Warren for President 2020

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Keep Hope Alive

by Anne Laurie| February 18, 20205:48 am| 238 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Warren for President 2020, Daydream Believers

Eleven years ago today, near the bottom of the worst recession in generations, I signed the Recovery Act, paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history. pic.twitter.com/BmdXrxUAUf

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 17, 2020

Meanwhile:

This is a remarkable accomplishment given the apparent law against mentioning Warren’s name in media coverage of presidential primaries. https://t.co/JOgjgbp3vG

— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) February 17, 2020

(Yes, I too wish Harris was still in this race. We can dream… )

This weekend, I knocked 150 doors for @ewarren here in her hometown of Norman, Oklahoma. Some observations follow… 1/

— Ben Alpers ?? (@Ben_Alpers) February 17, 2020

Bernie supporters, including those who'd made up their minds for Sanders, were almost universally complimentary about Warren. And all were courteous. A heartening reminder that this website is not the real world and most Sanders supporters sound nothing like Bernie Twitter. 3/

— Ben Alpers ?? (@Ben_Alpers) February 17, 2020

I cannot recommend enough going door knocking for @ewarren. Not only do you get to know a place better (even if you've lived there for over two decades), it even makes you feel marginally better about this country. And it's the best way to help Warren win! 4/

— Ben Alpers ?? (@Ben_Alpers) February 17, 2020

I sheepishly said I had him listed as an independent. He said that's his registration but he always votes Republican. I thanked him for his time and walked away. But as I did, he came out of his door and thanked me for taking time to participate in the political process. 6/

— Ben Alpers ?? (@Ben_Alpers) February 17, 2020

That shouldn't be such an unusual occurrence. But in this moment of such heated anger between the parties, it really stuck with me. 7/7

— Ben Alpers ?? (@Ben_Alpers) February 17, 2020

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Keep Hope AlivePost + Comments (238)

Election Year Redlining Open Thread: Warren v Bloomberg

by Anne Laurie| February 17, 202010:00 am| 111 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Racial Justice, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You, Warren for President 2020

The 2008 financial crash would not have been averted if we had allowed the banks to be more racist. And anyone who thinks otherwise should not be the leader of our party. pic.twitter.com/9DN2hlvIzp

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 14, 2020

Heard she also attacked Trump and other Republicans as well. https://t.co/BDHEet6SkG

— Nathan Newman ?? (@nathansnewman) February 14, 2020

Anyone who hates the idea of President Bloomberg, remember — Mike promised he’d spend up to $2billion supporting whichever Democratic candidate triumphs in the primaries. If that turns out to be Elizabeth Warren, not only will we all be getting a better President, but it will viscerally hurt Mike Bloomberg.

(Yes, he and his vast fortune will be better off under President Warren than President Trump, but she’s been so meeeeean to him already!)

Warren has talked more about the legacy of redlining than any other candidate (still in the race, at least) and it’s been sourced as a root cause of numerous enduring racial disparities in umpteen of her plans.
Which is to say, she didn’t parachute into this issue or news cycle: https://t.co/jDYry0ANmH

— Greg Krieg (@GregJKrieg) February 13, 2020

African-Americans and properties in previously redlined areas were targeted for subprime loans even when borrowers qualified for a lower interest rate. This made money for banks in the short term, and led to foreclosures and loss of black wealth in the long term. https://t.co/PWTZTrnykB

— Owl Parliamenterian (@davidabenner) February 14, 2020

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Election Year Redlining Open Thread: Warren v BloombergPost + Comments (111)

Why I {Heart} Elizabeth Warren: Sometimes All You Have Is Courage

by Anne Laurie| February 14, 20204:41 pm| 225 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Excellent Links, Warren for President 2020

People are worried that the fight against Donald Trump could be unwinnable. Here’s the thing: I’ve been winning unwinnable fights my whole life. Everyone thinks they know what fights are unwinnable—until everyone gets out, fights, persists, and wins. That’s how we’ll beat Trump. pic.twitter.com/34f4kkXbfb

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 11, 2020

(I didn’t see this on Political Twitter — I found it on one of the virologist sites I check for corona-virus updates, between links to scientific papers and the latest news about Ebola in the Congo.)

Monica Hesse, in the Washington Post:

KEENE, N.H. — Within three minutes of getting in line for an Elizabeth Warren rally, I’ve been handed a business card for a woman-empowerment organization called Brass Ovaries, and the founder, my linemate, has drawn me into a conversation about Warren that has begun to feel like the only conversation to have about Warren: the kind that’s about hope, and despair, and how it’s possible to love America and also want to throw it out the window.

“I went to one of her events before, and I gave her one of my Brass Ovaries pins,” Michelle Johnson says. “And I started to explain how it’s about fed-up women — but she said, ‘Oh, I get it,’ and I said, ‘I knew you would,’ because Elizabeth always gets it, doesn’t she?…

“I’m leaning toward Warren,” says Frank Brownell, a retired editor who relocated to Keene from Upstate New York. “I’m not a big Buttigieg fan. But I want to pick someone to win.” He sighed, deeply troubled. “Women have such a burden. I actually wish women ran the world.”

If he wished women ran things, I asked him, was there a reason he was still merely leaning toward Warren? Here was a woman he liked who was offering to run the country, and he literally had the chance to give her the job.

“I’m going to vote for her,” he decided, then waffled. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

His qualms weren’t with Warren. He loved Warren. His qualms were about everyone else, everyone else who might not be ready to vote for a woman. “I’m hopeful but I’m not hopeful. I don’t think America is what I always hoped it was.”…

At one event in New Hampshire, a little girl approaches the microphone, accompanied by her mother.

“My name is Elizabeth,” she says.

“Your name is Elizabeth?” Warren reels back. “Oh wow! Double Elizabeths! I feel the power.”

“I’m seven years old.”

Warren pauses, deadpan. “I’m . . . not.”

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“I want to know if you will close the camps,” the 7-year-old Elizabeth asks.

Here, Warren’s response grows impossibly soft and intimate, so soft that it feels almost indecent to listen to, like this has become a private conversation. The camps in Texas where they are holding children? Warren asks. The 7-year-old nods. Those camps.

“Yes,” Warren says. “Yes.”

And then people in the audience tear up because in that moment, they did seem to believe things could change, that Warren was the best candidate, that others thought so, too, and just needed to be convinced that it’s safe to vote for her. That there’s nothing to fear in nominating this woman but fear itself…

Loving Elizabeth Warren means planning for America to break your heart.

It means watching her tweet out an optimistic message after Iowa, and then watching how all of the early replies instruct her to defer to Sanders and drop out.

It means making sure to preface your pro-Warren statements with “I don’t have anything against the male candidates,” as if the act of supporting a female one was somehow misandrist in itself.

It means listening to people complain about her schoolmarmishness and quietly wondering what was so wrong, exactly, with sounding like a schoolmarm. What’s so wrong with sounding like a grandmother? What’s so wrong with her animated hand gestures, her cardigans, her preparedness, her laugh, her husband, her brain, her work, her femaleness, her voice?

It means hoping things will break your way but accepting that they probably wouldn’t, because America never quite seems to work that way, does it?…

The music in the gym gets a little louder. When “9 to 5” comes on, Warren sprints onstage. She talks about her family. She talks about her toaster. She says she is running a campaign from the heart, because she believes 2020 is “our moment.”

“I believe in that America,” Elizabeth Warren says, and then she tries to convince the audience that they believe in that America, too.

“We have to show that we’re willing to take the risk. Because if we’re not, then women will never win.’” – @ewarren https://t.co/VtNB04ods4

— Connie Schultz (@ConnieSchultz) February 12, 2020

Last night, in Virginia:

A new chant for @ewarren from the crowd: “I believe that she will win.” pic.twitter.com/i5dBns81ZQ

— Daniella Díaz (@DaniellaMicaela) February 14, 2020

Here’s a first: Warren tells the audience a line she always says when campaigning : “I believe in science.”

The audiences starts chanting: “Science! Science! Science!”

Warren also acknowledges that it’s the first time she’s heard a “Science!” chant.

— Daniella Díaz (@DaniellaMicaela) February 14, 2020

Why I {Heart} Elizabeth Warren: Sometimes All You Have Is CouragePost + Comments (225)

Late Night Open Thread: Reasons to Be Hopeful

by Anne Laurie| February 14, 202012:10 am| 95 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Open Threads, Warren for President 2020

Antonin Scalia died on this day in 2016, after which every single Republican Senator came to the conclusion that it was too late to consider a replacement because of the impending election. They cited a standard that they believed Joe Biden had set years prior.

— Sam Stein (@samstein) February 13, 2020

Tonight, in Virginia:

.@ewarren addresses the overflow outside. pic.twitter.com/eUXIAPYtAm

— Daniella Díaz (@DaniellaMicaela) February 14, 2020

Video. You’re welcome. pic.twitter.com/pefv4ZNBIH

— Brandon Wolf (@bjoewolf) February 14, 2020

And if *that* don’t do it for ya…

Another candidate enters the crowded primary field. https://t.co/u634heKafi

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) February 13, 2020

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Election Year Open Thread: Elizabeth Warren Is Not Going Away

by Anne Laurie| February 12, 20209:19 pm| 105 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Warren for President 2020

We will win by uniting our country around ending the corruption that has shortchanged our kids, our schools, and the very survival of our planet. pic.twitter.com/TeHXRHGqKI

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 12, 2020

Warren calls on Barr to resign. https://t.co/CWCTgOYmtF

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 12, 2020

Even if she doesn’t end up in the White House next year, Senator Warren has an important job where she can do what she loves: teaching people how to fight for their own rights. Even when she first announced her candidacy, I was afraid that would do her no favor in the eyes of the Media Village Idiots, and the coverage of Iowa and New Hampshire has verified my worst fears.

These guys don’t want to hear This is a sustained battle, and we’re all going to have to work hard and work together — they want to sit in the bleachers trading quips, while carnival barkers compete to sell the rubes the biggest, most brightly-packaged cones of cotton candy. But cotton candy soon melts into cloying insubstantiality. It won’t fill you up, but eventually it will make you sick of it…

NEW: Sen. Elizabeth Warren says Sanders, Buttigieg "had strong nights."

"I also want to congratulate my friend and colleague Amy Klobuchar for showing just how wrong the pundits can be hen they count a woman out." https://t.co/AMy05fjFHX pic.twitter.com/Vc2Mzl1FZR

— Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) February 12, 2020

Media: Why isn’t Warren performing better? It’s an unsolvable mystery.

Also media: https://t.co/bor8kPJXQ2

— Esther Choo (@choo_ek) February 12, 2020

Cable networks didn’t take Warren’s speech live, but are now taking Biden live even though he finished behind her. Same thing happened in Iowa, when networks cut from Warren to go to Biden.

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) February 12, 2020

"Why isn't the candidate we totally excluded from coverage for the past week doing better?" – the liberal media

— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) February 12, 2020

The new Warren campaign memo: https://t.co/zMdOj7kZIX

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 11, 2020

Not to be overlooked, as the primaries wear on: Warren started with plenty of enemies, but she’s not deliberately making new ones…

Considering the whack she took at him during the debate, this is interesting. https://t.co/Us1yTxQptR

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) February 12, 2020

Election Year Open Thread: Elizabeth Warren Is Not Going AwayPost + Comments (105)

Election Year Open Thread: Elizabeth Warren – Why I’m with Her

by Anne Laurie| February 11, 20208:13 am| 22 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Open Threads, Warren for President 2020

People are worried that the fight against Donald Trump could be unwinnable. Here's the thing: I've been winning unwinnable fights my whole life. Everyone thinks they know what fights are unwinnable—until everyone gets out, fights, persists, and wins. That's how we'll beat Trump. pic.twitter.com/34f4kkXbfb

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 11, 2020

ICYMI:

Warren has a wicked sense of humor that comes out from time to time, but I get the sense that she tries to keep it under wraps lest men get too threatened. https://t.co/wN4npTP38T

— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) February 10, 2020

I could not love Elizabeth Warren more if she was herself a golden retriever.

— ana marie cox (@anamariecox) February 8, 2020

Warren on MSNBC: I’m not here to knock other candidates, we need to unify against Trump, we don’t need a repeat of 2016.

here’s me, agreeing

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) February 11, 2020

Warren came aboard for some q’s.
She rarely shied away from criticizing other Dems on issues over her career, but has mostly declined to do so in this campaign, even now. Part of it is the unity candidate strategy but I asked why not call out her opponents. pic.twitter.com/0lmthAYIA2

— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) February 10, 2020

After a bunch of q’s about polls Warren replied:
“It’s a very fluid moment in the primary… Who was supposed to still be in this race today and who wasn’t? I think I wasn’t?” Warren asked. “I think the prediction business right now is not something I’d be heavily investing in” pic.twitter.com/tiq7s9EtLy

— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) February 10, 2020

Put another way: Pete Buttigieg is 32 years younger than Warren. By the time she was sworn in to the Senate, he had run for office twice. By the time Biden was Buttigieg's age, he was serving his second Senate term.

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) February 10, 2020

.⁦@ewarren⁩ to ⁦⁦@CharlotteAlter⁩: “We have to show that we’re willing to take the risk,” she says slowly. “Because if we’re not, then women will never win.” https://t.co/flOn9qsluI

— Elena Schneider (@ec_schneider) February 10, 2020

Consistently distinctive about Warren events: the people asking questions go deep on policy (“I actually brought a PowerPoint for you to read,” a woman just told her), whereas others get questions like “How will you beat McConnell?” or “What’s your plan on health care?”

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) February 10, 2020

As she was doing her closing riff on creating the CFPB, the mic cut out. “It’s the banks,” @ewarren says. “It says dead battery—all I can say is that may be,” she points at the mic, but then at her chest, “but not here.”

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) February 11, 2020

Warren: "I cannot say to all those little girls: 'This got hard and I quit.' My job is to persist."

via @AnnieLinskey https://t.co/BqIwMZXFUO

— Amy B Wang (@amybwang) February 10, 2020

Election Year Open Thread: Elizabeth Warren – Why I’m with HerPost + Comments (22)

Monday Morning Open Thread

by Anne Laurie| February 10, 20207:23 am| 134 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Open Threads, TV & Movies, Warren for President 2020

"American Factory," a documentary backed by the Obamas, just won best documentary feature, and it's streaming on Netflix: https://t.co/NCQPdXHZr4

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 10, 2020

The prediction markets say there's a 6% chance of Michelle Obama jumping in the race so I'm gonna go ahead and ignore the prediction markets.

— Iowasca Tripper (@agraybee) February 9, 2020

Our long national nightmare…

According to the Iowa Democratic Party, Buttigieg will claim 14 delegates, Sanders will receive 12, Warren will get eight, Biden will receive six, and Klobuchar will get one.

w/ @jennagiesta & @CNNPaul: https://t.co/OiR3yQd2Wg

— Dan Merica (@merica) February 9, 2020

NEW: The @BernieSanders campaign plans to ask for a recanvass of some Iowa precincts before the Monday 1 pm deadline, @fshakir tells @ryanobles

— Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) February 10, 2020

After spending 5 years and $50 million on campaigning, Bernie lost to a neophyte, so cue the asinine conspiracy theories https://t.co/GCtmpIE5oC

— Bernie Sanders praised George Wallace?? (@sensen2011) February 9, 2020

Better ideas!

I just went to an event with the amazing @lucymcbath and it reminded me: If you're burned out on the presidential primary, take a deep breath and focus down-ballot. Save the House, win the Senate, take back statehouses.

— Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) February 9, 2020

Can we please stop doing the work of autocracies like Russia, and instead of scaring our voters, show them reasons that voting is worthwhile? If you want to see professionalism, volunteer with your local election office to be a poll worker. See for yourself.

— David Becker (@beckerdavidj) February 8, 2020

"You can screw up a lot of people's lives in 10 years" @StaceyAbrams explains her mission to make sure every community has a fighting chance #TheShopHBO @hbo pic.twitter.com/HiHzrYiDzz

— UNINTERRUPTED (@uninterrupted) February 8, 2020

Monday Morning Open ThreadPost + Comments (134)

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

No one could have predicted…

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Giving up is unforgivable.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Bark louder, little dog.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.