Mayhem
Banned
Hillary Clinton vs. Elizabeth Warren Could Be a Dream Match, for Republicans
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/u...on=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article
They have called Senator Elizabeth Warren “an extremely attractive candidate” in the 2016 presidential campaign. They have said that she is the “hottest commodity” in the Democratic Party and that she has demonstrated the “passion and intensity” that Hillary Rodham Clinton lacks.
Those glowing compliments are not from the liberal activists who are trying to persuade Ms. Warren to challenge Mrs. Clinton, who is expected to be the party’s leading contender in 2016. They come from conservatives who are eager to drum up a contentious Democratic primary and who see Ms. Warren, a first-term senator from Massachusetts, as best positioned to weaken, and potentially defeat, Mrs. Clinton.
On cable television and in private strategy sessions, conservatives are steadily stoking the flames of a movement to recruit Ms. Warren, who has said she will not run but whose anti-Wall Street economic message resonates with the liberal base of the Democratic Party.
“Please give us Elizabeth Warren. Please, God, let us have Elizabeth Warren,” said Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who is considering a presidential bid.
“I respect her because she has the courage to speak her convictions,” Mr. Huckabee said on Fox News.
Former Representative Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party Republican from Minnesota, told CNN that Ms. Warren would be “an extremely attractive candidate.” Mrs. Bachmann also said that if she were Mrs. Clinton, she would be “extremely concerned.”
The tactic says much about the 2016 landscape for Republicans. A crowded field of people who say they are considering running for president — including Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts — has emerged. That means the party is expecting a bruising ideological battle for the nomination.
Mrs. Clinton, a former secretary of state and 2008 presidential candidate, could emerge from the primary season relatively unscathed. Other Democrats — including Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland and Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont — may also run, but at this early stage none is expected to have the funding or political apparatus to pose a serious threat to Mrs. Clinton.
An easy path to the nomination would allow Mrs. Clinton to potentially enter a general election with more funding than the Republican nominee, who would have had to spend heavily to beat a wide field of competitors. Ms. Warren represents Republicans’ best hope for an expensive, prolonged battle for the Democratic nomination, weakening Mrs. Clinton along the way, political operatives on both sides say.
That desire appears to trump the fact that Ms. Warren’s views about taxation, regulation and the role of government are so at odds with Republican tenets. “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own,” she famously said in 2011.
Ms. Warren told Fortune magazine this month that she would not run to succeed President Obama, but that has not stopped speculation.
“Elizabeth Warren says, ‘I’m not running, I don’t want to be president,' ” the radio host Rush Limbaugh said recently. “Translation: ‘I can’t wait and I am running. But I’m just not going to admit it right now.’ ”
Republicans said Ms. Warren would deliver a perfect “trifecta” in diminishing Mrs. Clinton. She attracts young, liberal supporters who view Mrs. Clinton as too centrist. A Warren candidacy would take away a central theme expected of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — that it is time to elect a female president. And Ms. Warren’s presence in the primary season could push Mrs. Clinton to adopt liberal positions that might turn off independents in a general election.
It first became apparent that Ms. Warren could be an effective tool in moving Mrs. Clinton off message when the two appeared at a joint rally in October for Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts.
In her speech, Mrs. Clinton tried to channel some of Ms. Warren’s populist zeal, but flubbed a variation of the senator’s controversial line about the roots of success. “Don’t let anybody tell you that, you know, it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” Mrs. Clinton said.
She later said she had misspoken and was referring to certain tax policies that stifle job creation, but Republicans had already pounced, portraying the comment as evidence that Mrs. Clinton was pandering to liberal voters.
“You could just see it gets in Secretary Clinton’s head when she has to compare herself vis-à-vis Senator Warren,” said Tim Miller, executive director of America Rising, a conservative “super PAC.” He added, “From that perspective, a food fight could be good.”
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor in chief of The American Spectator and a longtime critic of Mrs. Clinton and her husband, said her comment in Massachusetts could help inform younger voters about how she shifts opinions based on what is popular. “She pulled a line from Obama and Elizabeth Warren to try to make a very au courant crony-capitalist or socialist statement,” Mr. Tyrrell said.
At the same time, a groundswell of support for Ms. Warren among liberal activists has aided Republicans’ behind-the-scenes efforts.
In December, the liberal group MoveOn.org said it would spend $1 million on a campaign to draft Ms. Warren into the 2016 race.
MoveOn.org and Democracy for America jointly run a website called “Run Warren Run,” which has signed up more than 245,000 supporters. The groups plan to host “Run Warren Run” house parties this weekend in 100 locations across the country.
Liberals cheered Ms. Warren this month after Antonio Weiss, a Wall Street banker whom Mr. Obama had picked as a Treasury Department official, eliciting vehement objections from Ms. Warren, asked Mr. Obama to rescind his nomination.
Ms. Warren is still largely unknown even in Iowa, where the draft-Warren movement has focused its efforts. In a poll of likely Democratic caucus goers conducted in early October by The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics, 44 percent said they had a favorable opinion of the Massachusetts senator, compared with 76 percent for Mrs. Clinton.
While many Republicans are engaging in mischief as they promote Ms. Warren, some of her populist positions resonate across the political aisle. During debates over the Wall Street bailout, Ms. Warren and Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, often agreed on objections to parts of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and in their criticism of former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.
“It was almost like the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Kurt Bardella, a former spokesman for Mr. Issa, said. The tendency for Republicans to align with Ms. Warren is particularly strong among those who emphasize libertarianism.
Brian Darling, a senior aide to Mr. Paul, said he would like to see a 2016 general election between Ms. Warren and the Kentucky senator to hear the fresh ideas that the matchup might yield.
“She hates Wall Street for a very different reason than libertarians,” Mr. Darling said. “Yet they both would agree that the bailouts of Wall Street were a gaming of the system.”
Tucker Carlson, a libertarian political pundit, said Ms. Warren has an authenticity that resonates with both sides. “She has this spark of genuine ideological fervor, and I mean that as a compliment,” he said. “It’s not just pure opportunism.”
Ms. Warren, of course, has given the anti-Clinton movement plenty of fodder. She frequently says that income inequality is due, in part, to the economic and trade policies of President Bill Clinton. In her 2003 book, “The Two-Income Trap,” written with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, Ms. Warren accused Mrs. Clinton of snapping at her staff and of shifting her position on bankruptcy legislation when she became a New York senator in order to appease her Wall Street donors.
“As New York’s newest senator, however, it seems that Hillary Clinton could not afford such a principled position,” Ms. Warren wrote. Republicans could not have said it better themselves.[/B]
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/u...on=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article
They have called Senator Elizabeth Warren “an extremely attractive candidate” in the 2016 presidential campaign. They have said that she is the “hottest commodity” in the Democratic Party and that she has demonstrated the “passion and intensity” that Hillary Rodham Clinton lacks.
Those glowing compliments are not from the liberal activists who are trying to persuade Ms. Warren to challenge Mrs. Clinton, who is expected to be the party’s leading contender in 2016. They come from conservatives who are eager to drum up a contentious Democratic primary and who see Ms. Warren, a first-term senator from Massachusetts, as best positioned to weaken, and potentially defeat, Mrs. Clinton.
On cable television and in private strategy sessions, conservatives are steadily stoking the flames of a movement to recruit Ms. Warren, who has said she will not run but whose anti-Wall Street economic message resonates with the liberal base of the Democratic Party.
“Please give us Elizabeth Warren. Please, God, let us have Elizabeth Warren,” said Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who is considering a presidential bid.
“I respect her because she has the courage to speak her convictions,” Mr. Huckabee said on Fox News.
Former Representative Michele Bachmann, a Tea Party Republican from Minnesota, told CNN that Ms. Warren would be “an extremely attractive candidate.” Mrs. Bachmann also said that if she were Mrs. Clinton, she would be “extremely concerned.”
The tactic says much about the 2016 landscape for Republicans. A crowded field of people who say they are considering running for president — including Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts — has emerged. That means the party is expecting a bruising ideological battle for the nomination.
Mrs. Clinton, a former secretary of state and 2008 presidential candidate, could emerge from the primary season relatively unscathed. Other Democrats — including Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland and Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont — may also run, but at this early stage none is expected to have the funding or political apparatus to pose a serious threat to Mrs. Clinton.
An easy path to the nomination would allow Mrs. Clinton to potentially enter a general election with more funding than the Republican nominee, who would have had to spend heavily to beat a wide field of competitors. Ms. Warren represents Republicans’ best hope for an expensive, prolonged battle for the Democratic nomination, weakening Mrs. Clinton along the way, political operatives on both sides say.
That desire appears to trump the fact that Ms. Warren’s views about taxation, regulation and the role of government are so at odds with Republican tenets. “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own,” she famously said in 2011.
Ms. Warren told Fortune magazine this month that she would not run to succeed President Obama, but that has not stopped speculation.
“Elizabeth Warren says, ‘I’m not running, I don’t want to be president,' ” the radio host Rush Limbaugh said recently. “Translation: ‘I can’t wait and I am running. But I’m just not going to admit it right now.’ ”
Republicans said Ms. Warren would deliver a perfect “trifecta” in diminishing Mrs. Clinton. She attracts young, liberal supporters who view Mrs. Clinton as too centrist. A Warren candidacy would take away a central theme expected of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — that it is time to elect a female president. And Ms. Warren’s presence in the primary season could push Mrs. Clinton to adopt liberal positions that might turn off independents in a general election.
It first became apparent that Ms. Warren could be an effective tool in moving Mrs. Clinton off message when the two appeared at a joint rally in October for Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts.
In her speech, Mrs. Clinton tried to channel some of Ms. Warren’s populist zeal, but flubbed a variation of the senator’s controversial line about the roots of success. “Don’t let anybody tell you that, you know, it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” Mrs. Clinton said.
She later said she had misspoken and was referring to certain tax policies that stifle job creation, but Republicans had already pounced, portraying the comment as evidence that Mrs. Clinton was pandering to liberal voters.
“You could just see it gets in Secretary Clinton’s head when she has to compare herself vis-à-vis Senator Warren,” said Tim Miller, executive director of America Rising, a conservative “super PAC.” He added, “From that perspective, a food fight could be good.”
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor in chief of The American Spectator and a longtime critic of Mrs. Clinton and her husband, said her comment in Massachusetts could help inform younger voters about how she shifts opinions based on what is popular. “She pulled a line from Obama and Elizabeth Warren to try to make a very au courant crony-capitalist or socialist statement,” Mr. Tyrrell said.
At the same time, a groundswell of support for Ms. Warren among liberal activists has aided Republicans’ behind-the-scenes efforts.
In December, the liberal group MoveOn.org said it would spend $1 million on a campaign to draft Ms. Warren into the 2016 race.
MoveOn.org and Democracy for America jointly run a website called “Run Warren Run,” which has signed up more than 245,000 supporters. The groups plan to host “Run Warren Run” house parties this weekend in 100 locations across the country.
Liberals cheered Ms. Warren this month after Antonio Weiss, a Wall Street banker whom Mr. Obama had picked as a Treasury Department official, eliciting vehement objections from Ms. Warren, asked Mr. Obama to rescind his nomination.
Ms. Warren is still largely unknown even in Iowa, where the draft-Warren movement has focused its efforts. In a poll of likely Democratic caucus goers conducted in early October by The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics, 44 percent said they had a favorable opinion of the Massachusetts senator, compared with 76 percent for Mrs. Clinton.
While many Republicans are engaging in mischief as they promote Ms. Warren, some of her populist positions resonate across the political aisle. During debates over the Wall Street bailout, Ms. Warren and Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, often agreed on objections to parts of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and in their criticism of former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.
“It was almost like the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Kurt Bardella, a former spokesman for Mr. Issa, said. The tendency for Republicans to align with Ms. Warren is particularly strong among those who emphasize libertarianism.
Brian Darling, a senior aide to Mr. Paul, said he would like to see a 2016 general election between Ms. Warren and the Kentucky senator to hear the fresh ideas that the matchup might yield.
“She hates Wall Street for a very different reason than libertarians,” Mr. Darling said. “Yet they both would agree that the bailouts of Wall Street were a gaming of the system.”
Tucker Carlson, a libertarian political pundit, said Ms. Warren has an authenticity that resonates with both sides. “She has this spark of genuine ideological fervor, and I mean that as a compliment,” he said. “It’s not just pure opportunism.”
Ms. Warren, of course, has given the anti-Clinton movement plenty of fodder. She frequently says that income inequality is due, in part, to the economic and trade policies of President Bill Clinton. In her 2003 book, “The Two-Income Trap,” written with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, Ms. Warren accused Mrs. Clinton of snapping at her staff and of shifting her position on bankruptcy legislation when she became a New York senator in order to appease her Wall Street donors.
“As New York’s newest senator, however, it seems that Hillary Clinton could not afford such a principled position,” Ms. Warren wrote. Republicans could not have said it better themselves.[/B]
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