The Democrats feel safe in leaving you and me out of that room for two big reasons. One, our main electoral alternative is the party that put George W. Bush in office. Two, the last time significant quantities of Democrats decided to buck and send the party a message, they helped get George Bush elected by giving Ralph Nader the deciding votes of what turned out to be the tightest of elections. Or at least that’s the storyline that’s been popular since that incident. The Nader “debacle” forever closed the notion of third-party progressive challenges to mainstream Democrats, at least in the minds of the Democratic Party bigwigs, anyway.
It seems to me then that the only hope of getting any of these problems is to get ourselves a national candidate who on the one hand is a mainstream politician and on the other is willing to embrace the notion of an open protest against the Democratic Party doctrine. We need for someone who has some legitimacy with both the media and the Democratic Party constituents themselves to come out and publicly campaign to re-seize the Party from the Wall Street interests that have come to dominate it. We need someone who understands the finance stuff (which automatically reduces the pool of possible applicants to a small handful), will know the difference between real regulatory reform and a dog-and-pony show, and will not be likely to fill a cabinet with bankers from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
The question I have lately is, why not draft Elizabeth Warren to run for president? And I don’t mean in 2016, I mean in 2012.
Now he goes on to acknowledge that, among the many other things that are dubious about this idea, challenging Obama in the primary or as a third-party could both undercut the Democratic president juuuust enough to let a Republican in the White House.
But he makes sense:
I think someone needs to put a scare into the Democratic Party leaders. Someone needs to make it clear that the progressives in the House might really kill the Health Care bill if it comes out of the Reid-Pelosi consult sucking as much as we expect it to, but even more importantly, someone needs to let Barack Obama know that someone else’s face is going to start being silk-screened on t-shirts at political rallies if he doesn’t get real on the finance stuff.
I've been thinking of Elizabeth Warren (Chairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee for TARP, compliments of Harry Reid ... how about that?) the past few days. I remembered the interview the Washington Post did with her recently. She discussed two things quite passionately: Where's the TARP money? And what happened to the middle class? This is connected -- I believe she knows. The look in her eyes at the end of this video is no bluff. The Washington Post's Voice of Power series:
That's intense. For what reason would she have to ape this for us? She sees it, the blatant malfeasance at the hands of the affluent and powerful, enabled by the government. And, somehow since she's been so vigilant, she made it to her level in government. Sure, she's not THAT powerful, but she is in a visible role.
For slaphappy skullduggery, let's pretend she was running for president at some point in the future as an independent. Could she do any damage? Risk being called Nader-esque? Would we be surprised by the people that would voice at least some support for her candidacy? Obviously, she isn't extremely well known; even the president isn't completely well-known in America much less the Chairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee for TARP. But I don't see why a cult following blossoming into a nuisance for the Democratic Party couldn't happen, then maybe some youth support, possibly some deficit-hawk conservatives. An odd Ron Paul-like mix of voters (Was that not an obvious connection?....) looking for something else. That's what I admire about Ron Paul backers. They don't care how dumb you think they are for "throwing their vote away" because they're supporting the man they feel is right (I like Paul's anti-war, anti-bailout civil-libertarianism way, but I don't want to completely gut the federal government.). That's admirable, I think.
And of course, I know nothing about her other than her stance on financial regulation and such. She could be a Christian conservative that happens to believe in protecting people and not corporations. But I think she did come from Harvard. So, you know. I think I can just tell with her though. We know her intentions are there for everyone, regardless of political party. Warren for president. Think about it.
(And media savvy. Here on The Daily Show.)
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Elizabeth Warren Pt. 2 | ||||
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