“I’m gonna do this! I’m going to run for the United States Senate.”
Elizabeth Warren’s Senate campaign announcement swept over RSS feeds like a hosanna from desperate progressives – redeem us, plainspoken one! She has no disappointed, for within several weeks of her announcement, a quote from one of Warren’s campaign events has made the rounds with even more gusto. This soundbite exemplifies Warren’s appeal to liberal voters, rooted in the clarity with which she advocates for a more equitable distribution of wealth:
“You built a factory out there? Good for you,” she says. “But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.”
Warren’s directness stands in stark contrast to Obama’s image of ambivalence. Though progressive spirits were lifted somewhat by the introduction of the Buffett Rule, it’s been many months of increasing despair regarding the president’s persistence in pursuing anything resembling progressive economic policy. Especially difficult was Ron Suskind’s portrayal of the administration in his newest book, Confidence Men, which shows Obama’s deference to pro-banker advisors like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, despite spirited opposition on everything from the size of the 2009 stimulus to breaking up large banks, often from equally qualified gurus like Robert Reich and Austan Goolsbee. The book confirms, all too vividly, that an opportunity for more robust prosecution and regulatory restructuring withered until the moment for pro-middle-class policies had passed. Meanwhile, at the same time Elizabeth Warren leapt onto the political radar screen, most prominently for her tough questioning of Geithner’s handling of TARP, and her persistence in creating the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau.
As has been extensively cataloged before, the Democratic base is disheartened by the gap between the Obama’s passionate campaign rhetoric and the compromises that feel more and more like capitulations. Democratic voters can point to several watershed moments where they realized that the president simply wasn’t fighting for what was right, from our perspective nor, as they believed, from his. The passage of health care reform without a public option, exacerbated by its early removal from the legislation drafting process, was just one such moment.
Now that Elizabeth Warren can speak on her own behalf, she cannot help but provide a contrast between a directness and ambivalence, between principled stance and tepid compromise. It is not just Elizabeth Warren’s words but her persona and of passion and strong values that expose Obama’s failings among his own base.
