Elizabeth Warren HQ: She's Got A Plan!
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this ain't fairwashingtonpost.com
Opinion | Elizabeth Warren could be the lioness of the Senate
Jennifer Rubin
5-6 minutes
In 1980, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) ran an insurgent presidential campaign against the incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. He lost and delivered a convention speech that has become iconic among progressives. “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die,” he said.
Forty years later, another progressive idol and Massachusetts senator, Elizabeth Warren, ended her campaign for president. She delivered a speech to her staff and supporters, which ended, “Our work continues, the fight goes on, and big dreams never die.”
I cannot think the similarity was coincidental. No progressive worth her salt, let alone one from Massachusetts, cannot recite the Kennedy phrase by heart.
Kennedy, who came to be known as the “Lion of the Senate” for his prodigious output of legislation, his bipartisan dealmaking and his fiery rhetoric, may be a perfect role model for Warren, whose talent and passion have always been in the nitty-gritty of policy. On Kennedy’s death, President Barack Obama said, “For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.” Kennedy was a continual thorn in the side of the right, infamously demonizing Judge Robert H. Bork, but that turned out to be incidental to his legacy.
The New York Times obituary for Kennedy recounted his work on an array of domestic policy bills as chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions:
Although he was a leading spokesman for liberal issues and a favorite target of conservative fund-raising appeals, the hallmark of his legislative success was his ability to find Republican allies to get bills passed. Perhaps the last notable example was his work with President George W. Bush to pass No Child Left Behind, the education law pushed by Mr. Bush in 2001. He also co-sponsored immigration legislation with Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. One of his greatest friends and collaborators in the Senate was Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican. …
He was deeply involved in renewals of the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing law of 1968. He helped establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He built federal support for community health care centers, increased cancer research financing and helped create the Meals on Wheels program. He was a major proponent of a health and nutrition program for pregnant women and infants.
Warren seems uniquely capable of playing a similar role, in part because she already has worked with Republicans. In its 2018 report card, GovTrack.us found, “In this era of partisanship, it is important to see Members of Congress working across the aisle. 42 of Warren’s 80 bills and resolutions had a cosponsor from a different political party than the party Warren caucused with in the 115th Congress.”
True, there is less room for bipartisan dealmaking in the current Senate than there was in Kennedy’s era, but it is not impossible to pass meaningful legislation (as Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has proved). Warren, ironically, stumbled in the presidential race when she initially clung to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Medicare-for-all. However, much more representative of her style was the compromise she settled on, essentially a step-by-step approach that would begin with a public option.
Kennedy was not the only failed presidential candidate to make good use of his post-campaign tenure in the Senate. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) continued his leadership on human rights and became the unlikely hero in defeating the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) provided a flicker of hope for those fighting for objective reality and democracy in his yes vote on one article of impeachment.
Maybe having run for and lost the highest office allows people who care about public service to apply themselves wholeheartedly and with less ego to the task of lawmaking. One could certainly see Warren wheeling and dealing on immigration reform, green energy (with a new generation of Republicans who understand climate change denial is wrong and a political liability), voting access and more.
As the presidency has grown in scope and power, the media and political culture have become excessively focused on one office and one election every four years. In reality, the great progress in America, from the GI Bill to the Voting Rights Act to the Americans With Disabilities Act to the First Step Act and more, has largely been forged through compromise in Congress. Warren’s highest calling and most productive work may be in once more making the Senate a constructive legislative body.
i'll say it again. who cares about reaching across the aisle if you're going to b*stardize the original concept of a good idea? how many times have dems reached across the aisle without giving up serious serious concessions to their original idea which made it so far right it was barely a democratic idea.
JMurder
SOHH Member since 01...
intra vires
Glory to Michigan
Y'all are silly.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Mother Jones
·
Elizabeth Warren is demanding that private prisons release their coronavirus plans.
In the wake of the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 110,000 people and killed more than 3,900 people worldwide, stock markets plummeted, Italy has banned most travel for its 60 million residents, and governments have moved from containment to mitigation as the inevitable infection numbers continue to rise. As the US death roll climbs to 26, and infections are re...
See More
·
Elizabeth Warren is demanding that private prisons release their coronavirus plans.
In the wake of the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 110,000 people and killed more than 3,900 people worldwide, stock markets plummeted, Italy has banned most travel for its 60 million residents, and governments have moved from containment to mitigation as the inevitable infection numbers continue to rise. As the US death roll climbs to 26, and infections are re...
See More
Secure Da Bag
Veteran
Amazingly, not only is she the most qualified to be President. She's also the most qualified to be Vice-President.
Both candidates are taking their policy cues from her.
I wonder if Pelosi's corona bill was based on Warren's.
Liz. Still got that public school sticker on my laptop 
King Kreole
natural blondie like goku
"She's a fake progressive!
" Json
Superstar
Stop bumping this thread!!
All these good ideas
All these good ideas
Last edited:
"She's a fake progressive!
Get over it man. Posturing doesn’t mean shyt. She has no pull right now. She’s right about all this stuff but this isn’t how it plays out in the real world. Her base of support isn’t progressives it’s liberal white women - the most annoying demographic in America.
Biden will surely bite more of her ideas before he names her VP.Stop bumping this thread!!
All these good ideas
Class is always in session for Liz, we missed our chance with her.
she's a freaking Senator, she absolutely does have pull