We live in cynical times. At BloombergPolitics, Annie Linskey asks “What Exactly Is Elizabeth Warren Going For?“:
… She has said she’s not running for president and disavowed a super-PAC formed to push her candidacy. And yet the former Harvard Law School professor is traveling a path familiar to presidential candidates, drawing crowds that would make some potential Democratic rivals jealous. With one week’s notice, hundreds of supporters shouldered their way into her Iowa events. Once again, a first-term senator who doesn’t look like the typical U.S. president is basking in the adulation of a eager Democratic crowd. …
In just the past 72 hours, Warren has headlined rallies for Democrats in Colorado and Minnesota, in addition to Iowa. This year, she’s campaigned in 15 states, including Ohio, New Mexico, Kentucky, Oregon, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan and her home state of Massachusetts. That makes her one of the most-requested campaign surrogates this year, said Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “She’s incredibly popular,” he said.
She’s also opening her campaign wallet, giving money from her political action committee, PAC For a Level Playing Field, to 26 of the 36 Democrats running for the Senate this year, including the maximum $10,000 donation to 19 of them. Her PAC ranks as the fifth most generous to Democratic candidates among senators, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Her political operation churns out a steady stream of fundraising emails–one says she has raised $6 million for candidates this cycle.
Why all the work if she has no ambitions for the White House?
The explanation, according to people who have followed her closely, is that she’s not building a presidential campaign. She’s following Obama’s lead, with a slight twist, by trying to build a movement that could redefine the party and later lead to a future White House candidacy…
Warren’s broader message for overhauling the way Washington works hasn’t changed much since her 2012 campaign to unseat Republican Senator Scott Brown. “This is not only an election,” she told a group of supporters back then. “We’ve got to make the wind blow in the right direction.” There’s some evidence the movement-building is working—even in “deep maroon” South Dakota, where Democratic candidate Rick Weiland has campaigned on Warren’s efforts to reduce interest rates on student loans…
When Warren finished in Iowa City, she and Braley rushed to their next event, another rally 120 miles west to Des Moines. They drove two hours through golden brown cornfields and arrived in another ballroom jammed with pro-Warren activists. “I am so glad to be here today,” she began. What came next—about her parents, her brothers—was not going to make news to the reporters following her for the past couple of years. But it just might make a movement.
A movement which does not necessarily end with the words … now elect me your God-King President. It’s not required that every politician looking to support their agenda must make a move on the Oval Office — it might very well be a distraction from Warren’s focus on leveling the financial playing field. Right now, she’s giving the best kind of support to other Democrats who need it badly, and that’s more than good enough.
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Apart from Our Failed Media Experiment, what’s on the agenda for the day?
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