Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign manager Roger Lau was interviewed by CNN recently and in one of the clips released, he explains that he and Warren had their biggest “disagreement” over rope lines. Rope lines are the barrier put in place between the “public” and the “subject” of the event. At big rallies those rope lines are usually metal barricades, like bike racks or fencing, dressed with American flags and campaign signage. The candidates come to the line, shake some hands, listen to a few people who are pressed to the front of the barricade and maybe take a few photos, moving across the rope line and out a door and off to another event.
According to Lau, Warren asked him why they had to do rope lines and Lau explained that having photos taken and meeting people at rallies was good organizing and publicity for any campaign, and the press liked having the line to separate them. Warren replied, “Okay, Roger, so if those are your three goals let me ask you this: when I look to the left [of the rope] I see big donors, elected officials, people I saw backstage. I look to the right and I see wheelchairs, and people with walkers, and I can’t get to them because of the bike rack. I look in the middle and it’s all the most aggressive people who got to the front. I don’t see little girls, I’m not able to shake hands with older people. What if, we invited every single person who wanted to to come to stage to take a photo, you know, on stage?”
Lau tells CNN he shook his head and said no way were they going to do that. He explained that that would take forever, and it would be exhausting for her. The two went back and forth over the next few weeks leading up to Warren’s first event. The night before the event Warren told Lau that she trusted him implicitly and would agree with whatever his decision on the matter would be but warned him that “If there is even a single person in that room who wants to say hello, or wants to take a photo, who didn’t get a photo, I’ll consider this event a failure.”
Long story short, Warren has taken those photos after every event and just watching her do it is exhausting, but as Lao says “She was right.”