I believe it was the day after President Obama’s reelection
victory last year when the pundits started to speculate on who was going to run
for president in 2016, especially with no incumbent in the mix. Many people, including me objected to
this. After all, the guy just won a new
4 year term; let’s talk about what he hopes to accomplish now instead of
dwelling on the distant future and making him into a lame duck already.
Of course, since then the speculation has only continued. On the Democratic side, we have the
‘inevitable’ nomination of Hillary Clinton if she decides to run (which was
also inevitable back in 2008, but a young Senator Barack Obama didn’t get the
memo). On the Republican side, will they
nominate someone from the Tea Party like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul? Or will they
nominate somebody is who viewed as being a more moderate conservative like
Chris Christie?
So once again for liberals, it looks like a choice between
another Democratic centrist and someone likely to be from the far right which
is what the Republican primary battles seem to be turning out. Will liberals ever get one of their own to
choose from? With the speculation
over the increasingly popular Senator Elizabeth Warren perhaps running for
president, especially if Hillary chooses not to run, liberals like me cannot
keep from being swept into the same speculation over 2016 that I have
criticized. So if the reader will
indulge me...
Elizabeth Warren who was a Harvard Law School professor became
well known for her government work not
only to liberals, but also to corporate America and Wall Street for her
outspoken criticism of how they did business.
President Obama named her to help put together the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
and in a logical next step, he nominated her to be the first Director of the
agency. Needless to say, the Republicans
in general and Wall Street in particular wanted no part of this and with a
promise of a Senate filibuster that would make her confirmation unlikely,
Warren’s nomination was reluctantly withdrawn.
In hindsight, maybe the Republicans wish they could have
that choice back because her next move which resulted in a successful run for
the US Senate in Massachusetts has resulted in her being even more of a thorn
in the side of Wall Street with her appointment to be part of the Senate Banking
Committee. There is already a
considerable collection of online videos of her tormenting Wall Street
executives and even the Treasury Department as in this video during congressional hearings asking
the tough (but pertinent) questions many of her colleagues didn’t seem to have
the stomach to ask.
But when she ran against the incumbent Republican Senator
Scott Brown, many wondered if she had a chance to even be competitive, let
alone win against an opponent who was being heavily bankrolled by Wall
Street. But an amazing thing happened in
that she actually received a significant amount of campaign donations even from
voters outside of Massachusetts, hoping that this populist candidate could beat
the odds. And she did, winning rather comfortably.
Senator Warren has been an outspoken advocate for liberal
causes, most notably focusing on the harm from our extreme wealth and wage
disparity along with the resulting money that those in the top 1% have used to buy
favor with politicians of both parties.
You would think that running on such a populist platform
would be a natural for an ambitious politician.
But just as Kermit the Frog lamented that It's Not Easy Being Green, nowadays it’s not easy
being a liberal either. Conservatives
having control of the White House for most of the last 30 years have seemingly
captured much of the political narrative in the US. Especially with their domination of talk
radio along with the success of Fox News, they have sold the notion that
America is mainly a conservative nation, which ignores President Obama’s back
to back victories. But just as
importantly, whatever one may think of conservatives, they are proud as hell to
call themselves conservatives. And
furthermore, there is seemingly no such thing in most of their minds as being
too conservative. A number of
politicians with solid conservative credentials have been defeated in
Republican primaries by hard-right Tea party activists for in their minds not
being conservative enough. Others are
fearful of being ‘primaried’ when it is their turn to run for reelection. Even as
someone who once ran as a moderate Republican for governor of a solidly liberal
Massachusetts, Mitt Romney had to re-label himself as a "severely conservative" governor during his
presidential campaign try and convince the conservative base that he was one of
them.
On the other side, the term ‘liberal’ has become a
pejorative word – even most liberals will no longer use the word but instead
prefer to be known as ‘progressives’.
If conservatives want to paint an opponent as being unworthy to vote
for, all they feel they need to do is to paint him or her as a ‘liberal’ and
that will do the job (after adding in the word ‘socialist’ for good
measure). With the resounding defeats of liberals George McGovern and Walter Mondale in past
presidential elections, the formula for most Democratic presidential candidates
nowadays is to say enough to appeal to the liberal base but also at the same
time not come across as being too liberal. The result has been Democratic presidents in
the form of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who on economic issues are centrist
at best and maybe even center-right on some issues.
Bill Clinton brought us more financial deregulation,
especially the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which had put a firewall between
the banking and investment parts of financial institutions. Many feel that if this firewall was still in
place, the financial debacle of 2008 which is still inflicting great harm on
our economy may not have happened. And Barack Obama has relied on many of the
same members of the Clinton team who were behind all of the financial
deregulation.
The frustration of those on the liberal side comes from
when a centrist has to negotiate with those on the far right, the compromise
has to land somewhere on the right.
For example, with our need to create jobs to address our stubborn
unemployment problem, the battle should be between the idea of more government
spending to try and stimulate the economy (the liberal/Keynesian approach) or
going with spending cuts (the conservative/austerity approach) to try and
balance the budget. Instead, we have an
attempt at compromise in which the only detail to work out is how much and
where spending cuts are going to be.
Some compromise! The fear
among liberal economists like Paul Krugman is that without some sort of fiscal policy in
the way of a government stimulus to create jobs, we are going to be stuck in
this unemployment rut for a long time to come.
And as for Hillary, although most of the Democratic campaign
money seems to lining up behind her if she runs, it is tough for liberals to
get a warm and fuzzy feeling for someone who as a senator from New York was
(perhaps understandably) supportive of Wall Street interests.
A recent article from The New Republic, Hillary's Worst Nightmare?
provides lots of red meat for liberals to chew on. While acknowledging that Hillary is again considered
to be the “inevitable” Democratic nominee if she decides to run, they write
that Elizabeth Warren’s liberal populist message may prove to give Hillary more
of a battle than many would expect or at the very least, would nudge Hillary a
little more to the left. And just to
prove that liberal populism is not totally extinct, there is the recent mayoral
race in New York City won in a landslide by unabashed liberal Bill de Blasio.
OK, back to reality.
Elizabeth Warren and her staffers have repeatedly said that she is not running for president. Of course this is speculation, but I think
this is more a case of not wanting to run against Hillary rather than just not
being interested in the presidency.
While she may well make it a spirited battle, Warren is a political
neophyte having never held political office before her run for the Senate. In addition, her inexperience in foreign
affairs compared to someone who was recently the Secretary of State would be
ruthlessly exploited in a political campaign.
But if Hillary decides not to run, all bets are off! Warren, who will be 67 years old in 2016 may
decide that it’s now or never if she indeed has any ambitions to be president.
And let’s not forget VP Joe Biden who I’m sure would love to
take another crack at the presidency if Hillary doesn’t run – or maybe even
if she does run for all we know!
Biden gets an unfair rap as a buffoon because of the number of gaffes he
has made in his public appearances. But
Biden has always been one to speak from the heart and not from a
TelePrompTer. I’ll take that over
someone whose words are always programmed for political correctness. In addition, he served as Chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee who was widely respected for his expertise
there. Had President Obama not picked
him as his VP, he would have been a fine choice as his Secretary of State. Instead,
Biden has worked as a loyal team player behind the scenes on behalf of the
president to make up for his relative lack of experience with inside Washington
politics. And best yet, he is a true liberal from a modest background who truly
cares about the working person and others who are struggling to get by in these
difficult times. But in 2016, he will be
74 – perhaps too old to be seriously considered by the electorate.
If Hillary does run and get the nomination, she may well
decide that Elizabeth Warren can make a valued contribution to her presidency
if she wins just like Joe Biden has done for President Obama. Maybe this means a cabinet spot or – wait
for it! – the VP slot. Warren’s
strong following among liberals may prove to be a help in mobilizing this group
to support and vote for Hillary instead of sitting on the sidelines. A woman at the top of the ticket would be
historic. Two on the ticket...why
not?
