Comments

1
As much as I love Elizabeth Warren, Clinton better represents the views of the nation as a whole, has a lot more experience and would have a better chance at beating whoever wins the Republican nomination.

Since my number one goal is to flip the Supreme Court (think marriage equality, overturning Citizens United, protecting the rights of minority voters, etc etc) I'll vote for whoever the Democrat is in 2016 (hell in 2020 as well).

If Warren ran in the primary she'd still lose to Clinton and would just cost Clinton needed resources. It's not her time just yet.
2
Warren is far left, where Clinton is more of a moderate and as such, easier to vote for. Clinton also has a much thicker skin for politics and has and more experience.
4
Kind of have to agree with @1. I mean: we already had the Ted Kennedy/Carter challenge...does the left really think the GOP's purity wars and circular firing squads are helping the GOP? Is that the secret sauce we want to emulate? The Naderites showed us in 2000 just how great it is when we vote for a more pure candidate and kill the less perfect (and get the horrible).
5
Don't get me wrong, I am a supporter of Warren's, but it's not time for her to run for president. She needs some more time dealing with DC idiots before she plunges into the hardest job in the world. I think she could do it now, but why push her when Secretary Clinton would do as good a job and it will be easier for her with all her experience?
6
First take:

Warren is wonderful, but too soon.
Clinton, for all her flaws, has the experience.

7
Obama's great, but it's too soon. Clinton has much more experience. His time will come after Clinton's.

Obama's too far left. Clinton's more of a moderate.

8
Well done, @7.
9
I want the one who can win. If Warren can beat Clinton in the nomination process, she'll have demonstrated to my satisfaction that she can.

10
Warren is not as experienced as Clinton. Clinton would also beat any Republican.
11
Um... didn't Warren just sign a letter with the other ladies of the Senate urging Hillary to run??
12
Isn't running for the nomination part of paving the way for running and winning later? That wasn't the case for Obama but it seems like a lot of presidents did that. Just wondering if she might run in 2016 for practice and name recognition, then run and (possibly) win in 2020 or 2024...
13
Polling for the last year or so has consistently shown Hillary beating any Republican. Let's stick with what works.
14
While I agree that Warren should spend more time gaining experience, let's 1) not pretend like the experience thing isn't just a rehash of the '08 Democratic primaries, and 2) not redefine the words "moderate" and "far left." Anarchists are far left. Elizabeth Warren is a progressive whose views are actually in line with the majority of the American public if you ask them about the issues and not the politicians. Hillary Clinton is a conservative corporate shill. The only reason anyone would label her as "moderate" is if they didn't realize their perspective of the political spectrum has been yanked to the right by this country's fanatical right-wing ideologues.
15
What about a Clinton-Warren ticket?
16
Clinton is a neoliberal warmonger and is widely perceived as such for good reasons. She won't mobilize progressives, and she stands a good chance of being outflanked by a right wing populist like Christie.

GOPers would blow a fuse if Warren ran but she can motivate the disenfranchised like nobody can. She is the best candidate by far and her rhetoric is certainly no further left than Obama's in 2008. Many Democrats sound like Stockholm syndrome victims when they talk about politics and should follow some kind of treatment.
17
@ 14, don't redefine "moderate" after you say that we shouldn't. There's more to "moderate" than one's economic positions. Can you name any social positions that make Clinton "conservative"? (And why is it okay to redefine "conservative" here - because it suits your purposes?)
18
@7 - It's funny, I was a Clinton supporter in '08 and never thought that Obama was any more leftish than she was. Dangerously naïve about bipartisanship and what the Republicans would actually do when he was in office (no one could've predicted!), but definitely not leftish. If people thought he was going to do anything but take the middle of the road they weren't paying attention.
19
What @6 said. I am weary of eager upstarts running for president, as if it is a career move up the ladder (or nothing more than an ego trip) and not (arguably) the most important job in the world. See Obama, Palin, Herman Cain, etc. It's a distraction and, when it sticks, (as with Obama) messy. The PUSA isn't a "learn on the job" kind of job.

20
@16 I gotta disagree with you there. Its not the mobilization of progressives that win Democrats the White House.

I think Clinton is the safer bet given what we know right now. But its not like Clinton has an awesome record in electoral politics - she let Obama pull the rug out from under her back in 2008.
21
Warren may be an upstart as far as political experience, but in 2016 she'll be 67; waiting 4 more years will bring her to age 71. That's simply too old to run. It's 2016 or never for her. Clinton's almost too old to run in 2016.

Yes, age is relevant in running for President.
22
I would rather not see this poll for another year and a half at least.
23
@17 - Surely you mean cultural because social policies have to be prescribed in concert with consistent economic policies or they mean nothing. Right economics lead to right social policies. Even on cultural issues she isn't all that. As recently as 2008 HC was against same sex marriage. Now her position has changed, but she followed public opinion and wasn't a leader.
24
The reason Obama got the nom in 2008 was he got the liberal wing as well as the black vote. In order for Warren to do that she has to do the same, and african americans love the Clintons.
25
Clinton's biggest problem is voter fatigue with the Clinton "brand". I like her but this is WAAAYYY to early to be asking.

@4, the Carter/Kennedy analogy doesn't hold up. Ted Kennedy was running against a sitting President. The nomination as it stands it totally open for anyone without risk to an incumbent.
26
@ 18 Well Said

@ 16 Same thing was said about Obama in 2012, oops

@ 14 No Warren is not far left, she not a socialist, she is left. Hillary is a moderate who is center to center left. Even Rachel Maddow has stated that the current mainstream Democrats are center left.
27
@ 23, what are "cultural" policies? I said social because I meant social. Good point about gay marriage, but what was Warren's position in 2008? Is she on the record that far back? Was she on the national radar at that time?
28
@ 25

There is no evidence to back that up there is no fatigue that are loved by voters. Problem in 2008 was a once in a generation candidate ran and he was very good.
29
@3: "Warren is to far left for national politics, she only got 53% of the vote in uber-liberal Massachusetts."

I've lived in "Uber-liberal Massachusetts" for the past 30 years. We're not particularly liberal, and we've elected Republican governors in 1990 (Weld), 1994 (Weld -- by a 41 point margin!), 1998 (Celluci) and 2002 (Romney). We also elected Scott Brown in the Senate, and he could have continued his tenure, had he not started falling in line with the national Republican Party agenda and ignored the needs of his constituencies.

The Republican Party in Massachusetts is a mess. That doesn't make Massachusetts liberal, it only makes Massachusetts Democratic. Democratic is not the same as liberal, and we in Massachusetts (like the rest of New England) would be happy to vote Republican, if the Republicans weren't the party of Christian-Libertarianism, beholden to this bizarre ideology. We have in the past and we will in the future.

FWIW, Warren has been an excellent senator, and I say this as a former Brown supporter. But she won't be the Democratic Party nominee for President. Wall Street will cut off funds long before she can get any primary traction.
30
Tough call. I like Elizabeth Warren far better than Hillary Clinton, but I think Clinton is the safer candidate.

Has anyone done any polling to see if Warren could actually beat any of the republicans?
31
I would prefer a President Elizabeth Warren to a President Hillary Clinton. But I am not sure Elizabeth Warren could win it, YET. And another important consideration: the fact is, no one could pull off being the first First Husband with the kind of panache, charm, and rakishness that Bill Clinton can. For the sake of history and comedy I feel like he should be the first one.
32
@27: Politicians can and do change their views and opinions and that's a good thing. Didn't Obama do the same? Perfection should not be the enemy of the good, especially in politics.

If I were a D, I would choose Hillary.
33
I like Warren's politics way more than Clinton's. The problem is that she both lacks experience, yet is also too old to make a run 8 years from now.

I like Hillary Clinton's personality and I think she was an excellent Senator and Secretary of State. I also think that in isolation she's probably not quite as far right as Bill Clinton, and would make a good president (about on par with Obama). But like Bill Clinton, and Obama, and Carter, and the various failed Democratic nominees of my lifetime, she really is far too right wing for me to be enthusiastic about her candidacy. She surrounded herself with bad advisers in 2008 and I think she would again. We don't need a fifth Robert Rubin term from a Democratic president. Except that we need to win, and she's the only person who has the connections to put together a credible campaign in 2016. Biden is the only person who comes close in terms of campaign organization, and yet it's not really close.

So, Hillary 2016, and work to get a progressive VP who can put together a credible run in 2024. Unfortunately, that's not Warren, because she's too old. If Clinton leads the ticket, the VP has to be someone comparably young.

If for some reason Hillary Clinton doesn't run, though, it's a wide open field. Warren should run in that case.
34
@ 33, Carter was too right wing for you?
35
@ 32, depends a bit on the position. The biggest reason Barack Obama is the 44th president is because he delivered a speech against waging war on Iraq when he was in the Illinois state house. It was a brave position - maybe not so much for someone that far removed from national politics, but no other serious Democratic candidate in 2004 or 2008 could say they were against the war. As GOP operatives and their friends at Fox noted, all the others were for it before they were against it.

Similarly, if you're looking for a politician with progressive bona fides you can believe in, being for gay marriage at a time when it was routinely banned at the ballot box is a good measure.

Yes, people should be willing to change their minds and be flexible, but that's mostly at the more detailed policy level. Principles and ideals, OTOH, shouldn't be subject to change with the political wind.
36
@30

She has a 100% track record in beating popular Republican stars.
37
You're asking the wrong question. What we should ask is, Should Warren run for the nomination? If she ran, even if she lost, she could drag the conversation leftward in the D primary discussion (and then in the general), counteracting the rightward drift that we've seen since 2000 (or earlier). She doesn't have to win to get the desired result.
38
I would MUCH rather see them as running mates
40
@34 - Veteran Washington correspondent Tom Wicker wrote: "The available evidence is that Mr. Carter so far is opting for Wall Street's confidence."
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/…
41
@4, Gore lost that election not because of Nader, but because Gore was a piss poor campaigner who allowed it to come down to FL and all the voter disenfranchisement chicanery that came with it.

@1, Outside of Scalia, all those right wingers are too young to hope for a die off or to suffer age related illness, however there's more to worry about on the dem side with those issues--Ginsberg.

Other than that, voting Green in all likelihood in 2016 (Voted Gore in 2000), yes I know he/she won't win, but I'll feel good about my vote. With Clinton, you will get more or less the same neo-liberal economic policies as Obama that favor the one percent and do nothing to positively change the landscape for working people.
42
@ 37, given that the "desired result" would come with a Republican presidency, and all the extremist nonsense that would come with it (the House likely will remain GOP for the rest of the decade, and the Senate could flip), I think that that's not enough of a reason.

@ 41, there were enough Nader voters in Florida that we can safely assume that enough of them would have voted for Gore if they felt he was their only option. A lot of things went wrong for Al - things that singly could have won him the presidency if they had not gone wrong. Nader was one of those things.
43
Tough primaries only tend to soften up the eventual nominee for the general election. If there hadn't been such a backlash against the Bush years in 2008 and if Obama hadn't been such a strong candidate, the tough Democratic primary could easily have given us President McCain. I would love to see Warren in the White House but I will take Hillary over any Republican. I just fear that Hillary will be the Democratic Romney, the big-money candidate nobody really likes but that no other candidate can beat. I will fall into line behind Clinton once she becomes inevitable, but unless she repudiates a lot of her Wall Street backers it will be hard to get excited about her before the general election.
44
@7 was trying to be funny but was entirely correct
45
Another thing. Without having seen any polls specifically on this subject, I would guess that Hillary's negatives are as high as Warren's. If we're going to sell out to Clinton Inc. it'd be nice to get more of a bulletproof candidate.
46
There is something perverse about settling for a corporatist like Clinton without attempting anything else 3 years before the presidential, then invoking the lesser evil argument during the election.
48
If Hillary strokes out, Warren could do it. And you just know Cory "Will Settle For Veep" Booker's going to make a run.
49
@42, I suspect that "Oralgate" hurt Gore too, but for christsakes, he lost his home state!!! He also looked and acted cloddish as all get out in the debates, he should have knocked down an intellectual lightweight like W with ease.

@47, You know, I think I could vote for O'Malley from what I've heard of him, but I thinks the big $$$$ like Hillary if she goes for the nomination.
50
@ 49, there's no question he conducted a terrible campaign, but he could have still won it if it weren't for Nader. That's not putting all the blame on Nader, just pointing out that that was one major factor in Gore's defeat.

97,488 votes were cast for Nader in Florida. Sure, many were likely done by hard left voters unlikely to go for Gore under any circumstance, but I'd wager that just as many would have gone for Gore but didn't because they wanted to send a message to the blue dogs that it was time to address progressive issues again. How many? Heck, if even only 5% of those 97,488 who voted Nader for that reason, and would have gone for Gore otherwise, history would be very different, even with the Republican shenanigans in Florida.
51
@ 47, Clinton has more on her resume than being a Senator.
52
I will never ever ever vote a former Wal-Mart Board Member for President. If Clinton runs again, then I will happily vote against her again.
53
I don't think Clinton would choose Warren as her running mate.

It doesn't get her a state, as Massachusetts is already blue. And it doesn't help get any other groups Clinton isn't already going to get.
54
@2 (kinison): Yes, the Harvard bankruptcy law professor behind the radical communist Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is "far left." It's surprising she's not running in Cuba, North Korea, or Laos.
55
@50 (Matt from Denver): Nader in 2000, Obama in 2008 (posing as a progressive), de Blasio and Sawant in 2013. Maybe it's time the Democratic Party started paying attention to signs that it needs to pull seriously and substantively to the left. Clinton is a known DLC New Democrat and won't be able to pull off the same con on the electorate that Obama did. I suspect a lot of normally Democratic voters won't be able to stomach voting for her as the lesser of evils in 2016; I know I won't be able to.
56
Warren should absolutely run.

If anything just to get a real conversation about the fucking criminal scum bags in the financial industry, what has really happened to the economy, and what can be done about it.
57
Warren is the ONLY national voice that has explained in simple terms how the economy works and what went wrong. Obama has failed to do this.

Clinton has not done it.

Bill Clinton did okay in a speech explaining that over decades democratic presidents created way more jobs than republicans ....but he didn't say what the policies were that achieved this. They are demand side economics, a/k/a gummint spending, a k a Keynesianism, and the continual failure of the democratic party to teach this celebrate it, propound it and explain it is why we are in such a mess. Warren gave an off the cuff 5 minute explanation of it: government spending is income to business, it circulates, it builds the roads and schools that produce customers and employees for private business, etc. THAT's what dems need to do more. That plus end too big to fail, another thing on which Clinton is deficient several ways. so fuck yes she ought to run. And if it's Clinton Warren that's great. Fucking build the middle class again. Two women is way historic and fascinating. we had two southerners with Clinton gore, it was brilliant strategy to reinvorce the message instead of the lame "pick up a few electoral votes in the VP candidates' home state" strategy. many women will be energized, and many men happy to create history AGAIN. the gop may have a woman VP candidate, likely will, having Clinton and warren is a great strategy, and besides, what's the alternative Andrew Cuomo? Biden? come on. two women is so new it overcomes the old age of them both.

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