Can Elizabeth Warren be the new Ted Kennedy?

[Ichingcarpenter]

By Joan Vennochi GLOBE COLUMNIST FEBRUARY 28, 2015



SENATOR ELIZABETH Warren knows what it takes to go viral — just turn left.

A confrontation with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will do it. So will a sly comment on MSNBC, that she’s still waiting to see how progressive Hillary Clinton will be as a presidential candidate.

From the Massachusetts perspective, Warren represents the Ted Kennedy wing of the Democratic party. It’s a fitting ascension, since Warren holds the seat Kennedy held for 46 years.

But now, what about Kennedy’s ability to move the left and right to center, where compromise happens? The upcoming opening of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, with its emphasis on bipartisanship, is a reminder of just how important that was to the senator and his legacy.

Warren is her own woman and deserves to carve out her own path. These are also different times, and Congress is in a different place than when Kennedy could play the dual roles as liberal lion and great compromiser on contentious issues..............


http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/02/27/can-elizabeth-warren-new-ted-kennedy/ycYDUGHrdhmMEKwZFZA9UK/story.html

[elleng]

1. by challenging a Dem nominee,

as with Jimmy Carter, and giving an election to repugs? HOPE not. I don't think she'd do it, either.

By demonstrating where the Dem left should be? YES.

[JDPriestly]

2. Hillary iks not the incumbent. Jimmy Carter was.

I know a lot of Hillary supporters would like all of us to think that Hillary is so inevitable that no other candidate should run in the primary, but that is not how democracy works. That is not how the Democratic Party works. I would like to see Elizabeth Warren and a couple of other candidates run. I do not think that we should nominate a candidate who has not faced strong primary challenges. We will be sorry if we do.

By the way, if you are a Hillary supporter, where does she stand on the TPP? on student loan interest rates? on passing a new Glass-Steagall law? on limiting H1-B visas until our unemployment (and the real numbers not those based on job-seekers) numbers are below 5% -- the real numbers are below 5%?

Where does Hillary stand on the issues that Warren raises? Would she, like Bill, appoint a Chicago school economist like Greenspan to head the Fed?

So many questions about Hillary, and when I ask questions like these, I never get answers from her advocates.

Hillary is not the candidate. She is not the incumbent. All who wish to run in the presidential primary should run.

[newfie11]

6. I'd love to know the answers to those questions also nt

[djean111]

8. Oh noes! Don't you know that asking about Hillary's policy positions is hateful?

[elleng]

11. I am not a Hillary supporter,

and I don't know where she stands on most issues.

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. Bad and inaccurate comparison

but you know that now don't you

[Demeter]

4. I would think she could do much better than that

Goddess, I would HOPE so!

[RiverLover]

5. My thought exactly. nt

[djean111]

7. Haven't enough things been "compromised" away?

"Bipartisanship" means, now, to me - Third Way triangulation, all the while keeping an eye on what is best for the 1%.
I call marginalisation and attempt to diminish.
I would think it would be great to have an Elizabeth Warren, not a "new" anybody else.

[pscot]

9. Not if she stays sober

[MannyGoldstein]

10. The next FDR

Kennedy was effective in a different era. Both the "left" and the right in today's Congress are very far right. Compromise on essential issues in that body would mean far-right legislation, which Warren ain't gonna do.

Instead, she needs to continue to be a strong leader who shows Americans that we need to be way to the left for things to get good again. (So far left, that we're 1950s Republicans )

[Autumn]

12. Kennedy was effective in his day, that day has passed. Enough has

been compromised. No more.