At a South Carolina town hall on Wednesday, Elizabeth Warren spoke of her ability to “get stuff done.” “For example, that consumer agency? Everybody told me, ‘Give up now, girl, because you cannot make this happen,’” she said. “And I just refused to give up. I got out there, took on the big banks. They were spending a million dollars a day lobbying against me. … And yet, I got in that fight. I took them on. I built the coalitions … and got that thing passed into law, and I’ve done that again and again.”
It’s a theme she’s been honing for several weeks, using it to mildly set herself apart from Bernie Sanders in the last Democratic debate. “Bernie and I agree on a lot of things, but I think I would make a better president than Bernie. And the reason for that is that getting a progressive agenda enacted is going to be really hard, and it's going to take someone who digs into the details to make it happen,” she said. “Bernie and I both wanted to help rein in Wall Street. In 2008, we both got our chance. But I dug in. I fought the big banks. I built the coalitions, and I won.”
The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau took a herculean effort, and it’s a wonder Warren got it through despite hostility from Wall Street and both parties. It’s a testament to her focus, tenacity, and political acumen. It would serve us well in the White House. Sanders, on the other hand, has built his brand on a different kind of tenacity—ideological consistency and rigidity. That works great if you want to be the conscience of a moment, its reminder of core guiding principles that others might happily trade away in search of compromise or deals. It’s not useful if you actually want to accomplish much of anything real.
This is why Ann Coulter inadvertently “endorsed” Warren after the South Carolina debate.
And yes, she has plans. So many plans. And knows how to surround herself with people who can make those plans happen. Today’s plan?
It’s just a never-ending parade of amazing plan after amazing plan, all of them meticulously detailed, from how they would be implemented to how they would be paid for.
Bernie doesn't even bother with the details, saying that he “can’t rattle off every nickel and dime.” It’s not even that he can’t—he just doesn’t care, because he cynically doesn’t even believe he can pass his agenda! Otherwise, he’d be onboard with efforts to eliminate the filibuster.
His agenda is already in trouble even without it, since the odds of us having a significant Senate majority are pretty much nil (and the odds of even having a simple majority are low). That’s not a knock on Bernie; it’s knock on our political system. President Barack Obama, with all his skills and much larger legislative majorities, couldn’t push the bulk of his agenda through. But imagine what we could've accomplished if Obama hadn’t had to contend with the filibuster?
At the debate on Tuesday, Warren and small liberal college-town Mayor Pete Buttigieg both attacked Sanders on the filibuster. Warren spoke at length on the pernicious effects of the filibuster, underscoring it all with this: “Understand this: Many people on this stage do not support rolling back the filibuster. Until we're ready to do that, we can't have real change.” That’s just the simple truth.
Even Buttigieg gets this: He said, “This is not some long-ago bad vote that Bernie Sanders took, this is a current bad position that Bernie Sanders holds. And we're in South Carolina. How are we going to deliver a revolution if you won't even support a rule change? We are in the state where Strom Thurmond used the filibuster to block civil rights legislation repeatedly. No less a Senate traditional figure than Harry Reid has called for it to go. It has got to go, because otherwise Washington will not deliver.”
With the filibuster in place, Sanders doesn’t have to do the hard work of actually getting legislation to pass. He can blame its failure on Senate rules, shrug his shoulders, and pre-declare defeat.
Warren isn’t interested in rhetorical last stands or ideological purity. She’s interested in moving the country forward as fast as she can drag it there. She’s interested in using whatever tools are at her disposal, and she has a track record of moving mountains to accomplish her goals.
She created a federal agency! Who does that? Warren does that.
I’m well aware of the state of the race, where things stand both in actual results and in the polling. I understand what a long shot Warren’s candidacy is. But the payoff of pulling off the impossible comeback would be unbelievable and worth fighting for.
If you really want systemic progressive change, support the candidate who has a track record of delivering it. Words are great. Accomplishments are so much better.