But it wasn't just the wrong message. It was also the wrong emotion.
She gave New Hampshire voters a good look at her.
The current punditry on Elizabeth Warren starts with the reality that Warren's campaign was exceptionally well managed. I experienced it.
At the New Hampshire Convention in September her squad of supporters distributed noise makers and they carried on a demonstration that dwarfed those of all the other candidates. It was obvious to everyone that Warren had the best campaign.
Her events were well attended and well staffed. She wowed her audiences, repeatedly. I saw it, in Iowa and New Hampshire, both.
New Hampshire candidate trackers report she has had 37 such events since the end of June, 2019, and many more prior.
 |
| Elizabeth Warren |
New Hampshire candidate trackers report she has had 37 such events since the end of June, 2019, and many more prior.
It is a little thing, but it is an example of her campaign quality: At her events she has a well-executed system for selfies so she could do one every seven or eight seconds. No other candidate could manage that. Everyone else had awkward positioning and fumbling over phones and selfies took 15-20 seconds for a bad photo. She calculated 100,000 selfies, of which certainly half were in New Hampshire.
She gave the voters of New Hampshire every chance.
Biography and policy: It looked the sweet spot. She just turned 70 and looks and acts younger. She had the Oklahoma log cabin story down pat. She was two or three clicks on the spectrum less progressive than Bernie Sanders, which looked like the place to be. Bernie was the pure, classic Bernie and that got the activists lit up, but he carried the "socialist, honeymooned in the USSR" label. Surely she was more electable as the new, improved, easier-to-swallow version. It made sense that she would be the party uniter.
Three problems. One is the cohesiveness of Sanders' supporters. They like Bernie, the person, the man as well as the idea. This happens in politics, in celebrity, in relationships, in life generally. People bond to people. Warren was an adulteration of the Bernie idea rather than an extension of it.
Policy did matter. Her adjustment on Medicare for All gave Bernie's supporters a reason to stick with the good old original, while MfA skeptics had a reason to look elsewhere.
I think more important was her presentation. Warren was hyper. This blog called it kinetic. Detractors would call her strident or shrill. That can be called misogyny, but it is in fact a very different tone than that taken by Tulsi Gabbard or Amy Klobuchar, both in pitch and pacing. Warren was not just confident; she was insistent and firm. I like Warren, but apparently others see it as hectoring. Saturday Night Live caricatures her by showing her bouncing onto the stage with arms aloft, excited, bursting with energy and quick to tell us how to fix things.
Apparently it--or something--turned people off. Buttigieg and Klobuchar got 45% of the vote between them; Warren got 9%.
I draw an inference that the alternative to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is not defined by policy but by mood. Buttigieg and Klobuchar are calming, matter of fact. (Biden was too calming, sleepy, over the hill Joe.)
Thought experiment: Warren described a nation in crisis due to the corruption of money and the corruption of Trump. Now picture yourself a passenger in an airliner. There is long period of turbulence, and then passengers call out that there is a fire in the left engine of the plane. The captain comes on the intercom, and in a high, excited fast-paced voice says he or she has a bold plan for this, which will change how the plane will make its emergency descent, and meanwhile to fasten seatbelts. Imagine your response.
Now Imagine the same emergency situation, and, instead, a voice comes onto the intercom and in a steady, matter of fact way says that we have procedures in place for exactly this kind of event, and that protocol is in process, so fasten seatbelts as we begin the emergency descent.
It is the second captain whose calm manner and prescription for established process, rather than bold disruption, presents as the more appealing leader to many. Buttigieg and Klobuchar were talking about employing and improving the ACA, established procedure. Warren and Sanders want something new and bold.
Buttigieg and Klobuchar are not rocking the boat. They are disliked by many on the left for that very thing. We can get through this, they say. Their manner confirms their message. Matter of fact
Meanwhile, it is still turbulent, and getting worse.
Trump is disruption incarnate. Bernie proposes a different kind of revolutionary disruption as a remedy. Warren objectively has a plan that is less disruptive than Bernie's but she doesn't sound that way. She sounds excited.
Trump drives a great many Democrats crazy, and they are tired of crazy. They just want everyone to calm down.
She gave the voters of New Hampshire every chance.
Biography and policy: It looked the sweet spot. She just turned 70 and looks and acts younger. She had the Oklahoma log cabin story down pat. She was two or three clicks on the spectrum less progressive than Bernie Sanders, which looked like the place to be. Bernie was the pure, classic Bernie and that got the activists lit up, but he carried the "socialist, honeymooned in the USSR" label. Surely she was more electable as the new, improved, easier-to-swallow version. It made sense that she would be the party uniter.
Three problems. One is the cohesiveness of Sanders' supporters. They like Bernie, the person, the man as well as the idea. This happens in politics, in celebrity, in relationships, in life generally. People bond to people. Warren was an adulteration of the Bernie idea rather than an extension of it.
Policy did matter. Her adjustment on Medicare for All gave Bernie's supporters a reason to stick with the good old original, while MfA skeptics had a reason to look elsewhere.
I think more important was her presentation. Warren was hyper. This blog called it kinetic. Detractors would call her strident or shrill. That can be called misogyny, but it is in fact a very different tone than that taken by Tulsi Gabbard or Amy Klobuchar, both in pitch and pacing. Warren was not just confident; she was insistent and firm. I like Warren, but apparently others see it as hectoring. Saturday Night Live caricatures her by showing her bouncing onto the stage with arms aloft, excited, bursting with energy and quick to tell us how to fix things.
Apparently it--or something--turned people off. Buttigieg and Klobuchar got 45% of the vote between them; Warren got 9%.
I draw an inference that the alternative to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is not defined by policy but by mood. Buttigieg and Klobuchar are calming, matter of fact. (Biden was too calming, sleepy, over the hill Joe.)
Thought experiment: Warren described a nation in crisis due to the corruption of money and the corruption of Trump. Now picture yourself a passenger in an airliner. There is long period of turbulence, and then passengers call out that there is a fire in the left engine of the plane. The captain comes on the intercom, and in a high, excited fast-paced voice says he or she has a bold plan for this, which will change how the plane will make its emergency descent, and meanwhile to fasten seatbelts. Imagine your response.
Now Imagine the same emergency situation, and, instead, a voice comes onto the intercom and in a steady, matter of fact way says that we have procedures in place for exactly this kind of event, and that protocol is in process, so fasten seatbelts as we begin the emergency descent. It is the second captain whose calm manner and prescription for established process, rather than bold disruption, presents as the more appealing leader to many. Buttigieg and Klobuchar were talking about employing and improving the ACA, established procedure. Warren and Sanders want something new and bold.
Buttigieg and Klobuchar are not rocking the boat. They are disliked by many on the left for that very thing. We can get through this, they say. Their manner confirms their message. Matter of fact
Meanwhile, it is still turbulent, and getting worse.
Trump is disruption incarnate. Bernie proposes a different kind of revolutionary disruption as a remedy. Warren objectively has a plan that is less disruptive than Bernie's but she doesn't sound that way. She sounds excited.
Trump drives a great many Democrats crazy, and they are tired of crazy. They just want everyone to calm down.
2 comments:
These early states lean moderate, Bernie has an advantage, but the bigger issue is that Progressives, women and minorities are now being pushed aside, Klobuchar's bump notwithstanding. I look at it this way:
Warren/Sanders - She is in his shadow in terms of policy and his supporters are locked in.
Warren/Buttigieg - Many voters, particularly younger voters favor the Mayor, more concerned about personality and age than policy.
Warren/Klobuchar - Warren is disadvantaged by moderate majority once Bernie's voters are out of the equation
Warren/Biden - Same moderate bias and the African American advantage
Warren/Bloomberg - Is Bloomberg really a Democrat? He's perceived as "tougher", while people discount the fact that Warren has been through a Trump attack and survived without having to get in the mud with him.
Add a dash of good ole' misogyny and Sen. Warren's plight is understandable. What to do?
As things stand she's kind of hemmed in and needs something external to break in her favor, a key endorsement like Kamala Harris, for instance. The only other thing would be to go negative on Bernie and take a cue from Bloomberg go after Trump.
Actually, they all should.
Hmmm...no comments. I'll throw in my 2 cents: Warren had a great debate the night CNN hosted when she parried an unfair, loaded question meant to harm Sanders, regarding the viability of a woman becoming president. But, then, there was that post-debate, awkward "off-mike" moment; she didn't look good confronting Sanders and some folks thought it disingenuous that she didn't know she was still on mike.It didn't matter...the optics were bad (Sanders reaching out to shake her hand, Warren with her hands folded, almost in supplication). I think it was her "Howard Dean" moment.
Andy Seles
Post a Comment