Senator Elizabeth Warren (D- MA) has made it crystal clear. She is NOT going to run for President. In the last few weeks on main stream media outlets, Warren reiterated what she’s been saying for over a year–that she’s NOT going to challenge Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. Then she drove the point home by urging progressives to give Hillary a chance to show her ‘progressive side.’ In other words, Warren plans to support Hillary, not challenge her.
Now that that’s settled, I had hoped that the leaders of major liberal/ progressive groups—Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), Democracy for America (DFA), Move On, and Robert Reich— who see progressive Warren as the antidote to corporate Clinton– would finally notice another terrific progressive Senator seriously considering running for President.
For the past 6 months Senator Bernie Sanders, (I-VT) has been crisscrossing the US, drawing larger and larger crowds, as he builds support for a serious progressive challenge to corporate domination of this country. PCCC, DFA and Move On and Reich all say they oppose that domination, and they acknowledge that it has penetrated much of the Democratic Party leadership including Hillary Clinton.
But instead of joining with Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) in recognizing Sander’s heroic struggle against the oligarchs, PCCC has created a dubious campaign called, Ready for Boldness!
The campaign urges moderate and conservative Democratic politicians running in 2016 to campaign on “Big Bold Economic Populist ideas” such as expanding social security, reducing the influence of big money in politics, etc. They claim that Senator Harry Reid and 5000 political leaders are backing their call for boldness. In effect, they are calling on Hillary Clinton to take up Warren’s issues.
Sure Warren advocates crucial issues, but it will take a lot more than “urging” to get Clinton, who is hoping to raise a billion dollars for her presidential run, to take up Warren’s progressive positions.
No amount of “urging” will get a Wall Street funded candidate like Hillary to advocate breaking up the big banks, or to oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). It’s not even clear that she will defend Social Security against “compromise”. Given that the Republicans continue to move further and further to the right, a President Hillary Clinton might compromise away the entire legacy of Roosevelt and Johnson.
Without a real flesh and blood progressive candidate, the Boldness campaign is unlikely to achieve much more than sound bites from insincere politicians. And by the way, when did Harry Reid become a progressive leader?
Robert Reich at least acknowledges that Warren won’t run, but his fall back position is weak. He appeals to Ms. Clinton’s better nature by urging her to become a progressive fighter. [1] See Robert Reich on Hillary . Good luck.
Reich assures us that Clinton, whom he says he has known since she was 19 is, “deeply committed to equal opportunity and upward mobility.” (If Reich knew her then, he also knows that as a young woman Ms Clinton was a Republican who at various times actively supported, Goldwater, Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller.)
Reich tries to ally our fears that Clinton has sold out to corporate America.
Some worry she’s been too compromised by big money – that the circle of wealthy donors she and her husband have cultivated over the years has dulled her sensitivity to the struggling middle class and poor.
But it’s wrong to assume great wealth, or even a social circle of the wealthy, is incompatible with a deep commitment to reform – as Teddy Roosevelt and his fifth-cousin Franklin clearly demonstrated.
Having convinced himself that Hillary’s rich friends and seat on the Walmart Board won’t discolor her populist vision, Reich lays out his main concern about Hillary, namely whether she is willing to fight for the stuff she ‘really’ believes in.
It’s sad to see Reich making this desperate attempt to move Clinton to become something she’s clearly not, a progressive fighter. She and her husband have amassed a tidy fortune and great political power precisely because they have served the rich and not fought for the working and middle classes. That’s not likely to change. It’s even worse that Reich makes no reference at all to Sen Sanders.
The desperate hope that successful corporate Democrats like Clinton will move to the left to please the relatively weak progressive movement is a truly sad commentary on the liberal/progressive sense of political reality. Of course Ms Clinton will put on her populist face for the primary, Democrats always do. We saw that in 2008 and 2012. You can expect her to “stand up for working families” and make sure that everyone has equal opportunity. But once in office does anyone really believe that Clinton will govern like Franklin Roosevelt?
Meanwhile Move On and DFA refuse to give up the Run Warren Run ghost. They continue to keep the campaign alive, even with Warren on national TV pleading with them to “give Hillary a chance”. The truth is that Warren’s moment has passed. Hillary has entered the race and all big Democratic funders will commit to her, not Warren.
The refusal to recognize Bernie Sanders highlights the great weakness of the Progressive movement in the US today. Too many progressive leaders are Democrats first and progressives second. When faced with the alternative of a corporate-friendly center right candidate put up by the Party or an independent progressive who challenges the Party, many of today’s progressives put Party before beliefs and values.
Most progressives do recognize that the Democratic Party is largely controlled by big corporate donors and wealthy individuals. But they don’t acknowledge that progressive candidates and issues are essentially marginalized and often despised by Party leaders, such as Rahm Emanuel, New York’s Andrew Cuomo and Illinois’ Mike Madigan not to mention the Party’s base of big donors.
Progressives have little voice in the Party, yet many persist in chasing the fantasy that they can change the Party’s political orientation through empty demands or marketing tactics like Bold Ideas or continuing to support a good progressive candidate who clearly is not going to run.
Party leaders understand one thing and one thing alone, power. To get the Party and its candidates to support a progressive agenda will require a battle royal for control. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much stomach among progressives or organized labor for that kind of a bruising fight. Instead PCCC leaders and Robert Reich are politely urging leading Democrats to behavior more progressively. And if they don’t, what??
Do Move on and DFA leaders hope that by beating the dead RWR horse they will somehow scare center-right Democrats to act like Elizabeth Warren. Is this a political strategy or the actions of activists without a champion caught in a hopeless dead end?
Today, to make any kind of imprint on American political life, the progressive movement needs solid progressive candidates who are committed to challenging corporate control of the political parties and who will give voice to the many movements for political, economic and social justice sweeping the country.