Elizabeth Warren Is Proving Her Doubters Wrong
By Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Washington Post
13 June 19
Two months ago, Sen. Elizabeth Warren's presidential hopes appeared to be
fading. The Massachusetts Democrat's poll numbers were stuck in the
mid-single digits, placing her fourth or fifth among Democratic candidates.
After swearing off high-dollar fundraisers, she had brought in less money in
the first quarter than South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a relative
unknown who was still building a national profile. Media coverage of
Warren's campaign focused less on her bold ideas than her perceived lack of
"electability." Summing up the conventional wisdom, one CNN headline
proclaimed, "Why is Elizabeth Warren struggling? Democrats aren't looking
for policy."
Yet, to borrow a phrase, Warren persisted. And with the first debate quickly
approaching, she has jumped in the polls and emerged as the clear leader in
the Democratic "ideas primary."
Last week, Warren unveiled a sweeping new plan for what she calls "economic
patriotism." Her proposal calls for $2 trillion investment in clean energy,
which she says would create more than a million jobs and advance the goals
of the Green New Deal. In a boost to workers, the plan would require federal
contractors to pay a $15 minimum wage and offer 12 weeks of paid family
leave. It would also convert the Commerce Department into a new Department
of Economic Development, focused on job creation. By linking the causes of
environmental and economic justice in one package, Warren is reimagining the
American Dream for these times.
This deeply thoughtful and ambitious approach to policy has fueled Warren's
rise in the polls and spawned her unofficial (and highly memeable) campaign
slogan, "I have a plan for that." Just consider the range of issues on which
Warren has not only offered a detailed policy but also influenced the terms
of the debate. She has a plan to establish a universal child-care program
that would relieve the burden on families and, importantly, raise
caregivers' pay. She has a plan to cancel the student debt of millions of
Americans, staking out an even more aggressive position on the issue than
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Warren even has a plan to pay for her other
plans with a wealth tax on the richest 0.1 percent of Americans.
On the stump, Warren has shown an ability to effectively connect these
proposals to her own experiences, from the threat of losing her house as a
child to her struggle to find affordable child care as a young mother.
Meanwhile, she has rolled out several plans in shrewdly chosen locations.
Warren introduced her $100 billion plan to address the opioid crisis ahead
of a visit to West Virginia, the state with the highest rate of opioid
overdose deaths. And she announced her plan to break up big tech companies
ahead of a visit to Long Island City, N.Y., where Amazon intended to build
its new campus before a backlash from local activists caused the company to
reverse course.
What truly distinguishes Warren, however, is that her ideas add up to a bold
and coherent vision for the future. In contrast with former vice president
Joe Biden, who has said that President Trump is a historical "aberration,"
Warren grasps how systemic corruption, which took root over the course of
many years, created the conditions for Trump's election. (For example, she
has introduced anti-corruption legislation in the Senate to "padlock the
revolving door between big business and government.") And she's offering a
powerful, populist vision for ending American plutocracy.
That vision is clearly resonating with voters. Today, the candidate with
supposed "electability issues" is drawing large, energetic crowds. While she
remains behind Biden and Sanders, she is gaining in the polls and earning
respect from people Democrats lost, either to Trump or to apathy, in 2016. A
recent focus group of Trump voters in Iowa showed strong support for
Warren's policies, while a BlackPAC poll conducted in April found her in
third place among black voters, with especially high favorables among those
following the race closely. Far from being a divisive presence, as some
predicted, Warren is showing how a bold, progressive agenda can be a
unifying force.
Warren is certainly not the only Democrat in the field running on
innovative, important ideas. Sanders, in particular, has built on his
transformative 2016 campaign, with bolder proposals for public education and
Medicare-for-all. One also hopes that Warren will show the same audacity and
vision in foreign policy as the campaign continues. But no matter what
happens, it's now obvious that pundits who argued that Warren had missed her
moment were wrong. The presidential race is better because she is in it.
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