"She is the real thing. And I have rarely seen anybody with that much energy and intelligence and solid knowledge wrapped up in a single package — she’s a pragmatic radical."
Comment by educated, white, female voter
She speaks with animation and passion. She makes big gestures. She is high on my drama/outrage scale. She talks rather than shouts, but throughout her talks in the towns of Keene and Weare, New Hampshire, she projects fervent indignation that life and government and politics in America isn't better, but could be.
In TV interviews she looks and sounds like a Senator talking about government process, or a law professor talking about banks, bankruptcies, and consumer finance. She plays the role of "informed expert."
In front of voters in New Hampshire it is different. She is a candidate for president. A populist.
Her body language communicates two unmistakable differences from Hillary Clinton. Hillary's late-campaign posture, televised stumble, and faint allowed a meme of sick-Parkinsons-deathbed Hillary to circulate. Weak. Warren projects energy and vigor. That movement also projects impatience with the status quo. Hillary might want incremental change, but the speed of Warren's speech and gestures projects problems need fixing now.
We need more than an improved status quo, she says. We need structural change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8nETs94mnc
The ghost of Hillary hangs over Elizabeth Warren. They are essentially the same age, both women, both white, both choose short blond hair, both lawyers, both smart, both Democrats, both now rich, both associated with the professional elite upper middle class, that group of women who succeeded in taking advantage of Second Wave feminism of the early 1970s.
This is a perilous place to be because not everyone has the smarts, work-ethic, and luck to have used the education stairway to prosperity. Hillary never quite understood that not everyone can and should go to graduate school. People who struggle don't always dislike the people at the very top. They are the jackpot winners and Trump showed that they are admired, not resented. It is the professional class that is resented. They are the managers people see every day, the ones who do the dirty work. The plantation owner is remote. The overseer is right there, holding the whip.
Warren reveals her roots in white heartland poverty. That is where her heart is, with those struggling.
She told her origin story the same way at both New Hampshire events. Her family was poor, then got poorer when her "daddy" had a heart attack. Her mother worked at minimum wage at Sears to support the family, and in those days a full time job at minimum wage was enough, in sharp contrast to now. She said she went to community college, then an inexpensive college with aspirations to be a school teacher, a job she got, then had to leave when her pregnancy "showed." She attended law school because it, too, was inexpensive. Then she got expertise in bankruptcy law, then taught in law school, then a US Senator, and now now candidate for president.
When she gets to that point it is an applause line and both crowds erupted.
It was a story of opportunity and uplift, conquering poverty, discrimination against women, and low expectations. See her yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTloR9wvYqM
She never mentions ethnicity nor the DNA test showing she did, indeed, have just that bit of Native American blood she said her family told her she had. That kerfuffle is not behind her. Trump and trolls continue to tease her. But she puts into context her origin, a white girl in Oklahoma in a poor neighborhood bearing the cultural weight of a sick dad, economic distress, and low expectations. People who hear this story will believe it, and over time it will supersede the Pocahontas story.
The woman who spoke in New Hampshire was the grown up outcome of that young girl, hearing her parents whispering in the kitchen about mortgages and unpaid bills and foreclosures.
Now a candidate, she is angry about the corruption of our political system, outraged that Republicans high-fived one another on the House floor when they succeeded in taking Medicaid away from people, that the Koch Brothers control one political party and influence the other, that banks got away with lying to borrowers, that a person who works full time at minimum wage is still deep in poverty.
Elizabeth Warren is not speaking like a Harvard expert and millionaire. She is speaking as a champion for poor people because that is who she really was, and is in her heart.
Both public appearances ended with a bit of explanation, rather than a stem-winding finish, so this blog post will do so, too.
She mentions Medicaid, trying to make the point that it is not just welfare for the lazy and improvident "other," something that middle class voters should resent. Warren notes that Medicaid helps give access to hard working people and that two out of three people in nursing homes today have their bills paid for by Medicaid. She asks the crowd how many people know someone in a nursing home. People raise their hands.
How many here know people with dementia? Other hands raise.
How many have heard of a young woman with a premature baby with problems, a baby who comes out of the hospital needing occupational therapy and other help costing a million dollars? Other hands.
This is Medicaid, she said. Medicaid is an expression of our values, she said. It isn't for them. It is for us and by us.
Here she summarizes, indignant. Insistant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHAjpkmDtkw
She concludes, announces she will stay for a photo with anyone who wants one. About a quarter of the people in each audience do.
Upbeat MoTown songs started again on the loudspeakers, louder now than in the beginning.
There is energy in the air.
[Note: Tomorrow, Tulsi Gabbard up close.]
Comment by educated, white, female voter
 |
| Making a point. Thumb and finger together. |
Pragmatic Radical
Both New Hampshire events were were jammed packed by 300 people. Motown music filled the hall. People got there early.
Warren bounces in to the front of the stage, greets people, and gets to it. She speaks with animation and passion. She makes big gestures. She is high on my drama/outrage scale. She talks rather than shouts, but throughout her talks in the towns of Keene and Weare, New Hampshire, she projects fervent indignation that life and government and politics in America isn't better, but could be.
In TV interviews she looks and sounds like a Senator talking about government process, or a law professor talking about banks, bankruptcies, and consumer finance. She plays the role of "informed expert."
In front of voters in New Hampshire it is different. She is a candidate for president. A populist.
Her body language communicates two unmistakable differences from Hillary Clinton. Hillary's late-campaign posture, televised stumble, and faint allowed a meme of sick-Parkinsons-deathbed Hillary to circulate. Weak. Warren projects energy and vigor. That movement also projects impatience with the status quo. Hillary might want incremental change, but the speed of Warren's speech and gestures projects problems need fixing now.
We need more than an improved status quo, she says. We need structural change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8nETs94mnc
The ghost of Hillary hangs over Elizabeth Warren. They are essentially the same age, both women, both white, both choose short blond hair, both lawyers, both smart, both Democrats, both now rich, both associated with the professional elite upper middle class, that group of women who succeeded in taking advantage of Second Wave feminism of the early 1970s.
 |
| Finger up, not out. Avoiding "scolding" gesture |
This is a perilous place to be because not everyone has the smarts, work-ethic, and luck to have used the education stairway to prosperity. Hillary never quite understood that not everyone can and should go to graduate school. People who struggle don't always dislike the people at the very top. They are the jackpot winners and Trump showed that they are admired, not resented. It is the professional class that is resented. They are the managers people see every day, the ones who do the dirty work. The plantation owner is remote. The overseer is right there, holding the whip.
Warren reveals her roots in white heartland poverty. That is where her heart is, with those struggling.
She told her origin story the same way at both New Hampshire events. Her family was poor, then got poorer when her "daddy" had a heart attack. Her mother worked at minimum wage at Sears to support the family, and in those days a full time job at minimum wage was enough, in sharp contrast to now. She said she went to community college, then an inexpensive college with aspirations to be a school teacher, a job she got, then had to leave when her pregnancy "showed." She attended law school because it, too, was inexpensive. Then she got expertise in bankruptcy law, then taught in law school, then a US Senator, and now now candidate for president.
When she gets to that point it is an applause line and both crowds erupted.
It was a story of opportunity and uplift, conquering poverty, discrimination against women, and low expectations. See her yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTloR9wvYqM
She never mentions ethnicity nor the DNA test showing she did, indeed, have just that bit of Native American blood she said her family told her she had. That kerfuffle is not behind her. Trump and trolls continue to tease her. But she puts into context her origin, a white girl in Oklahoma in a poor neighborhood bearing the cultural weight of a sick dad, economic distress, and low expectations. People who hear this story will believe it, and over time it will supersede the Pocahontas story.
The woman who spoke in New Hampshire was the grown up outcome of that young girl, hearing her parents whispering in the kitchen about mortgages and unpaid bills and foreclosures.
 |
| Laughs at herself. "I'm supposed to smile more," |
Now a candidate, she is angry about the corruption of our political system, outraged that Republicans high-fived one another on the House floor when they succeeded in taking Medicaid away from people, that the Koch Brothers control one political party and influence the other, that banks got away with lying to borrowers, that a person who works full time at minimum wage is still deep in poverty.
Elizabeth Warren is not speaking like a Harvard expert and millionaire. She is speaking as a champion for poor people because that is who she really was, and is in her heart.
Both public appearances ended with a bit of explanation, rather than a stem-winding finish, so this blog post will do so, too.
She mentions Medicaid, trying to make the point that it is not just welfare for the lazy and improvident "other," something that middle class voters should resent. Warren notes that Medicaid helps give access to hard working people and that two out of three people in nursing homes today have their bills paid for by Medicaid. She asks the crowd how many people know someone in a nursing home. People raise their hands.
How many here know people with dementia? Other hands raise.
How many have heard of a young woman with a premature baby with problems, a baby who comes out of the hospital needing occupational therapy and other help costing a million dollars? Other hands.
This is Medicaid, she said. Medicaid is an expression of our values, she said. It isn't for them. It is for us and by us.
 |
| Lean in |
She concludes, announces she will stay for a photo with anyone who wants one. About a quarter of the people in each audience do.
Upbeat MoTown songs started again on the loudspeakers, louder now than in the beginning.
There is energy in the air.
[Note: Tomorrow, Tulsi Gabbard up close.]
4 comments:
With her biography and career Sen. Warren is positioned perfectly to lead Progressives against this dark force in our society, hopefully to win and bring our Republic back to the values that have made it unique in history. Tactically, Trump has thrown everything he could at her already, only succeeding in making himself look foolish, and as a female candidate I think they may hesitate any further disparagement for fear of alienating women even more.
You didn't say whether she spoke about impeachment which suggests that while she has made it clear she's advocating to prosecute Trump, it's not a main issue in her presentation, not yet. Probably smart, but it seems to me that impeachment is the centerpiece of the corruption narrative.
Rick Millward is the court jester.
Spending too much time in taverns will do that to you.
Earth to Peter
I know what it's like sitting in those little rural rooms listening to candidates, organizers, activists and college speech competitors. You have to watch out for coolaid rhetoric hypoxia at the same time you want to feel the energy. If you think Warren's "Pocahontas problem" is going to be washed away by her mundane "daddy got sick" personal narrative, then you drank the coolaid. Her cultural appropriation (at best) or false claims (at worst) of Cherokee ethnicity will be prominent even in her obituary. The assertion that it is perpetuated only by trolls is coolaid talk, just Google it to see it's neverending reverberation in mainstream and elite media. It is in your blog post for a reason, the same reason she cannot break a single digit poll rating despite having had massive media coverage since being elected to the senate.
Elizabeth Warren's "high cheek bones" meme is her Howard Dean scream and it is indelible.
Good Sec. Treasury pick for nominee Sanders.
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