How Warren Can Win: Becoming Presidential

In my previous post, I set forth my reasons for believing that Elizabeth Warren's campaign is headed for defeat in the early primaries:  It doesn't listen - because the campaign organization in Charlestown isn't set up to listen.

If I had the ear of Elizabeth Warren - which her campaign structure makes impossible - I would advise her to take the next few weeks to go to Charlestown, reorganize her campaign and revise her strategy.

She can afford the time.  Right now, Americans are starting to focus on the approaching holidays - and any time they can spare for politics will probably be devoted to the rapidly evolving drama of the House impeachment inquiry.  There will not be another chance for Warren to set things straight in Charlestown before Iowa and New Hampshire.  If she fails to do that now, it will likely be too late.

Warren's campaign has two fundamental and interrelated problems.  First, as outlined in my previous post, the campaign doesn't listen - to its smart, street-savvy volunteers or to the American people in general.

Second, Warren still doesn't appear presidential - and it's time she did.

The rally I attended in Raleigh last month was probably typical.  Held in a high school basketball arena, it was more pep rally than town hall.  For most of her appearance, the candidate seemed almost a caricature of herself - an amped-up, Kate McKinnon version of Liz Warren rather than the thoughtful scholar and law professor President Warren would probably resemble in power.

But that's who we need to see now.  Not the candidate, rallying her true believers, but the President, building a national consensus.

For a while, the high-energy Liz Warren was just fine.  But she's ridden that horse as far as it will carry her.  Her fired-up persona - combined with the unending flood of ambitious, change-oriented plans cascading from her Charlestown headquarters - attracted a host of volunteers and passionate supporters.  But now, between Warren and Bernie Sanders, that activist pool has been pretty much drained dry.

And in the process, Warren has permitted the media to paint her as further to the left than she actually is.  For in truth, Warren is pretty close to the center of where the Democratic electorate would be - if  many of them weren't terrified of a second Trump term.

Many primary voters worry about "electability", and right now, the Warren campaign is playing right into their worst fears.   Her unceasing cascade of plans - together with her personal intensity - combine to convey the impression of an out-of-control radical.  Warren comes across as someone who wants to change everything - driving drastic changes through all at once, without listening to anyone who disagrees with her.

That's why recent polls show her dropping rapidly, as voters seek desperately for a "moderate" alternative who isn't too old and dotty, too young and robotic, too rich and out-of-touch - or too just-plain-boring.

And this is tragic.  The fact is that Elizabeth Warren - the person, not the image - is the ideal candidate to unite the Democratic Party, defeat Donald Trump, elect a Democratic majority to the Senate, and push through an ambitious, but balanced, program of reform over the next eight years. 

Warren is an aggressive reformer, but she's no ideologue - and certainly, no socialist.  She's ambitious.  She has big plans.  She's hard-driving.  But as President, I'd expect Warren to govern very much in the tradition of FDR or Harry Truman - as a constructive realist able to unify and lead a diverse, big-tent party toward serious reform.  As a president whose negotiating style is to start the bidding high and bargain tough - enlisting the support of, but not being controlled by, both the party's progressive and moderate wings.   

What Warren needs to do - what she needs to reorganize her campaign to do - is to get that message across in early 2020.  She needs to get over the thrill of being the candidate of a highly-motivated 15  or 20%, and demonstrate her willingness and ability to become the leader of the whole country.

The ingredients of such a transformation are already there, in her biography, in her Senate record, and even in her stump speech.  She wouldn't have to fake it.  She just has to stop playing Bernie's game - or, if you will, Trump's game - enjoying the adulation of a passionate minority, while missing the chance to reach out to, and hammer together, a governing majority.

What, then, would a re-configured Warren campaign do?

First, Warren herself must stop emphasizing her myriad plans and focus on one issue - corruption - the effect of toxic amounts of big money in our politics.  This emphasis is already there near the end of her stump speech.  At that point, Warren will slow her pace talk seriously about how the one key reform - which would make all other reforms possible - is to curb the influence of big money, dark money, and lobbyist-directed money on politics.

Warren has probably won all the votes she's going to win by talking about her plans.  Now, she's just scaring people away.  But few Americans outside the 1% are opposed to campaign finance reform, gerrymandering reform, lobbying reform, and voter-access reform.  By focusing on these issues, Warren could reach out to the great majority of Americans.  It's time she did that.

Second, Warren needs to start talking - not about what she would do as President, but how she would govern.  For example, she should talk about Abraham Lincoln's strategy of inviting his rivals for the nomination to serve in his Cabinet.  By signalling a willingness to include many of her rivals in her administration, Warren would reassure cautious voters of her desire to work with a broad array of Democrats and independents, not just the very liberal, highly-educated, mostly white, coastal middle-class which makes up her base.

Third, Warren should put herself forward as the candidate most eager to recruit and campaign for Democrats down-ticket - especially in key Senate races.  As an exciting and charismatic personality, Warren probably has the longest coat-tails of any candidate in the race.  By emphasizing her  willingness to elect moderate and center-right Senators in Southern and Midwestern states - and to work with them as part of a governing Democratic majority - Warren would signal an understanding that her ambitious goals are not going to become law without Congressional input and support.

The bottom line?

The Warren campaign needs to do a much better job of listening - to its own volunteers, and through them, to the American man and woman in the street.

The campaign needs to de-emphasize the library of detailed plans, and focus on the one issue which will determine the fate of every plan - curbing the power of big money in politics.

Finally, it needs - through the candidate - to signal a willingness to govern pragmatically, as the leader of a broad coalition, not merely an activist minority.

By doing these things, Warren can save her candidacy - and perhaps, her country.

Why Warren Won't Win...

If this title offends you, know this - it would sure as hell have offended me a few weeks ago.  I intend to offer a subsequent post about how my candidate might yet turn things around. 

For now though, let this warning land.  Because I think I'm onto something.

I volunteered for Elizabeth Warren's campaign in Oregon in July.  Since that time, I've poured uncounted hours, a deal of energy, and a perhaps a couple thousand dollars in travel expenses into the effort.  I've logged many miles in the effort to create an organization to carry the Senator's message to every corner of this large and very diverse state.  In the process, without meaning to, I've risen to a position of some prominence and responsibility in Oregon's large and active volunteer campaign.

To cap it off, a few weeks ago - back in my native Virginia for a funeral - I was personally invited to Raleigh for a campaign event and the chance for a selfie with my candidate.

It was a memorable evening, but immediately afterward, I put my campaign efforts on hold. I felt the need to step back and study the big picture, because what I experienced in Raleigh was a reflection of what I've been experiencing - and worriedly discussing with fellow Warren leaders about - since summer.

This campaign is in trouble.

It's in trouble, because it doesn't fit the candidate.  The organization, the strategy, the whole approach are just wrong.  And unless there's a major shake-up in Charlestown, this campaign will be over by Super Tuesday, if not before.

Please understand, this warning is not my response to the recent polls.  At this point in a primary campaign, polls will go up and down - whereas my critique of the campaign has been the same for months.  But when things seem to be going well, you hesitate to put criticisms out there for the world to read.  You cross your fingers and hope you're wrong.

Even if you've been involved in politics for half a century, and know damn well you're not wrong.

Now, with Warren's recent drop in the polls, there's every reason to sound an alarm.

In my judgment, if this campaign doesn't turn itself around - this month - the best-qualified, most dynamic candidate in the Democratic field will not be taking on Donald Trump in the fall.  And all of us who've poured heart and soul and time and thought and treasure into the Warren campaign will end up having to choose between wasting our primary votes on the candidate we've believed in - or voting strategically for a lesser candidate with a chance at the nomination.

I've been there before - in 2004.  And it stinks.

So, if you're still with me, here's what I see as the problem with the Warren campaign.

They don't listen.

The Warren campaign wasn't set up to listen - and there's a reason for that.  Like most professionally-managed campaigns, the Warren campaign was organized to create the illusion of grassroots support through carefully-managed messaging and top-down control.  It aimed to create the appearance of a popular mass movement, when in fact, the best it hoped to produce was a small cadre of volunteers - and reasonable levels of support among the mass of uncertain, undecided voters.

Most professional campaigns are set up this way.  They have no choice.  They must create an illusion, either because there isn't much genuine enthusiasm for the candidate, or because that enthusiasm is too limited to bring into being an active community of supporters with the means and know-how to act independently, building a volunteer campaign at the grassroots level.

But the top-down campaign model is always a substitute for the real thing.  And it absolutely doesn't fit a candidate capable of generating real enthusiasm among people smart enough and savvy enough to organize on their own.  When that happens - when a candidate breaks through and starts to create a movement - her campaign needs to re-organize to take advantage of that powerful new reality.

In short, the campaign needs to transform itself from a marketing effort into a movement.

For Warren - a candidate clearly capable of creating mass support - that has yet to happen.  Instead, having doubled down on its messaging, the campaign remains a top-down hierarchy, utterly oblivious to input from Warren's active supporters.  And, for that reason, things have started going wrong.

Here in Oregon, the Warren campaign has attracted an enormous group of active volunteers - over 700 in Portland, a hundred more in Bend, and active groups in more than half of our state's 36 counties.  Where Oregon Democratic campaigns typically aim at winning big in the seven populous "blue" counties of the upper I-5 corridor, the Warren campaign - entirely run by volunteers - has actively embraced the goal of reaching every part of the state - even the reddest, least populous counties of the 2nd Congressional District.

The caliber of Warren's ambitious, statewide team is remarkable.  Of the campaign's 30 or so community team leaders, nearly all are savvy professional women with advanced degrees.  Without a dollar from Charlestown, this volunteer campaign has grown quite sophisticated, with an increasingly horizontal organization which permits efficient communication among the leadership and street level volunteers. 

Yet, for all this hard work and smart organization, it's nearly impossible for anyone - even the top echelon of state leaders - to get attention from Charlestown.  There's simply no mechanism.

For example, in October, at the Democratic Party of Oregon's well-attended biennial "summit" at Sunriver, Warren swept an important straw poll, gaining 140 votes to 19 votes for Bernie Sanders, who ran second.  Mayor Pete was the only other candidate in double figures.

This story might have made a small national splash the next morning - a Sunday - but no hint of Warren's success reached the national media, because no hint reached Charlestown.  Despite repeated attempts to give the national campaign a heads-up that the straw poll would happen, and that we expected to do well, our calls and emails went unanswered.  When the results were announced, we didn't have anyone to call.

A minor matter, no doubt.  And to be sure, Oregon, with its May 19 primary, is a sideshow.  But it's hard to imagine another campaign failing to capitalize on even so small an item of good news.

With the Warren campaign, deafness remains the defining characteristic.  For months now, on the campaign's app - which purports to provide internal social media for Warren supporters - volunteers have repeatedly warned that certain of the candidate's much-bruited plans were not playing well with the general public. 

Of course, that news eventually reached the national media - and has been put to good use by Warren's rivals and critics.  But the warnings were there much earlier - from Warren's most ardent supporters - if only someone in Charlestown had been paying attention.

Warren's campaign looks a lot like Hillary 2.0.  The people in Charlestown act like they know more than the volunteers in the field - and maybe they do.  But volunteers know things, too, and they aren't being heard.

Elizabeth Warren is a remarkable candidate.  She has attracted huge numbers of smart, savvy volunteer supporters who are out on the streets and in their neighborhoods every day, listening to the American people.  They also talk with each other.  They hear good news and bad news.  They have ideas and suggestions.  But the national campaign turns a deaf ear.

It's hard not to see that as arrogant.  Like I say, Hillary 2.0.

Charlestown continues to crank out smart, detailed, well-researched plans - when it has become all too clear to those of us in the field that the public isn't responding well to a campaign designed by and for policy wonks.  Most Americans don't have time to do that much homework.  And, not being naive, most citizens know that candidates' campaign platforms seldom reflect what happens if they end up governing.

Plans have never been the reason most people have been attracted to Elizabeth Warren.  We like that she has plans.  We know she is brilliant, and we accept that she's a wonk.  But that's not why we want her to be our President.

Most of us who support Elizabeth Warren do so because we like her and trust her - because we see in her, not just someone who can defeat Donald Trump, but a potentially great President of the United States.

There are a lot of us out here - in America - who have been trying for a long time to get Warren elected.  But we're starting to realize that Warren's campaign doesn't fit the person we thought we knew. 

We, the volunteers, have things to say, but we aren't being heard. And if her supporters feel that way, what must the rest of American feel?

In the end, what the American people have always wanted in a President is not so much someone with great ideas, but someone who listens.  Left or right, the candidate who seems to hear us is the candidate we end up electing.

If Elizabeth Warren is really that kind of person - and I sense she is - she needs that kind of campaign.