Re: Elizabeth Warren 2020

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Warren, Sanders allies scramble to find her an exit ramp

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
Top surrogates and allies of Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are discussing ways for their two camps to unite and push a common liberal agenda, with the expectation that Warren is likely to leave the presidential campaign soon, according to two people familiar with the talks.

The conversations, which are in an early phase, largely involve members of Congress who back Sanders (I-Vt.) reaching out to those in Warren's camp to explore the prospect that Warren (D-Mass.) might endorse him. They are also appealing to Warren's supporters to switch their allegiance to Sanders, according two people with direct knowledge of the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss delicate discussions that are supposed to be confidential.

The whirlwind of activity reflects the rapid changes in a Democratic primary that is still very much in transition. As late as Tuesday, many Warren allies believed she would stay in the race until the Democratic convention, despite her poor showing to date in the primaries, in hopes of retaining her clout and influencing the eventual nominee.

But after Warren's bleak performance in the Super Tuesday primaries, her associates, as well as those of Sanders and former vice president Joe Biden, say she is now looking for the best way to step aside. There is no certainty she will endorse Sanders or anyone else, but the talks reflect the growing pressure on the senator from Massachusetts to withdraw.

Warren campaign manager Roger Lau suggested Wednesday she was considering that. "Last night, we fell well short of viability goals and projections, and we are disappointed in the results," he wrote to campaign staffers in a note obtained by The Washington Post. "We are going to announce shortly that Elizabeth is talking to the team to assess the path forward."

Warren and Sanders spoke by phone Wednesday, Sanders told reporters in Vermont. "She has not made any decisions as of this point," he said. "It is important for all of us, certainly me, who has known Elizabeth Warren for many, many years, to respect the time and the space she needs to make a decision."

"She has run a strong campaign," Sanders said. "She will make her own decision in her own time."

Liberal groups that endorsed Sanders are now planning a conference call for Thursday, in part to discuss the impact of Warren's candidacy on the race and the potential effect of a withdrawal.

Winning the backing of Warren, who began the race as a leader of the party's liberal wing but later positioned herself as a uniter, would be a coup for either Sanders or Biden. For Sanders, it could help unify the liberal faction and signal that he is very much still in the race; for Biden, it would extend the recent rush of party leaders who have rallied around him.

Warren's status is a major wild card in a primary that appears to be settling into a protracted battle between Biden and Sanders. Other candidates with no clear path to the nomination have dropped out, but her aides say privately they had hoped Warren would stay in until the next Democratic debate, on March 15.

Warren may be the only female candidate to qualify for that debate, and her departure would leave Democrats essentially deciding between two white men in their late 70s — after the party's last two presidential nominees were a black man and a white woman.

She finished third in her home state of Massachusetts and fourth in Oklahoma, where she grew up. She reached the 15 percent threshold, which is necessary to win significant numbers of delegates, in only five of the 14 states that voted Tuesday.

In all, it's been a remarkable fall for a candidate who became one the Democratic Party's brightest stars with her forceful rhetoric, detailed policies and message of protecting the middle class.

But the Democratic primary has been volatile from the outset, with candidates from Warren to Sanders to Biden to Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) surging at various points. Little more than a week ago, it seemed that Sanders might cruise to the nomination; now it’s Biden who has the momentum.

In his email to staff Wednesday, Lau hinted that this fluidity is a potential reason for Warren to extend her campaign. “The race has been extremely volatile in recent weeks and days with front-runners changing at a pretty rapid pace,” he wrote.

Warren likes to say that her campaign is built for the "long haul," and often talks about wanting to stay in the race to avoid letting down her supporters, particularly thousands of girls who she's met on the campaign trail. She often makes "pinkie promises" with them that women should run for president.

On Tuesday, when Warren voted in her home precinct — at an elementary school in Cambridge — young students dropped red and white rose petals from their second-floor window as she walked by. They pressed against windows to catch a glimpse of her, and she waved at them after voting.

But Warren has also been facing mounting pressure from liberal activists and Sanders supporters to depart the race. They argue that she is hurting the senator from Vermont by dividing the party’s liberal faction, while Democratic centrists have coalesced behind Biden. Sanders also fell below expectations Tuesday, as Biden rolled up big margins.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a Sanders backer and leading voice on the left, said via Twitter: "Imagine if the progressives consolidated last night like the moderates consolidated, who would have won?"

Omar added: “That’s what we should be analyzing. I feel confident a united progressive movement would have allowed for us to #BuildTogether and win MN and other states we narrowly lost.” Sanders lost Minnesota by nearly nine percentage points, results show.

Other left-leaning groups have been pressuring her for weeks to depart.

"She should drop out of the race and endorse Bernie Sanders," said Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, a liberal think tank, whose group has been pushing for her exit since her fourth-place finish in New Hampshire.

"The question is how to get her to prioritize that this [a progressive agenda] is a more important thing than whatever it is she hopes to achieve by staying in," Bruenig said.

The hashtag #WarrenDropOut was trending on Twitter on Wednesday. Warren’s staff began sniping on Twitter, which they’ve largely managed to avoid, in a sign that the centralized power structure within the campaign is weakening.

It is not clear that Warren would immediately — or ever — back Sanders. She stayed on the sidelines during the 2016 Democratic primary between Sanders and Hillary Clinton, eventually throwing her support to Clinton and hoping to be selected as her running mate.

Warren also met with Biden in 2015 as he was considering a presidential bid of his own. At the time Biden floated the idea that they could join forces on the same ticket, but soon he decided not to challenge Clinton.

As it became clearer Wednesday that Warren was seriously considering leaving the race, liberal groups became increasingly magnanimous.

"The decision of whether or not to drop out is her decision and her decision alone," said Charles Chamberlain, chair of Democracy for America. "We don't think that anybody in the progressive movement should be calling on a woman — especially the last woman — to drop out." (Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii remains in the race but has not met the criteria to participate in any recent debates.)

Chamberlain said he would urge other groups backing Sanders to take a similar approach Thursday during the organization's conference call, and respect a decision either to remain on the debate stage or to endorse Sanders.

He added, "The bottom line is that progressives trust Elizabeth Warren, and we're confident that she's going to make the right choice here."

Her debate skills have been a high point of her campaign, showcasing her mastery of policy and her intellectual deftness — particularly in the Las Vegas debate, when she verbally disassembled former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, arguably ending his campaign.

And despite a string of disappointing finishes in the early primary states, Warren continued to draw thousands of people to her rallies, including recent events in Seattle, Denver, Houston and Detroit.

Money, too, has continued to flow. Her campaign raised $29 million in February, compared with Biden's $18 million haul for that month. Warren also has the support of a super PAC that's been airing $14 million worth of TV ads for her.

But Tuesday’s results, which were significantly worse than her campaign had projected, may have changed the equation. Early returns showed her capturing just 28 of the 1,338 delegates at stake, though that number could grow as California continues to tabulate its numbers.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: Elizabeth Warren 2020

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A united front is the only moderate progressive hope... I'd vote for Sanders/Warren all day long. I'm well aware that they'd only be able to go as far as they could get through congress and I'm all too aware of the Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times...". I'm ready for a change. I'm aware there are other dynamics involved and I have confidence in Warren if she needs to step up.
I: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED
II: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY
III: KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET
IV: BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET AND WHAT'S BEHIND IT

Re: Elizabeth Warren 2020

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Tedzilla wrote: Wed Mar 04, 2020 10:34 pm A united front is the only moderate progressive hope... I'd vote for Sanders/Warren all day long. I'm well aware that they'd only be able to go as far as they could get through congress and I'm all too aware of the Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times...". I'm ready for a change. I'm aware there are other dynamics involved and I have confidence in Warren if she needs to step up.
:yes:
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: Elizabeth Warren 2020

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It has been many years since the Dems had the Senate. It would be interesting to see what they could do with a POTUS and Congress. GOP just got tax cuts in two years and then lost the House. If Dems just do AWB, they would lose the House. Sanders/Warren would probably make them pass major healthcare and education first and wait even if they wanted an AWB.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: Elizabeth Warren 2020

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K9s wrote:It has been many years since the Dems had the Senate. It would be interesting to see what they could do with a POTUS and Congress. GOP just got tax cuts in two years and then lost the House. If Dems just do AWB, they would lose the House. Sanders/Warren would probably make them pass major healthcare and education first and wait even if they wanted an AWB.
Those were always my thoughts on both Bernie and Warren. You can give me quotes all day of them towing the party line on guns, but what it really comes down to is priorities. Would either of them spend political capital, or ask congress to spend political capital, on something like an AWB when healthcare, education, minimum wage, environment, etc. are and always have been much bigger priorities for them? Biden, on the other hand, just wants to slap some bandaids on Obamacare, make a few tweaks to government backed student loans, and he'll be about as environmentalist as his billionaire corporate donors will allow him to be without disrupting their profits. He has no major policy proposals, so an AWB may very well be on the table, and early.

Re: Elizabeth Warren 2020

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kronkmusic wrote: Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:14 pm
K9s wrote:It has been many years since the Dems had the Senate. It would be interesting to see what they could do with a POTUS and Congress. GOP just got tax cuts in two years and then lost the House. If Dems just do AWB, they would lose the House. Sanders/Warren would probably make them pass major healthcare and education first and wait even if they wanted an AWB.
Those were always my thoughts on both Bernie and Warren. You can give me quotes all day of them towing the party line on guns, but what it really comes down to is priorities. Would either of them spend political capital, or ask congress to spend political capital, on something like an AWB when healthcare, education, minimum wage, environment, etc. are and always have been much bigger priorities for them? Biden, on the other hand, just wants to slap some bandaids on Obamacare, make a few tweaks to government backed student loans, and he'll be about as environmentalist as his billionaire corporate donors will allow him to be without disrupting their profits. He has no major policy proposals, so an AWB may very well be on the table, and early.
Yeah, I thought that, too. Biden goes for AWB out of the gate to placate Bloomberg and loses the House in two years. Then he could blame the GOP for not getting social programs passed in Congress. Sanders or Warren would just Executive Order whatever they could in that situation but Biden would try to persuade McConnell's soul or something.

Banks would be safe *wink* *wink*, right Mitch?
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: Elizabeth Warren 2020

184
News flash on screen - She's going to drop this afternoon according to NYT.
"Being Republican is more than a difference of opinion - it's a character flaw." "COVID can fix STUPID!"
The greatest, most aggrieved mistake EVER made in USA was electing DJT as POTUS.

Re: Elizabeth Warren 2020

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Biden has already said Beto O'Rourke will head up gun control. Now Beto would have made a better Senator than Cruz he has become a total nutjob on guns.
To be vintage it must be older than me!
The next gun I buy will be the next to last gun I ever buy. PROMISE!
jim

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