Bob Costa's headline in the Washington Post the other day, "Progressives turn from Obama to embrace Warren"-- which an editor probably wrote-- missed a key point. Obama isn't running for president, or anything else, again. Perhaps "Progressives turn from Hillary to embrace Warren" would have been more to the point."Citibank and Goldman Sachs and all those other guys on Wall Street, they’ve got plenty of folks in the U.S. Senate willing to work on their side," Warren told the partisan Democratic crowd in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. "We need some more people willing to work on the side of America’s families." If she actually ever does get into a primary battle with Hillary, that's the theme right there. It's equally useful against Chris Christie, Paul Ryan-- who was already rending his clothes and weeping about it within hours-- or any other Chamber of Commerce Republican… or against Hillary (or any other corporate Democrat from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party).The Finance sector, as we've been warning again and again has embraced Hillary as their candidate for 2016. Since first running for public office in 2000, the sector has contributed $31,173,728 to her campaigns. Chuck Schumer, usually acknowledged as the Senator from Wall Street, first ran for office in 1974-- two and a half decades before Hillary-- and the top recipient of Wall Street largesse of anyone in the Senate today other than McCain, and "all" he got from the banisters was $19,982,340. They like Hillary. They gave her more money than McConnell ($9,891,795), Boehner ($9,786,314) and Cantor ($8,528,415) combined and they get giddy when she lies to the Democratic base and tells them-- in regard to the avaricious banksters-- "we're all in this together."Hillary is all about making nice with the banksters. Warren wants to hold them accountable for their destructive and sociopathic criminal behavior. Hillary is campaigning-- shoring up financing from the enemies of America-- on Wall Street. Warren is out on the stump trying to prevent a Republican/obstructionist take-over of the Senate for the final two years of Obama's term. She's been lending a hand to progressives like Jeff Merkley (OR), Al Franken (MN), Brian Schatz (HI), and Rick Weiland (SD), to conservative Democrats like Natalie Tennant (WV), Gary Peters (MI) and Alison Lundergan Grimes (KY). "Our job is to fight for the families of America… Stitch up the tax loopholes so that millionaires and billionaires pay at the same tax rate as the people in this room," she told voters in West Virginia. You might hear that kind of message from President Obama-- but never in a million years from Hillary Clinton.
Warren sought to link Capito to the financial sector, calling her one of its top allies in Congress. “When [Wall Street] needs her, she’s been there,” Warren said. “She’s out there for Wall Street, she’s leading the charge.”Warren also knocked Republicans for opposing an increase to the federal minimum wage-- a stance Democrats believe will hurt Capito in a state with one of the nation’s lowest per capita incomes.In her remarks, Tennant took care to distance herself from Warren and President Obama on energy issues and talked up her support for coal companies. She said in an interview that Obama would have a “lot of explaining to do” if he visited West Virginia because of new proposals by the Environmental Protection Agency to cut carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants.But Tennant also repeatedly praised Warren as the rare national Democrat who could help win over undecided voters, many of whom have soured on Obama’s agenda but remain skeptical of the Republican Party’s commitment to the poor and blue-collar workers.“When you look at Senator Warren, she’s just like West Virginians who have grown up in rural West Virginia,” Tennant said, citing Warren’s roots in Oklahoma and her years as a schoolteacher.Tennant’s decision to invite Warren signals where she stands on the tension within the Democratic Party over whether to move more to the left as it tries to hold on to a slim Senate majority-- and that she needs progressives to turn out in droves. Warren, who has frequently railed against the coziness of both parties with corporate titans and hedge-fund managers, is not beloved by some centrist Democratic financiers.“Natalie Tennant and I do not agree on every issue,” Warren said, but added that they agree on the “core issue,” which she described as passing policies that lift the lives of working families.“What is this election really about?” Warren asked the crowd, answering her own question: “It’s about whose side you stand on.”
There aren't many politicians who normal people genuinely want to see speak. Warren is a rock star. Supposedly Booker is too, albeit with no message, but I don't see him out on the road trying to help anyone else. Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Harry Reid might be able to draw a crowd. But you think Democratic senators like Tom Carper, Bill Nelson, Michael Bennet (the hapless head of the DSCC), Bob Casey, Chris Coons, Barbara Mikulski, Chuck Schumer, Bob Menendez could bring in a crowd of a dozen non-careerist pols in any state outside of their own? I went to an event in L.A. that boasted three sitting Members of Congress-- all good ones. John Amato and I were the only non-staffers there! Elizabeth Warren is the real thing-- and people know it. Especially Democrats… who want authenticity and are sick and tired of all these DC elite phonies from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.