Warren is Our Best Hope

Choosing a Democratic candidate for President this year is an exceptionally important task if we want to preserve our democracy from the assaults of Trump and his Republican allies.

That’s why it’s not a moment to go just based on emotion, buzz, or excitement. What’s needed is a rigorous appraisal of what we need to win.

We need a strategic assessment of who can go toe-to-toe with the $1 billion “Death Star” campaign of misinformation that Trump is assembling. Who can beat the propaganda? Who can rally ALL the forces we need?

At first blush, you might think that this argues for Bernie or Bloomberg — the grassroots phenom or the billionaire with bottomless pockets.

But I believe that is wrong for the following reason: the most important prerequisite is that we have a candidate that almost everyone in the Democratic party can really get behind. We need the Bernie grassroots folks. We need the elite’s deep pockets. We need the establishment. We need the youth. We need the moderates. We need the outsiders. We need the independents.

Candidates who can only appeal to or work with one or more factions will leave the party split, which makes it easier to weaken and defeat.

It is quite clear that Elizabeth Warren has the intelligence, the vision, the energy, the experience, the oratory power, and the ability to speak across divides. She’s got better plans than anyone for what she would actually do as President. She has bold programs with real details. She’s passed substantive legislation and worked with Republicans on hard issues as well. She’s reformed industries. She’s taken on corruption.

She is also our best hope to unify the party for the following reasons:

1. She is a reformer rather than a revolutionary, which does not raise the hackles, fears, and resistance of the Democratic establishment, moderates, and independents in the same way as Bernie does. A good percentage of down-ballot Democrats have already made clear they would distance from Bernie and we have to take that seriously.

2. She is a capitalist rather than a democratic socialist (only 45% of Americans say they would vote for a socialist), which takes away some of the red-scare attacks that would otherwise be a staple of the fall.

3. She is a bold visionary but also practical and focused on getting things done, something that matters to more moderate voters who are less concerned with big ideas than effective governance.

4. She is close enough to the Bernie movement’s policy positions that if she were the nominee, most of his supporters would feel comfortable backing her rather than sitting out the election or doing a #BernieOrTrump move on a more moderate candidate.

5. She is clearly used to collaborating, even with people that she calls out pretty directly.

6. Her background spans both humble, working-class roots and elite excellence at Harvard, early years as a Republican and a long time as a fierce progressive Democrat. She comes from a military family as well. This gives her an ability to understand and integrate the views of many camps that we need.

7. Her background as a lawyer gives her an ability to dissect someone else’s position rapidly, a skill she used to great effect in the first debate with Bloomberg, a great test run for what she would do to Trump.

8. She is open to the help of everyone we need, including Bloomberg, unlike Bernie who has made it clear that he’d rather lose than accept the $1 billion or more of campaign help from Bloomberg, which means he puts his purity before protecting our democracy from Trump.

In order to win, Warren will need to make a sharper case for why she’s a better progressive standard-bearer than Bernie and I believe the core of the issue is culture. Bernie’s culture has a legacy of aggressive behaviors towards others, which leaves resentment and mistrust regarding his supporters. When I polled my Facebook friends informally about whether non-Bernie supporters have personally witnessed behaviors of Bernie supporters that make them concerned about backing him in the general, 80% of them responded they were concerned. It would be great to have a national poll on the subject as this is data we need since people who have serious concerns are less likely to passionately rally and support with donations, time and strong endorsement.

The panic that set in among moderate Democrats when Bernie became the clear front-runner and said the “establishment” couldn’t stop him is important to note because it is exactly those people who are going to be part of making the case to a good slice of the American electorate. That is not a good sign for being able to unify the party.

Warren, on the other hand, is a bold progressive with the guts, smarts, and chops to win over much more of the majority of the Democratic party without splintering it the way Bernie or Bloomberg clearly would. She’s been a registered Democrat

She’s our best hope now of the remaining candidates to offer a unifying, winning ticket and to deliver excellence in the Oval Office.