Presidential Prospect or Not, Elizabeth Warren Has a Lesson for Democrats
The Nation has the article Presidential Prospect or Not, Elizabeth Warren Has a Lesson for Democrats.
Yes, yes, Warren has said that she is not running for the Democratic nomination in 2016. And there are plenty of polls to suggest that, were she to enter the race, she would not have an easy time competing with a prospective Hillary Clinton candidacy—although, notably, Warren’s numbers rise rapidly in hypotheticals that do not feature Clinton.
But let’s put the polls aside for now.
Let’s recognize that a necessary politics does not just reflect public opinion, it anticipates concerns and answers them in bolder and better ways than pollsters and pundits can calculate. Those who would lead the nation ought to offer much more than a set of approved talking points. There must be a vision, a language, that explains the crisis, and inspires a response.
This article does a wonderful job of explaining why Warren’s speech that I posted in Elizabeth Warren’s 2014 Minnesota DFL Humphrey-Mondale Dinner Speech is so important.
We Democrats can fix it so that Hillary is not in the mix. I think I would rather lose with someone who will set up the party for an eventual ascendancy, than win with someone who will slowly let our principles be eroded until the point that there is no use for the Democratic party. However, looking on the bright side, we might actually have a better chance of winning with Warren than with Hillary.
What Obama and all the Democrats after Johnson forgot, is that it is not only a matter of winning on one small issue by finding a winning compromise, it is a matter of educating the voters and changing their minds on big issues so that the path is paved for the future. Obama seems to forget after he wins or loses today, there are many tomorrows to worry about. If you win once today, but lose 10 times in the tomorrows, then you have the wrong strategy.
We should have been working on the terms of debate 30 years ago. You can’t say, well I guess it is too late to do it now. If we don’t start working on changing the terms of debate the way that Warren and Sanders are doing, we’ll find ourselves 30 years down the road wishing we had done this back then. How many generations can we waste before we finally do what is necessary to save the country?
I have to thank LlandaR for finally convincing me to read The Nation magazine. I know I am supposed to read the Bernie Sanders article Bernie Sanders Is Thinking About Running for President, but that article is only available to subscribers.