Today while perusing the headlines on Google for the latest on the Hillary vs Elizabeth political celebrity wrestling death match for the soul of the Democratic Party, I tumbled upon an intriguing title for an article - "The Real Reason Progressive Groups Want Elizabeth Warren to Run For President" in a publication I am not familiar with, National Journal.
With a title like that, who isn't going to click to read and find out the answer? As a self-proclaimed Progressive who would very much like to see Elizabeth Warren run for President, I was aflutter at the opportunity to find out what my "real" motivations are for supporting her. What hidden and deep-seated fear/ambition really fueled my Warren boosterism? Or was she unbeknownst to me handing out some Progressive spiff I was unaware of and not taking advantage of? Had she gone "Obamaphones" one better and was she handing out free Ipads?
Before reading the article I somewhat foolishly ascribed my favorable viewpoint of her to her long held positions in supporting the 99% against the predations of the 1%. I am no newcomer to the Elizabeth Warren party - I first became aware of her during the mortgage crisis and the foreclosures frauds. She became one of the leaders of the Congressional Oversight Panel regarding foreclosures while she was still a Harvard professor. As far as I am aware, she has always been a strong voice for the disenfranchised and downtrodden, in particular the human collateral of the banking crisis who saw their lives disrupted and their homes stolen. (For those of you who will persist in repeating the myths that all foreclosures were justified, please read this and in particular go the actual Senate testimony the article links to and read the horrors for yourself.)
Okay, I have now read The Real Reason Progressive Groups Want Want Elizabeth Warren To Run For President and you can to, if you like. And then we can discuss the jaw dropping revelation below the squiggle.
All set? The article meanders quite a bit doesn't it? Doesn't really seem to be heading anywhere except covering the ground we already know - Progressives want Warren to run but she isn't, but we want her to, but she isn't, but we want her to, but she isn't . . . etc.etc.
But actually, it turns out that everything is really okay, because Progressives don't really necessarily need or want Warren to run because:
It's fair to say that the Draft Warren movement writ large isn't necessarily about Warren at all, but the idea of her. We've seen this play out before. In 2004, liberal angst about the Bush administration was at a fever pitch. The progressive movement needed someone—anyone—to act as a talisman through which its legions could express their frustration with the Iraq War. That talisman turned out to be then-Sen. John Kerry.
Today, liberals are channeling their angst toward economic issues like income inequality and Wall Street malfeasance. Guess who's a good talisman for that?
Do you see Progressives? We don't need an actual Progressive. We just need someone to symbolize what an actual Progressive would say if one were really running. We need a "talisman" not a candidate. Progressives are simply looking for a human incarnation of a lucky rabbit's foot that we can carry around with us to change the conversation and get our views aired.
The author of this tortured reasoning, Emma Roller, goes a little astray in her logic however since she calls the 2004 John Kerry candidacy a similar liberal "talisman", seemingly ignoring the fact that he went on to become the actual candidate. Although, I don't accept the author's assertion that Kerry was the most Progressive of the Dems in the primary, since the John Edwards 2 Americas speech got a lot of traction with many liberals. Does the author even know what "talisman" means? Does she really think that any real life political Party or faction therein is seeking a "charm, token or mascot" to lead its run for office?
The real reason I, a Progressive Democrat, support an Elizabeth Warren candidacy is that I think she is the person who most represents my views and who would do the best job fighting for me during a Presidential term in office. I am not looking for someone to "change the conversation" or to interject some Progressive talking points or to move a centrist candidate to the left, or to function as my own liberal lucky charm. If Elizabeth Warren doesn't run, I will move through the list of candidates as I always have and settle on the one who at the end, most reflects my goals and desires.
Nothing mysterious about it.