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| Win with Warren |
Something big is happening for Elizabeth Warren.
She is manufacturing and amplifying celebrity, but it is there to be amplified. And it snowballs.
I saw and heard it, up close.
Convention attendees in New Hampshire saw nineteen candidates in eight hours. They had about 6 minutes each to wow us. Most did.
But Elizabeth Warren was special. She rocked the place in a way the others did not. Bernie had a big group, and Pete and Beto and Kamala all had their groups, but Elizabeth Warren had double or triple the size, noise, and enthusiasm of the others. The chatter is out there among attendees and the staffs of her opponents: she is drawing crowds. Her house parties had to move from indoors out to lawns; 800 showed up at a house party earlier this week.
Friends tell friends they got a ticket. She is getting word of mouth.
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| Click: grabbing noisemakers! |
Some of it is organic, but some of it is the result of hard work and organizing, and since it is actually working to create the buzz, it feeds on itself. Having heard it will sell out, people sign up, and so it sells out. Amplified celebrity is celebrity.
I watched hundreds of young staff people--mostly college age people--gathering in the hallways with giant black garbage bags, mysteriously closed. Then I saw them rush into the hockey arena and open them up. Thunder sticks.
They passed them out and people jostled for them. "Win With Warren" was printed on the sticks.
People wearing tee shirts that said Pete and Beto and Julian and Marianne and Amy rushed to grab them and practice pounding them together.
The place erupted when Warren entered the stage. Music blared, people cheered and slammed the thunder sticks together. She came out on the stage and motioned for them to stop. Nevertheless, they persisted.
The jumbo screens explained to any deaf observers: "Cheers and applause."
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| Click: 17 seconds of the scene |
She repositioned herself from just one of nineteen into the "big happening thing." It was the kind of entrance I witnessed Donald Trump make in Boca Raton, as his helicopter hovered over the audience, strobe lights flashing, music blaring, and the announcer shouting over the loudspeakers that Donald Trump had arrived!
He was Santa Claus. He was Elvis. He was the Conquering Hero. The big dramatic show-stopping entrance. Donald Trump understood show business.
Elizabeth Warren continues to up her game and she is employing stagecraft, remaking and elevating herself. She is no longer the defensive little fraud that Trump humiliated with the Pocahontas taunt.
And because the audience has been prepared for it, and because she presents with energy and confidence, she enthralls the crowd. Eyes on her.
In the aftermath, the staff people for Kamala and Beto and Pete and Amy complain that she organized all that ruckus. She did, and her organizing worked. Meanwhile, their candidate did not and could not. That is the point. She is doing what Biden cannot.
In the aftermath, the staff people for Kamala and Beto and Pete and Amy complain that she organized all that ruckus. She did, and her organizing worked. Meanwhile, their candidate did not and could not. That is the point. She is doing what Biden cannot.
Elizabeth Warren is doing political show business. The big entrance is wordless body language, the most credible communication. She is a star, with the presence to beat Trump and become president.
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CLICK HERE: brief segment of Warren speech |
6 comments:
It seems the strategy is to try to lock down the nomination ASAP.
Hope it works, still feels early to me, the danger of peaking early is omnipresent.
At a time when "any Democrat" may have the advantage voters may feel we can catch up with a more Progressive candidate, and all that's really needed is for Sen. Sanders to withdraw and sincerely support Sen. Warren.
Will he put country before self?
To Rick, above.
Sanders is a cult figure and his supporters would not let him go. Many of them do at least like Warren, also, but it is not the same. And in some polls he is still second to Biden. If Biden fades, then it is a new ballgame. I agree that it is early and one can worry about peaking too soon, but so far Warren just keeps getting better.
Couldn't disagree more, Peter. The Right Wing of the Democratic party can see the writing on the wall and are hedging their bets. Blatant neoliberalism and Biden are no longer "fashionable" so go with "Plan B," the woman who was a Republican until age 47 and who never fails to mention how much she embraces capitalism. Warren simply takes popular Bernie ideology and platform issues and tones it down. She's not a visionary; she's a technocrat who "has a plan for everything"...just make sure the plan is incremental, tweaks around the edges and keeps the moneyed class safe and secure. But do not, under any circumstances, address the rot that is at the core of our culture, the lie that transferring wealth upward into the hands of the wealthy elite somehow benefits society.
Rick, Bernie can't "put country before self" because he is not "Bernie," he's a MOVEMENT and the movement puts country before selves.
Andy Seles
And to Andy Seles,
I could not disagree more with you. First of all, if you poll democrats the first thing they say is a priority is to beat trump.
That is why they are for Biden. Not that they love him but that they think he can win. They are not ready to shake the core of this county - yet
Warren embraces the fact of capitalism, but makes it really clear that she means for it to work for everyone and not the 1%. She says that there are some people richer and some poorer, but there should not be some people getting more from a democracy.
I might personally agree that real big change is needed. But first we must get rid of the republican president and senate majority.
You call Bernie a movement and I call him a cult hero.
And any republican can change his/her mind at any age, and that is fine by me. I judge by what people do and Warren has been a progressive with an impressive record, since age 47.
I don't agree that Biden can win, but think Warren can!
Are the thunder sticks made of plastic? Clapping with hands, yelling and whistling is much better for our environment. Are these the same people worried about straws, plastic bottles, etc? Doesn't make sense to me.
"When voters are given a choice between voting for a Republican, or a Democrat who acts like a Republican, they'll vote for the Republican every time." Harry Truman
Interesting that some people call Bernie a "cult hero" when his constant refrain is "this is not about me, it's about us."
So-called "centrist" Democrats (the goalposts shifted right decades ago) remain convinced that a "Republican-lite" candidate will appeal to a broad spectrum of voters, however, they are captives of their insulated worldview. They mistakenly consider such candidates "electable."
Warren is courting Democratic Party insiders (Hillary machine).
She is professorial, intellectual, a meritocratic success story...very appealing to neoliberal coastal elites...not so convincing to a struggling farmer in Iowa or a millennial college graduate still living in his parents' basement.
Andy Seles
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