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.