This crap, again. From the libertarian/center-right Atlantic, “How Sanders and Warren Will Decide Which One Runs for President”:
… [A]s the 76-year-old Sanders positions himself toward a second run for president, it’s Warren who again looms largest over his designs. At a January strategy meeting at the Washington, D.C., apartment of the aide Ari Rabin-Havt, Sanders acknowledged to confidantes in the room that the biggest threat to his pursuit of the 2020 nomination would be the 69-year-old former Harvard Law professor, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
As the two most recognizable faces of the progressive movement, Sanders and Warren are natural allies on a host of liberal causes, none more so than the economic inequalities that strain the nation. And yet each side’s camp believes that when it comes to the next presidential contest, the Democratic primary is only big enough for one of them…
Sanders advisers and allies believe he’s earned the right of first refusal: He was the runner-up to Clinton, galvanized a fresh flock of young voters, and fundamentally reframed the issue matrix for a hyper-progressive party going forward. He would start with a leg up: a nationally tested organization with the hardened experience of one presidential run already under its belt, an email list of 7 million proven donors, and the ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars. (Tim Tagaris, Sanders’s digital–fund-raising guru, has privately floated a range of between $275 million and $300 million for a primary campaign, one aide recalls.) A common refrain bandied about in Bernieland is that Sanders won at least 40 percent of the primary vote in 37 states…
Meanwhile, those in Warren’s world, including outside activists who are encouraging a 2020 bid, note that she’d be the natural person to whom the older Sanders could pass the torch. They say she’d enjoy a higher ceiling of support with a broader constituency, due to her fortified relationships with both the progressive and more establishment wings of the party. (Warren’s team declined to comment on the record about Sanders, though her spokeswoman, Kristen Orthman, told me that “Elizabeth has great respect for Bernie, his leadership, and the grassroots organization he has built.”)
The senator from Massachusetts is also more strategic in her fights, her allies say, adding that many Clintonites still hold a bitter grudge against Sanders. “Warren has achieved the remarkable feat of increasing her cred with the base over the years while also increasing her power inside the Beltway,” says Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee who has all but endorsed a Warren White House bid. And Warren’s careful nourishment of her relationships—with fellow senators, state and federal regulators, and watchdog groups—gives her “by far the largest national network of any presidential candidate,” Green added…
While I (and I suspect Senator Warren) would prefer that she remain in Congress for the rest of both our lifetimes, I also suspect she’s preparing for (resigned to) running in the 2020 presidential primaries if there are no better alternatives. If, for some combination of unimaginable reasons, every good younger Democratic candidate (Harris, Booker, Gillibrand, et al) fails to enter the race, and the only competition is some no-hoper like the junior Senator from Vermont. Meanwhile, the general media perception that she must be running — because who wouldn’t, in her position? — simultaneously helps spotlight her target issues of financial malpractice and Republican corruption, while drawing Wingnut Wurlitzer fire that would otherwise be expended on more vulnerable Democratic candidates.
The Eternal Democratic Tragedy, Take #27358: Perspiration vs. ‘Inspiration’Post + Comments (234)