I attended Elizabeth Warren’s appearance in Ware today.  Another member of the Sturbridge Democratic Town Committee attended. In an email, CarolM remarked:

I feel we should support her fully as a strong, knowledgeable, passionately committed candidate who will fight for equality of opportunity and a “level playing field” in America and who would no doubt be formidable in a political debate against Scott Brown!

I replied with an agreement and a “but”.

I agree about Warren’s message. She has a nice, coherent story that ties together the role of government in creating the environment for us all to succeed. When she tells the history from the depression era through the 1980s and into the 2000s where she describes what we as a country did right to get us to our pre-eminent position in the world and what we started failing to do since the 1980s, it makes a wonderful counter to the story the Republicans have been selling since Goldwater lost to Johnson.

I have to put one fly in the ointment that worries me, though.

In a “debate” with Scott Brown, she won’t have 15 minutes of uninterrupted time to give this shpiel. This is one of the reasons why she needs to debate Marisa DeFranco while the electorate is not even watching. Consider DeFranco as the sparring partner that would get Warren into shape for the real fight.

After watching the “debate” in Lowell (see Warren shines in debate debut), I commented,

I was not that impressed with Elizabeth Warren.

The format was a mix of long form answers that lasted 1 minute, and quick answers that were supposed to take 10 to 15 seconds. This is not a format that a champion debater has honed her skills on. Debate skills are almost useless in this format.

The skill you need is to quickly come up with a short answer to a surprise question that finds the pithiest reflection of your deepest beliefs.

There was one person there who managed to do this for almost every question. That woman was Marisa DeFranco. I had never heard of her before. Until tonight, I didn’t know she was running.

Being charitable to the Warren staff, they seem so devoted and committed to her, that they won’t brook any mention of any possible problems. I wish I could get my message through to them, but every time I try they throw me out of the campaign.

Maybe I am being paranoid, but when Elizabeth saw me close up in Ware, she seemed to be almost frightened to get close enough to talk to me. (Her field organizer, GregM, definitely knows who I am.) (I suppose it could have been that I forgot to shave this morning.)

If anybody else knows how to deliver this message in a tactful manner that might get listened to, please feel free to use any of my ideas or words along with your own to get through to the campaign.

I have liked the story about the economy that Warren can explain since even before she was running. I have a number of her lectures and interviews posted on this blog.  Since she started to campaign, I have seen much progress on her part in honing that message so that she can deliver its essence in a relatively short amount of time.  She did not speak that long in Ware, but she managed to deliver a beautifully put together and coherent story as I said above.  If the electorate ever gets to hear the whole pitch, I think they would be convinced.  My fear is that there are very few forums where she can deliver that message so that  enough of the voters will get to hear it.

I received this email offering a way to complain to the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives about their misogynist approach to legislation on women’s health care issues. Perhaps this is an easier alternative than taking to the streets in protest.

There is an effort going on in Sturbridge to rescind the town’s participation in the Massachusetts program called the Community Preservation Act.  I have received a fact sheet about the benefits that Sturbridge derives from its participation.

 

The MassLive article, U.S. Senate candidate Marisa DeFranco takes on healthcare, immigration and Elizabeth Warren, was recommended to me by reader BillM.

I’ll pick out just a few items to emphasize for my own reasons, but there are many more excellent points in the article.

“A lot of people will say to me that their grandparents came legally, and why can’t immigrants do that today?” DeFranco said. “But what they don’t realize is that back then there was an open border policy. Now you can only come through an immediate relative or through business. There are asylum cases, but those are much more complicated. It is not easy or cheap to become a U.S. citizen, although the process does have its fair points such as a citizenship option following five years with a green card.”

The reason why I like the above quote is that it demonstrates a point I have been making about running for office.  When you support a certain point of view and you get some flak for it, you don’t just try to hide what you believe.  You explain why you have that point of view, and you try to educate people as to that viewpoint’s merits.  How will a politician ever get to lead the country in a better direction, if that candidate always backs away from promoting any idea that the public does not already like?

One example she cited where more of a fight would have been beneficial is the healthcare overhaul and its exclusion of a public option which would have made health insurance companies compete with the federal government.

“The mandate to buy coverage from the health insurance companies, which is a Republican idea, is the crux of the problem,” DeFranco said. “I’m glad we did something on the national level but the Democrats really capitulated on the public option and that was a mistake. They started with the public option as their top marker. It’s classic negotiation 101, you negotiate high to end up at middle or high ground of where you want to end. They should have started with single-payer and they would have ended up with a public option. Poll after poll showed that 70 percent of people wanted a public option. It’s just an option. If the insurance companies are really behind their free market mentality, then operate in a market. And if the government is your competitor and you’re so much better than the government, compete.”

My reason for choosing the above quote is because it gets to one of my major disappointments with President Obama.  I am not disappointed because President Obama did not accomplish something that I had hoped he would.  My disappointment comes from his inability to even negotiate well.

Let me emphasize one of the sentences from that last DeFranco comment.

If the insurance companies are really behind their free market mentality, then operate in a market. And if the government is your competitor and you’re so much better than the government, compete.

I had thoughts like this at the time of the health care debate and at any time Republicans back away from their purported belief in “free markets.”  I kept thinking then, and I keep thinking now, “Why couldn’t Obama have made that point?”  Even if making that point wouldn’t have won the argument, he would have educated the people to start thinking about that point.  Because of Obama’s continual capitulations without even trying the people have still no inkling that there is a counter idea to what the Republicans said.

If a politician is ever going to modify people’s opinions, when is the right time to start?  I claim that the right time is each and every time that politician speaks in public.  I cannot see the point of waiting for a better time.  Changing people’s opinions takes repetition.  If you wait until you need the opinion to be changed, it is too late.  You have already lost the battle before you even begin to fight.

I raise these points because this is also my fear about Elizabeth Warren.  She hasn’t even gotten the nomination yet, and she is already showing the weaknesses that Obama at least kept hidden until after he was elected.  In Obama’s case we can make the famous Bush claim, “Fool me once, shame on you.”

In Elizabeth Warren’s case, “Fool me twice, shame on me.”  Bush of course couldn’t quite get the words out right.

I wonder if liberals and progressives accept a Democratic politician’s silence on some of our issues because of our distaste of how the Republican candidates throw read meat issues at their base.

I think it is important to differentiate two different things that we may mistake for two sides of the same coin. One is the Republican’s behavior which I believe may be pandering to their base by saying things the candidate  doesn’t even believe.  This is not the same thing as a Democrat saying something that the party base likes when it is a firmly held belief of the politician.

Isn’t it sad that when we don’t like the Republicans saying outrageous things on the right of the political spectrum we take that as a lesson that we shouldn’t say what we truly believe on the left side of the spectrum.

The article posted on Nation Of Change, George Soros – Fox News Alliance Exposed, certainly drew my attention. The entire text of the post is quoted below:

According to Shona Daress, liberal mogul George Soros has been secretly controlling the flow of information out of Fox News. This revelation may come as a suprise considering Fox’s apparent vendetta against Soros, but it is no less true because of the surprise. Fox News is publically owned, and George Soros didn’t have to ask to take control.

I thought this was the entire story, until I read the line that said Read it at Mother Jones. When I followed that link, I saw the real headline was Grand George Soros—Fox News Alliance Exposed at CPAC.  If your suspicions aren’t raised enough now, let me tell you that this is a serious story about the tinfoil hat set at CPAC.

I didn’t notice until I started posting this how the word “surprise” is misspelled in the original item in  Nation Of Change.  I don’t know if this was a typographical or editing error or it was an overly subtle clue that this story was a hoax.

I have signature gathering sheets to get Elizabeth Warren’s name on the U.S. Senatorial primary ballot. The primary will be held on September 6, 2012. The deadline for the campaign to turn in the signatures for certification is May 8, 2012.

The only valid signatures I can collect are from registered voters in the town of Sturbridge, Massachusetts. You must be registered as either a Democrat or as unenrolled (independent).

If you would like to add your signature to the nomination paper, you can send me an email. I can either come to you to have you sign or you can come to me to sign. Otherwise, I will be around town collecting signatures.

Sharon and I are attending a MoveOn Movie Party tomorrow night to view the movie “Inside Job”.

MoveOn has provided the following video to accompany the party.

MoveOn Interview 5×5 with “Inside Job” Director Charles Ferguson

This is a very reassuring interview about the recent settlement between five large banks and the Attorneys General of many of the states.

In closing Eric Scheiderman in explaining why this aggressive stance on investigating the banks did not happen earlier in the Obama administration, said the following:

What we have seen is a swing toward progressive populism in this country.

You wouldn’t have imagined a year ago, but the demand for accountability that animated the occupy movement would have taken place.
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A lot of progressives forget about this. It’s not who you elect. It’s providing the movement to empower them to do the right thing. The conservatives don’t forget that. They don’t go home after election day. They never go home. We’ve got to have a little bit of that same attitude.

This is something that I have been trying to emphasize on this blog.

To send a note of thanks to New York AG Eric Schneiderman use this link to the Bold Progressives web site.

In this episode of the Rachel Maddow show, she shows once again that she is the master of the disingenuous question.

It is good to have a copy of this clip for whenever Republicans you know tell you about the end of the world because of some policy that President Obama proposes.