Dem VP choice

[BigRedBuster]

1 hour ago, TGHusker said:

I agree - those are my top 2.  But, even though Warren is more progressive than I would typically vote, I think she has the smarts, the vision, and the empathy to be a good leader (contrast to tRump who has none of those 3 virtues) if called on. I've always been impressed wt how she had deeply thought out policy positions prior to running.  She may be the one who can bring the 2 camps together in the Dem party, if the progressives can forgive her for some of her mis-steps towards Bernie during the debate season.

Yep, Warren would be down my list a little bit, but she would be much better than many others.  To the bolded, if they can't do that, then there is no hope of getting them on board with anyone but Bernie.

[Danny Bateman]

13 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

Didn't mean to aim it at you. It's the thinking that made Biden the compromise candidate. There does appear to be some agreement that the VP could/should bring something more to the table. 

 

Again, I doubt issues will matter much for the VP choice as they're all under the Dem tent. It's really about adding excitement to the race. But it can't be window dressing this time. I think everyone is highly attuned to this VP becoming the next President in 2024 or sooner. 

 

I think there are several arguments in favor of strengths Klobuchar could bring to the table:

 

1. Although it may be a bit overrated, she could bring a small but significant home-state bounce in MN. Though it's tinged a light shade of blue recently, it's been well reported that Trump & Co. think they can make inroads there to make it competitve. Klobuchar remains very popular there and does not meet the criteria in that article suggesting a diminished home-state bump, so she likely locks down a state Trump's campaign would very much like to be in play.
2. Her brand of retail politicking seems to play well in the Midwest and she has crushed her Senate elections in Minnesota by anywhere from 20-35 points in the past. This indicates she knows how to campaign effectively on  her home turf. Dems have spent the past 3.5 years being told repeatedly that the path back to the White House runs through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. She would be an asset in these places, particular since WI is right next door to MN and that may be where Biden needs help the most.
3. Stapler-throwing aside, she is perceived largely as a sober, serious adult in comparison with Trump who would be ready to step in immediately should something happen to Biden (which a lot of folks seem concerned about). My point about her being a bipartisan consensus-seeker is that this could be a plus if she knows how to push and prod and twist the right arms in the Senate to help Biden enact his agenda.

But since you are a fan of Sanders' politics, and you are clearly viewing this as a launching pad to 2024, you must clearly be pulling for Warren, yes?

[Danny Bateman]

1 hour ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Agree on Warren. If progressives think Warren is too right for their taste, then those people won't accept anything other than a Bernie nom. A Warren VP offer would be about as far as I see Biden willing to stick his hand out to the far left of the party. 

 

Warren was often pitched as the consensus candidate that could bridge the Bernie wing and the moderate wing at the top of the ticket.

 

If the goal is to reconcile those two groups, there is no one better suited for it than her and she should be the pick.

[RedDenver]

37 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

Warren was often pitched as the consensus candidate that could bridge the Bernie wing and the moderate wing at the top of the ticket.

 

If the goal is to reconcile those two groups, there is no one better suited for it than her and she should be the pick.

I agree, but I'd also like to point out to @FrantzHardySwag that Warren is not that far to the left - it's why she's a bridge candidate.

[Guy Chamberlin]

47 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

But since you are a fan of Sanders' politics, and you are clearly viewing this as a launching pad to 2024, you must clearly be pulling for Warren, yes?

 

Not really. VP is typically more of a figurehead role. There are cabinet positions where Warren could be a lot more active and policy driven. For that matter, she's still valuable as a Senator. 

 

At 70 years old, she's not exactly the youthful alternative, and would be 74 in 2024. Youth isn't everything -- no Sanders supporter would claim otherwise -- but I don't know if Warren feels like the future. Can't promise she'd pull in the Progressives -- Sanders supporters thought she stabbed Bernie in the back more than once, and backpedaled on issues like M4A presumably to pull voters from her more moderate competition. 

 

But Biden is the foreign policy expert, and Warren understands the economy like few other candidates, and that's often a formidable balance. I know I recently talked up Stacy Abrams as bringing an excitement factor, but her resume looks really thin next to every other option. 

[FrantzHardySwag]

27 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

I agree, but I'd also like to point out to @FrantzHardySwag that Warren is not that far to the left - it's why she's a bridge candidate.

How? She's probably as far left as any candidate not named Bernie Sanders, and even then the platform she ran on is pretty comparable?

[RedDenver]

42 minutes ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

How? She's probably as far left as any candidate not named Bernie Sanders, and even then the platform she ran on is pretty comparable?

Warren isn't a progressive even though she has a few policies that are progressive. This article does a good job of presenting how progressives view Warren:

Progressives, trust your gut: Elizabeth Warren is not one of us

Quote

From the beginning, there were good reasons for progressive leftists not to trust that Elizabeth Warren was on their side. For one thing, she had spent much of her career as a Republican, and only recently become a champion of progressive causes. Warren worked at Harvard Law School training generations of elite corporate lawyers; did legal work for big corporations accused of wrongdoing; collected donations from billionaires; held secret meetings with investment bankers and major Democratic party donors; and stood up and applauded when Donald Trump vowed that America would “never become a socialist country”. Even at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, her most prominent initiative on behalf of ordinary borrowers, Warren brought in former Wall Street bankers, tasking financial foxes with guarding the henhouse.

Quote

 

But lately, Warren has finally begun to make her true feelings clear, and progressives no longer need to wonder whether she’s with us or not. She’s not. Warren released a Medicare for All plan that called it a “long-term” plan, which leftwing political analyst Ben Studebaker pointed out is “code to rich people for ‘this is all pretend’”.

 

A few weeks later, Warren confirmed that while in theory she supported single-payer healthcare, it would not be one of her primary initiatives, and she would initially push for a more moderate proposal similar to those advocated by Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg. Political analysts quickly saw Warren’s statement for what it was: an admission that she did not really intend to pass single-payer at all. Doug Henwood noted that Barclays bank put out an analysis assuring Wall Street that Warren’s plan to put off Medicare for All until late in the first term “decreases the likelihood that this plan comes to fruition”. So much for big structural change.

 

 

[Danny Bateman]

21 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

Warren isn't a progressive even though she has a few policies that are progressive. This article does a good job of presenting how progressives view Warren:

Progressives, trust your gut: Elizabeth Warren is not one of us

 

 

This seems like a good example of progressives eating their own. Everyone who is not a progressive views Warren as the closest thing to a progressive of anyone who ran not named Bernie.

[FrantzHardySwag]

23 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

Warren isn't a progressive even though she has a few policies that are progressive. This article does a good job of presenting how progressives view Warren:

Progressives, trust your gut: Elizabeth Warren is not one of us

 

Yeah this does nothing to disprove her history in govt as a progressive lawmaker. Her medicare for all plan isn't Bernies, therefore it's not progressive? She is running on a medicare for all platform, legalize marijuana, she was being endorsed by progressive groups, she attacks wall st as much as anyone. I can find multiple intercept articles calling her a progressive. She IS progressive. 

[RedDenver]

6 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

This seems like a good example of progressives eating their own. Everyone who is not a progressive views Warren as the closest thing to a progressive of anyone who ran not named Bernie.

Wait, what? Your second sentence acknowledges that Warren isn't a progressive, so how can your first sentence be true?

[RedDenver]

1 minute ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Yeah this does nothing to disprove her history in govt as a progressive lawmaker. Her medicare for all plan isn't Bernies, therefore it's not progressive? She is running on a medicare for all platform, legalize marijuana, she was being endorsed by progressive groups, she attacks wall st as much as anyone. I can find multiple intercept articles calling her a progressive. She IS progressive. 

I don't want to debate the meaning of the term "progressive". You can think she's a progressive if you want, but I consider myself a progressive and I don't consider Warren to be a progressive. So don't be surprised when other progressives may also not see her as a progressive.

 

The beginning of this discussion was because Warren is being considered as VP partly because she'd be a bridge to progressives, which is because she's closer to progressives than Biden is, not because she's a progressive herself. If Biden wants a progressive VP, he'd pick Bernie or Nina Turner. But that's probably a bridge too far for Biden, which is why Warren is being considered - because she's closer to Biden politically than Bernie or other progressives are.

[FrantzHardySwag]

10 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

I don't want to debate the meaning of the term "progressive". You can think she's a progressive if you want, but I consider myself a progressive and I don't consider Warren to be a progressive. So don't be surprised when other progressives may also not see her as a progressive.

 

The beginning of this discussion was because Warren is being considered as VP partly because she'd be a bridge to progressives, which is because she's closer to progressives than Biden is, not because she's a progressive herself. If Biden wants a progressive VP, he'd pick Bernie or Nina Turner. But that's probably a bridge too far for Biden, which is why Warren is being considered - because she's closer to Biden politically than Bernie or other progressives are.

Cool, but she is progressive. She’s ran a campaign centered around free college, Medicare for all, legalize marijuana, green new deal, elimination of student debt, comprehensive wealth tax, assault on wall st. She was splitting endorsements from progressive groups with Bernie up until she dropped out. She and Bernie went back and forth trying to out progressive each other the entire campaign. She is progressive. Does the Progressive Change Campaign not know what progressive is when they endorsed her?

[RedDenver]

15 minutes ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Cool, but she is progressive. She’s ran a campaign centered around free college, Medicare for all, legalize marijuana, green new deal, elimination of student debt, comprehensive wealth tax, assault on wall st. She was splitting endorsements from progressive groups with Bernie up until she dropped out. She and Bernie went back and forth trying to out progressive each other the entire campaign. She is progressive. Does the Progressive Change Campaign not know what progressive is when they endorsed her?

Read the article I linked, it addresses whether Warren's campaign was actually pushing progressive policy.

 

The Progressive Change Campaign is a PAC who's co-founder, Adam Green, was a surrogate for the Warren campaign, so it was a foregone conclusion they'd support Warren.

 

But like I said, consider Warren a progressive if you want - I don't.

[commando]

nobody meets the progressive purity test.  not even bernie after he endorsed Biden.  he sold out the "true" progressives with that endorsement.

[FrantzHardySwag]

3 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

Read the article I linked, it addresses whether Warren's campaign was actually pushing progressive policy.

 

The Progressive Change Campaign is a PAC who's co-founder, Adam Green, was a surrogate for the Warren campaign, so it was a foregone conclusion they'd support Warren.

 

But like I said, consider Warren a progressive if you want - I don't.

How about the Working Families Party? Who endorsed Bernie in '16. You can not like her, or disagree with her, but that doesn't make her not progressive. Alright I've said my piece. I'll let this go, since we will never agree.