Frederick Reese
Progressives are currently holding out hope that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will challenge former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president of the United States — even though neither of the women have announced interest in the nomination.
Progressives and liberal Democrats’ concerns over the president’s seemingly overly-generous effort to draft a budget with the congressional Republicans — including cuts to Social Security, along with fears that Washington is not doing enough to regulate Wall Street — have opened the door for a liberal challenger in 2016.
T. Neil Sroka, communications director for the progressive group, Democracy for America, said the group would support an alternative presidential candidate such as Warren in 2016 if the Democratic front-running candidate supports benefit cuts of any kind. “No. 1, any Democrat that’s open to cuts to Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security is not a good candidate,” he said, adding that Warren “has proven herself in a short time and there is little doubt that in 2016 we’re going to need a leader who is a fighter in that election.”
Warren has crafted herself as a leading figure in the American progressive scene, particularly for her staunch opposition against Wall Street greed and de-regulation of the banking industry. Her work toward starting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and open criticism of the “unfairness of the system” has garnered her a near cult-like following.
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody,” the professor said in a video that went viral during her candidacy. “…You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
On Nov. 6, 2012, Warren became the first female U.S. senator from Massachusetts and was immediately named to the Senate Banking Committee, where she has made a name for herself in a relatively short time. In her very first Banking Committee hearing Feb. 14, 2013, Warren chastised government banking regulators on their record of not bringing Wall Street banks to trial, stating “There are district attorneys and U.S. attorneys who are out there everyday squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds, and taking them to trial in order to ‘make an example,’ as they put it. I’m really concerned that ‘too big to fail’ has become ‘too big for trial.’ That just seems wrong to me.”
Warren 2016
Based on her announced political platform and her campaign debates, she is uncompromisingly pro-choice, pro-birth control, pro-banking regulations, pro-industrial regulations, anti-BBA (Balanced Budget Amendment) and pro-equal pay. She opposes the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) or any attempts to codify a definition of marriage, is pro-women’s rights and is pro-victim’s rights.
She has commented that the political system is rigged toward corporations and the wealthy: “People feel like the system is rigged against them,” Warren told the Democratic National Convention in 2012. “And here’s the painful part: They’re right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs — the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs — still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors and acting like we should thank them. Anyone here have a problem with that? Well I do.”
She also has an expressed interest in supporting public schools and universities. As a matter of fact, her only expressed political opinion that differs from the progressive platform is that she opposes the legalization of marijuana.
This “extremism” made Warren an easy target in her senatorial race. Sen. Scott P. Brown once made a rally stop comment about Warren: “Can you imagine 100 Professor Warren’s down there, placing blame and raising taxes?” hoping that the image of the “Cambridge radical” would paint him as the safe, moderate choice. However, there was something honest and refreshing in Warren’s “extremism” and passion that convinced Massachusetts voters to give Warren the job with 53.7 percent of the vote.
However, Warren is seen as a saber-rattler by many Washington insiders. If Warren does indeed have aspirations for the White House, she will need to learn how to rally her popularity in a way that engages her enemies. Ironically, the person she will need to emulate to do this is Hillary Clinton.
The Tao of Hillary
As it stands now, Warren does not have a shot of making inroads with Republicans under this current atmosphere of partisanship and her aggressive posture may be turning off right-leaning centrists. However, Warren stands on the same ground, metaphorically and literally, that Clinton stood on in 2001. Clinton was — arguably — the most politically-active first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt and had the Republican Party and more than half of the nation uncompromisingly opposed to her. At one point, former Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.) suggested that it wouldn’t be a terrible thing if Clinton was struck by lightning.
Clinton approached the task of being taken serious in an unique way: She shunned the national media, opting to only talk to local New York reporters. She avoided saying anything controversial in public. She showed humility to her senior colleagues and made steps to ingratiate herself — even going so far as to reinforce stereotypes, such as pouring coffee for the male senators.
Ultimately, it worked. When she retired from the Senate in 2009, she was one of the most-loved senators from either party, and had fans in both. She had bills that were co-sponsored by 48 Republican senators. Her confirmation as secretary of state was near unanimous, by a vote of 94 to 2 and with a public approval rating of 65 percent at the time.
Despite taking a centrist-right position in foreign relations and military issues as senator, on domestic issues, Clinton was a progressive, contributing to the 2003 founding of the Center for American Progress and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
While it is not advised or suggested that Warren should follow the Clinton pattern, Warren’s apparent tactic of direct confrontation is in direct violation of the Clinton’s charm offensive that served her for 12 years as senator and secretary of state. But, the Senate today is a different one from the one Clinton served in.