Yes, We Need Elizabeth Warren in the Senate. And She Should Also Run for President.

[RiverLover]

Yes, We Need Elizabeth Warren in the Senate. And She Should Also Run for President.
By Ben Wikler, Washington Director, MoveOn.org; host, The Good Fight


3/19/2015


A growing chorus of progressives -- including the members of MoveOn.org and our friends at Democracy for America -- are urging Elizabeth Warren to run for president. But not everyone who loves Warren is on board. Some raise a counterargument: Warren shouldn't run for president, they say, because we need her in the Senate.

It's an understandable sentiment: She's an electrifying, awesome senator. Elizabeth Warren has done for C-SPAN what Mad Men did for AMC. Her voice, on the Senate floor and in committee hearings and speeches across the country, soars above the turgid Washington morass like Yo-Yo Ma playing a cello suite from a hang glider over a sewage plant.

What's more, she gets things done. When she sees common ground, she reaches across the aisle to pass legislation; for example, the Smart Savings Act, introduced by Warren and Rob Portman (R-OH), passed through the Senate unanimously last December. And when no common ground can be found, or the price of compromise is simply too high, Warren stands firm, takes her argument to the public -- and, on issues from student loans to Wall Street regulation to the TPP, transforms the debate.

So, yes: We do need her in the Senate! Please don't leave the Senate, Elizabeth Warren!

But here's the thing: You don't need to leave the Senate to run for president.

You don't have to choose. You can be in the Senate and the race for the White House at the same time. Just ask former Senators Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Bob Dole, Ted Kennedy or Joe Biden. Or Joe Lieberman, Chris Dodd, Sam Brownback, Elizabeth Dole, Lamar Alexander, Tom Harkin, Dick Lugar, Evan Bayh, or Orrin Hatch. Or the ghost of John F. Kennedy or Warren G. Harding. Once the campaign is over, you go right back to the Senate, likely with increased stature -- or you go to the White House, in which case you don't need C-SPAN to get your speeches on television.

Let's game this out.

Suppose Warren runs...(SNIP, rec reading it!)

...Politics, they argue, is a dirty business. And presidential politics is the dirtiest of the dirty. If she runs for president, they worry, she'll have to make nice with special interests. She'll have to dial it down. She'll have to rein in exactly what we all love about her. And for some folks, the worst part of all comes if she wins: A President Warren, they say, would have to make exactly the kinds of compromises that Senator Warren so wonderfully refuses to accept.

That's an understandable sentiment, too. But it doesn't give Warren enough credit.

What makes Warren such a singular figure isn't just her way with words. It isn't a refusal to compromise -- in fact, she frequently compromises, when doing so advances the best interests of working families and the middle class.

And it certainly isn't some kind of saintly remove from the earthly realities of politics.

No, what draws people to Warren is her unusual combination of guts, brains and heart--her willingness to fight, and fight smart, for what's right. To make a difference in people's lives.

That's her superpower. And the opportunity to make a difference is what pulled her into politics in the first place. ...

Read More here~
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-wikler/yes-we-need-elizabeth-warren-in-the-senate-and-she-should-also-run-for-president_b_6896892.html

Run Liz Run!



*Also posted in the Elizabeth Warren Group in the Democrats sub forum.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. THIS is the line that explains my support for Warren.

in fact, she frequently compromises, when doing so advances the best interests of working families and the middle class.

She carefully chooses WHERE to compromise, so that when she compromises, there is sanity behind it. She doesn't just compromise for the sake of compromise, or simply to say 'Look, we got SOMETHING done!'.

[RiverLover]

4. Exactly. She's just so common sense & has decency in her compromise. She's authentic too.

Its refreshing.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. P.R. crap does not impress me, especially clutchy, second rate material like this.

What I need from Warren has to come from Warren and it involves explaining how, if she has so much heart and empathy for those outside her own 1% class, she could have spent the bulk of her adult life as a Republican, advocating and voting for every destructive economic principle, every bigoted point of view.
A person who is naturally caring and insightful does not vote for Reagan/Bush four times. Such a person would not be a Supply Side advocate, as she was. Before and during Reagan, Republicans supported Apartheid South Africa. Ignored AIDS for 7 years, 30,000 American deaths. Where was this depth of passion for all of those brutal years?
An excerpt from Pat Buchanan's key note speech, RNC 1992, Elizabeth Warren's Party:

"Mr Clinton, however, has a different agenda.
At its top is unrestricted abortion on demand. When the Irish-Catholic governor of Pennsylvania, Robert Casey, asked to say a few words on behalf of the 25 million unborn children destroyed since Roe v Wade, he was told there was no place for him at the podium of Bill Clinton’s convention, no room at the inn.

Yet a militant leader of the homosexual rights movement could rise at that convention and exult: “Bill Clinton and Al Gore represent the most pro-lesbian and pro-gay ticket in history.” And so they do."
http://buchanan.org/blog/1992-republican-national-convention-speech-148

Anyone who heard that and did not run away from that Party has to explain themselves if they want my vote. Some sales pitch from an ardent supporter will not suffice. That was a vile Party, and she was a long time member.
Let the white straight six figure Corporate Democrats back her, the 'Reagan Democrats'. I'm an FDR and Eleanor Democrat, we speak the truth and require it in return.

[RiverLover]

3. Nice try. Here she is IN HER WORDS, unlike your ridiculous post~

Elizabeth Warren at the 2012 Democratic National Convention

[Bluenorthwest]

9. In that speech she never speaks of any of the issues I mentioned. She mentions her 'faith' but not

her past politics. Not a word about any of the things I mentioned. So posting that video as if she had addressed these things is really bogus. If she had, I'd not be asking.
I was very active as a Democrat and LGBT activist in that era. I was also part of the boycott of South Africa. She was a loyal member of the Party that was fighting us on every front. I have the right to question that. Earned with blood and asphalt. The graves of thousands demand a response from her prior to giving her any more power over lives and deaths.

If she is who you claim, she could give such a speech and it would be historic. If she keeps up the soft sell and the bipartisan stance, she won't be able to win if she does run. It's that simple. She needs to open her mouth and tell us how she got from RNC to DNC. Not only would it be good for her, it would be good for America. The history of that time is far more important than any politician.
I'm pretty sick of candidates who 'used to' oppose my rights. I'd rather have a person who was never a bigot toward me. Sorry. Hillary has also been very slow to support equality, she was a civil unions compromise pusher for 17 years and one of the last major Democrats to support marriage equality. I'm sick of that shit. I'd really, really like to vote for one candidate who never voted against me or called me names. Imagine that.

[SidDithers]

5. Clap for Tinkerbell!! Clap as hard as you can!!...nt

Sid

[RiverLover]

6. That's funny, I say exactly the same when its repeated here the "email issue" is no big deal

& will go away.

[SidDithers]

7. Sure you do...nt

Sid

[hrmjustin]

8. If she ran she would be a strong candidate.

But she made clear she has no desire to run.