill‘s Elise Viebeck reported that Warren is already supplanting traditional Democratic loyalties to Clinton. A powerhouse fundraiser with the party’s grassroots and among progressive donors, Warren has already raised $40 million for Democratic incumbents and office seekers.
“It is clear that the Democratic Party is counting on her to be in the weeds not only making strong arguments against Republican policy positions, and Republican figures like [Rep.] Paul Ryan (R-WI), but also speeding up that donation process and making sure that the donors are excited about the races,” Viebeck added.
So, Warren does the work and Clinton gets the credit. An enticing proposition if the reward at the end of the rainbow is one that is worth the effort. Unfortunately for Warren, Veibeck argued, as a fellow Northeastern liberal and a woman, it is unlikely that there is a place for her on the 2016 Democratic ticket.
A familiar stage is set and, as Sweet observed, we know how this movie goes. Obama, too, spent 2006 touring the country promoting his campaign book. Trailing in the polls behind both Clinton and former vice presidential nominee John Edwards, even among African-American voters, Obama announced a presidential campaign in the winter of 2007 to a chorus of doubt.
But Obama had already captured the hearts of Democratic activists who hoped to push the party to the left and his fundraising ability well outpaced his strength in the polls. Clinton’s collapse came as a surprise when Iowa’s caucus-goers handed Obama his first win and proving that the Hillary juggernaut was a paper tiger.
Will the same thing happen to Clinton in 2016 if she draws a credible primary challenger from the left. It’s entirely possible. The elements which would make Clinton an undesirable candidate for Democratic primary voters are not overtly apparent today, but they will become more prominent as 2016 approaches.
As Obama’s Secretary of State, Clinton will be forced to defend not only the administration’s diplomatic failures but also aspects of the president’s approach to foreign affairs — including drone strikes on American citizens, the failure to close Guantanamo Bay, and the continuation of Bush era rendition policies — which progressives find unconscionable.
On the domestic front, progressive voters would have to hold their nose in order to cast a vote for a member of what MSNBC host Krystal Ball called the “rabidly anti-union board of Walmart” and someone who “took $400,000 to give two speeches at Goldman Sachs.”
In 2006, Clinton represented the “liberal wing” of her party — a wing that political analysts thought at the time was not electorally viable. Today, the party’s left wing is the dominant force and the Clinton brand is not palatable to her party’s activist wing. Given the right conditions, the center of gravity in Democratic politics could easily shift in Warren’s direction. No one is more aware of this than Clinton herself. Is she prepared to subject herself to another grueling contest in which the rug could again be ripped out from under her?
“Don’t run, Hillary,” Ball urged after castigating Clinton for her conservative approach to Democratic politics. If an insurgent Warren candidacy becomes likely, Ball might just get her wish.
[photo via Carlo Allegri/Eric Thayer/Reuters]
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
