Not that I think anyone cares what a small-time blogger like me thinks,
and honestly, out of all the remaining non-Bloomberg major candidates, I will be proud to cast a vote for any one of them in November. Sanders, Biden, and Warren have all shown that they have the experience, the tenacity, and the strength to firmly stand for what they think to be the best path forward, to lead this country into a better era.
But when it came down to my vote in the Democratic Primary, it came down to one question that I asked myself:
Who would be the best representative of my values as a member of the Democratic Party?
There are probably as many ways to interpret the word “best” as there are primary voters this year. For some, it may come down mostly to political ideology. For others, it may come down to electability, and who has the best chance of beating Trump in November. For others, it may come down to who will succeed most at unifying this diverse Party, at its best, a coalition of very passionate-at-times, rational-at-times, warriors, who are willing to contest and butt heads with even the rest of our coalition over their convictions.
For me, it will always be a combination of all of those, and as such, I think Warren is the best representative of those values.
Nobody can look at her and think that she doesn’t care about what she campaigns on. She has spent years working for the average consumers, for those buried under student debt, for those who don’t want to see the homes they worked all their lives for taken away by faceless banks and investors.
Nobody can look at her and think that she hasn’t thought long and hard about how to best achieve her goals. You only have to look at her loooooong list of detailed plans — not just abstract, vague goals, but actual specific proposals and game-plans to achieve those goals — and try to look for anything similar, out of any party’s candidates, and see that she knows that she has a plan to back up anything she hopes to accomplish.
Nobody can look at her and think that she can’t accomplish the lofty goals the she sets out for herself, such as defeating a powerful incumbent like Donald Trump. She has done it before, in her first race for Massachusetts Senator, defeating Republican incumbent Scott Brown. She has fought against corporate interests, and helped establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has returned $12 billion back to American consumers. She is not so easily deterred by extreme odds.
In the end, I do not necessarily want you to go out and vote for Elizabeth Warren. I do not care if you are still undecided, or if you have already made up your mind, and have even decided on a candidate other than Warren.
But please, if you have not yet, and will have the opportunity, please make the commitment to go vote in the Democratic Primary.
And as long as you ask yourself this question: “Who would be the best representative of my values as a member of the Democratic Party?” whoever you land on, whether it is Warren, or someone else, I will applaud your vote.
Full disclaimer, I voted for Sanders in the 2016 Primary, proudly, and Clinton in the General, proudly.