Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumFor fellow Warren supporters fighting hard and dreaming big.
First off, I hope you keep supporting Warren so she gets as many delegates as possible in case of a brokered convention and to influence the platform.
Now....
As a committed Warren voter I want to say something hopeful about Biden and it is based on several bright spots in his history that some of my fellow progressives may not know but should consider IF he becomes the nominee.
When Kerry and Wellstone drafted the first public financing of campaigns bill, there were only 5 votes supporting it and one of those was Bidens.
When Joe was seriously considering a 2016 run he talked a LOT with Warren and wanted her to run with him if he entered.
When Hillary was asking advice on her VP pick, Biden suggested to her the best choice would be Warren and nobody else.
This shows to me that, despite his past notsogood positions on some economic issues and current appeals to moderate voters in this primary, I believe that, should Biden prevail now and in November, he intends to absorb some of Warrens economic positions as president.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Laffy Kat
(16,382 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
IronLionZion
(45,450 posts)I hope it's true. I'm leaning towards Biden since his supporters are not quite as hateful as some of Bernie's.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
blm
(113,063 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
ramen
(790 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
IronLionZion
(45,450 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Celerity
(43,404 posts)lot to defend Senator Warren from so so much info about her political past (the rot that she was a Nixon, Reagan and Bush voter and a crypto Rethugs).
soooooooooooooooo many of the accounts that I got into it with hard are now banned btw (same for many of the Buttigieg smear merchants, my dog where they legion back in the day, and just a few days I saw the same old tired lies being pushed about Warren and Pete yet AGAIN, pure tosh all around)
Here are some of my posts from last year (I had so many starting in early Spring and then into summer and fall) debunking the lies about Warren
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287192639#post88
That is false.
Warren didn't register as a Republican until 1991, and almost never voted for a Repub POTUS
She grew up in an FDR Democratic household.
Her first vote the POTUS was AGAINST Nixon in 1972. She did vote for Ford, but liked Carter. She voted Carter in 1980 and Mondale in 1984. In 1988 she voted for Dukakis, and in 1992, Clinton. Obviously voted for Clinton again in 1996 and every other Democrat since then. She registered as a Republican because she had moved to PA and liked Arlen Specter, who also switched to our Party from Republican.
Going to the polls, she said, was nothing new for her. Warrens mother had been a poll worker and brought her young daughter to the polls each Election Day.
Nixon was re-elected that year, of course, but resigned and was replaced by Gerald Ford. Warren said she had voted for him in 1976, believing that Ford was a decent man.
But she was happy with Jimmy Carter, who beat him. I thought he [also] was a decent man, she said, transferring her then-standard for what she wanted in a politician from Ford to Carter. He was a really good man.
As the 80s wore on and her research on bankruptcy progressed, Warren started waking up politically. At the time, though, the two parties had yet to separate entirely along ideological lines, as some deeply conservative and racist Democrats still held office, as did some genuinely liberal Republicans.
In 1988, Warren voted for Michael Dukakis but, in 1992, split her ticket, voting for Republican Arlen Specter for Senate and Democrat Bill Clinton for president. Specter is a good example of the one-time flexibility of the party system and the politicians within it: He began and ended his career as a Democrat, but was a Republican for much of the middle of it.
By the fall of 1987, she had moved to Pennsylvania and registered there as a Republican. Warren said she couldnt quite remember why she did it but that she was a fan of Specter. Again, I thought he was a decent man, she said. She couldnt recall whom he ran against. (His Democratic opponent was Lynn Yeakel.)
That GOP registration, though, has set off speculation over the years that one of the Senates most progressive champions may have at one time been a Ronald Reagan backer.
So we asked her: Is it true? Is it possible the champion of the regulatory cops on Wall Street voted for the man who made deregulation a hallmark of his presidency?
No.
In 1980, she said, she was a registered independent living in Missouri City, Texas, and cast her vote to re-elect Carter.
When Reagan won, she wasnt happy but not crushed the way she was on election night in 2016. I was disappointed and didnt like him, but I wasnt deeply worried for the country, not anything like when Trump was elected, she explained. If she could go back in time, she said, she would tell herself this was a far more pivotal historical moment than you understand.
Maybe people also have issues with former Republicans Howard Dean, Leon Panetta, Chris Coons (has Biden's old seat in the Senate), Carolyn McCarthy, Harley Rouda, Gabby Giffords, James Webb, Wendy Davis, Gil Cisneros, Jim Jeffords, Patrick Murphy, and Specter himself, etc.etc etc. Some of them even ran (oh the HORROR!) for President.
Warren is tied for the 2nd lowest Trump score in the entire Senate
compare that to the highest Democrats
NO way can she be framed as some ex-villainous Rethug who was in it for the cash (she grew up dirt poor), accused of (falsely) voting for Reagan, and/or is some late-comer to the Demoratc Party game.
She is a ROCK SOLID Democrat, a wonderful, warm, hyper-intelligent, lucid-thinking person and would make a superb POTUS.
SNIP
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287192639#post107
no they do not, and here is more verification, you are simply not telling the truth
I dealt with someone exactly like you back in April, saying the same untruths, even used the same 2011 article, kept pushing the same tosh. They were not the only one, but they were amazing similar in style and tone and even articles used to you.
Warren only voted for one Republican for POTUS, Ford in 1976. She was a Registered Republican in Montgomery County Pennsylvania from 1991 to 1996, at which time she switched to being a Democrat.
You really need to stop the outright falsehood that she voted for Reagan (and to make it more egregious, you said twice), that is a lie, pure and simple.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/12/elizabeth-warren-profile-young-republican-2020-president-226613
https://thinkprogress.org/why-elizabeth-warren-left-the-gop-e78680711424/
Warren has quickly become a populist hero to liberals. Stephanopoulos, host of ABCs The Week, noted something in her background that might surprise her supporters: the fact that she has voted Republican in the past, and was a registered Republican in Pennsylvania from 1991 to 1996. Warren said she left the party after that because she felt it was siding more and more with Wall Street:
Warrens instincts on the GOPs sympathy for the big financial institutions proved prescient. Former Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) spent the 1990s spearheading legislation that made the 2008 financial crisis possible: the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which broke down the firewall between commercial banks and the far riskier investment banks, as well as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which deregulated the over-the-counter derivatives that played a key role in the 2008 financial collapse. Both bills passed with majority Republican support, though they were also supported by a good deal of Democrats and the Clinton White House.
snip
You can take that first article ( The Politico one above , here is the URL again... https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/12/elizabeth-warren-profile-young-republican-2020-president-226613 )
Make an OP if you want. It asks a lot of tough questions, goes deep into her past, paints a complex picture. I am certain some of the Warren people will not like it, but it is simply about policy and philosophy. That is a fair debate. I have zero issues with you or anyone else doing that.
What is not fair is you and others untruthfully saying or intimating or inferring, or playing other semantic games to imply that she voted for Reagan (in your case twice) in a drive-by hit post (I have seen this done multiple times), when she specifically, now, says SHE DID NOT VOTE FOR REAGAN IN EITHER ELECTION (1980 and 1984).
The only Republican she voted for for POTUS was Ford. Hell she voted for McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis, 3 of the most crushing electoral defeats we have ever had.
It is bashing a fellow Democrat with outright lies to keep saying this (that she voted for Reagan) over and over.
SNIP
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287251645#post293
here is your proof, please stop pushing debunked misinformation on Warren
I am not a Warren supporter atm, but I am tired of seeing the same claptrap spread about her for months. Especially the 'she declined to answer' meme that is from a 7 or 8 year old article, and has been used over and over by multiple accounts with the same modus operandi, and is used to cast doubt and uncertainty about her.
Below are much more current ones, including an April 2019 article where she specifically says she did not vote for Reagan or any other Rethug for POTUS, except for Ford in 1976.
here is a snip from that (the full excerpt is further down):According to Warren, in the six presidential elections she voted in before 1996, she cast her ballot for just one GOP nominee, Gerald Ford in 1976.
Warren was only a registered Repug for around 5 years (1991-96) and the only Rethug POTUS
she voted for was Ford.
1972 McGovern (she hated Nixon)
1976 Ford
1980 Carter (she did not like Reagan)
1984 Mondale
1988 Dukakis
1992 Bill Clinton
1996 (the last year she was a registered Republican, she switched before the 1996 general election) Bill Clinton
2000 Gore
2004 Kerry
2008 Obama
2012 Obama
2016 Hillary Clinton
She registered Repub in PA in 1991 because she like Arlen Specter (ironic as he too changed to Democratic)
Other Repub to Democratic Party switchers include:
Former Republicans Howard Dean, Leon Panetta, Chris Coons (has Biden's old seat in the Senate), Carolyn McCarthy, Harley Rouda, Gabby Giffords, James Webb, Wendy Davis, Gil Cisneros, Jim Jeffords, Patrick Murphy, and Specter himself, etc.etc etc.
Some of them even ran (oh the HORROR!) for President.
More on Warren:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/12/elizabeth-warren-profile-young-republican-2020-president-226613Warren has acknowledged her Republican past before, but she does not often discuss it, or else downplays it. In a recent interview over tea at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she said she assumes the first time she registered as a Democrat was 1996, but added, Im not even 100 percent sure what I was registered as. According to Warren, in the six presidential elections she voted in before 1996, she cast her ballot for just one GOP nominee, Gerald Ford in 1976. She does not talk about her Republican past in either of her books or as part of the biography she recounts in her stump speech; the information often comes as a surprise even to Beltway politicos and longtime Warren allies.
https://thinkprogress.org/why-elizabeth-warren-left-the-gop-e78680711424/
Warren has quickly become a populist hero to liberals. Stephanopoulos, host of ABCs The Week, noted something in her background that might surprise her supporters: the fact that she has voted Republican in the past, and was a registered Republican in Pennsylvania from 1991 to 1996. Warren said she left the party after that because she felt it was siding more and more with Wall Street:I was an independent. I was with the GOP for a while because I really thought that it was a party that was principled in its conservative approach to economics and to markets. And I feel like the GOP party just left that. They moved to a party that said, No, its not about a level playing field. Its now about a field thats gotten tilted. And they really stood up for the big financial institutions when the big financial institutions are just hammering middle class American families. I just feel like thats a party that moved way, way away.
Warrens instincts on the GOPs sympathy for the big financial institutions proved prescient. Former Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) spent the 1990s spearheading legislation that made the 2008 financial crisis possible: the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which broke down the firewall between commercial banks and the far riskier investment banks, as well as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which deregulated the over-the-counter derivatives that played a key role in the 2008 financial collapse. Both bills passed with majority Republican support, though they were also supported by a good deal of Democrats and the Clinton White House.
snip
She grew up in an FDR Democratic household.
Her first vote the POTUS was AGAINST Nixon in 1972. She did vote for Ford, but liked Carter. She voted Carter in 1980 and Mondale in 1984. In 1988 she voted for Dukakis, and in 1992, Clinton. Obviously voted for Clinton again in 1996 and every other Democrat since then. She registered as a Republican because she had moved to PA and liked Arlen Specter, who also switched to our Party from Republican.Her first presidential vote, in 1972, had been cast against a man she said she disliked passionately, Richard Nixon. But reflecting on how little she had paid attention to day-to-day politics at the time, she couldnt immediately recall who had been running against him. When told it was Democrat George McGovern, she said, Yes, she would have voted for him but didnt have any specific memory of having done so. (She was living in New Jersey at the time.)
Going to the polls, she said, was nothing new for her. Warrens mother had been a poll worker and brought her young daughter to the polls each Election Day.
Nixon was re-elected that year, of course, but resigned and was replaced by Gerald Ford. Warren said she had voted for him in 1976, believing that Ford was a decent man.
But she was happy with Jimmy Carter, who beat him. I thought he [also] was a decent man, she said, transferring her then-standard for what she wanted in a politician from Ford to Carter. He was a really good man.
As the 80s wore on and her research on bankruptcy progressed, Warren started waking up politically. At the time, though, the two parties had yet to separate entirely along ideological lines, as some deeply conservative and racist Democrats still held office, as did some genuinely liberal Republicans.
In 1988, Warren voted for Michael Dukakis but, in 1992, split her ticket, voting for Republican Arlen Specter for Senate and Democrat Bill Clinton for president. Specter is a good example of the one-time flexibility of the party system and the politicians within it: He began and ended his career as a Democrat, but was a Republican for much of the middle of it.
By the fall of 1987, she had moved to Pennsylvania and registered there as a Republican. Warren said she couldnt quite remember why she did it but that she was a fan of Specter. Again, I thought he was a decent man, she said. She couldnt recall whom he ran against. (His Democratic opponent was Lynn Yeakel.)
That GOP registration, though, has set off speculation over the years that one of the Senates most progressive champions may have at one time been a Ronald Reagan backer.
So we asked her: Is it true? Is it possible the champion of the regulatory cops on Wall Street voted for the man who made deregulation a hallmark of his presidency?
No.
In 1980, she said, she was a registered independent living in Missouri City, Texas, and cast her vote to re-elect Carter.
When Reagan won, she wasnt happy but not crushed the way she was on election night in 2016. I was disappointed and didnt like him, but I wasnt deeply worried for the country, not anything like when Trump was elected, she explained. If she could go back in time, she said, she would tell herself this was a far more pivotal historical moment than you understand.
snip
Warren also has the lowest Trump Score in the entire Senate
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/
compare that to the highest Democrats
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
liberalla
(9,249 posts)I have to get to sleep now, but this looks like a lot of good info that I want to read over. Thank you for the time you took to compile links and make this post.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
blm
(113,063 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)I will have to swallow a lot of spite to vote for him if I have to, and this is a very helpful post.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
underthematrix
(5,811 posts)because we are at that inflection point.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)nt. I actually see very little difference between them. They share qualities I dislike most in candidates. Unwillingness to admit when they are wrong and adjust, as well as a refusal to acknowledge the confines of reality.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
blm
(113,063 posts)Last edited Mon Mar 2, 2020, 08:00 AM - Edit history (1)
She keeps Sanders numbers low enough for Biden to surpass him.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
blm
(113,063 posts)I felt what you feel.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Maybe Biden would sign a Medicare 4 All bill written by Sen. Warren? Hope!!
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
blm
(113,063 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Moderateguy
(945 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Response to blm (Reply #8)
loyalsister This message was self-deleted by its author.
LisaM
(27,813 posts)I trust that he would appoint good people - and treat the rest of the field as a "team of rivals" from whom to make those appointments.
And if that doesn't come up at the debates, what kind of people, and what kind of unifying people, you'd appoint to the Cabinet, and as ambassadors, and to head FEMA and the EPA, then the moderators aren't doing their job.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
lordsummerisle
(4,651 posts)If Warren winds up as VP then her seat will be filled by a Republican governor. The composition of the senate will be vital, if it remains in Republican hands basically nothing will change regardless of who is president.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
blm
(113,063 posts)and my guess would be Harris.
That wouldnt stop Warren from becoming an influence on economic policies.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Pompoy
(123 posts)I think a special election would be held.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
ramen
(790 posts)Massachussetts is pretty reliably Democratic-leaning. It's not a sure bet, but a Warren nomination wouldn't likely upend the balance in the senate, and she would be a massive benefit to a Biden nomination.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
lordsummerisle
(4,651 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
ramen
(790 posts)when I posted that she would benefit a possible Biden nomination I was thinking of all the progressives who would go from possible nose-holding or 'meh' Biden support to really signing on to that ticket. If Biden becomes the nominee then having someone pretty different than him as VP would be a smart move.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Pompoy
(123 posts)I want Elizabeth Warren to represent Massachusetts in the Senate.
Although now it looks like her seat might still be safe for Democrats if she were to be the VP pick, seeing as we have two strong candidates for the other seat in Massachusetts, Markey and Kennedy.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
blm
(113,063 posts)some of Warrens economic policies are likely to be absorbed.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,349 posts)I only worry that he still considers Republicans good people, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that they are destroyers of law, of government, of civility, of our environment, of education, of progress.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
TryLogic
(1,723 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
SunSeeker
(51,564 posts)The animosity between her and Bernie is palpable. And fhat whole "snake" meme agsinst her by some Bernie supporters shows she will not be welcome in the White House by a significant postion of Bernie staffers.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
thesquanderer
(11,989 posts)Or between that of many politicIans/former candidates who have ended up working together or even run on the same ticket.
And I suspect Sanders would welcome a Warren position despite deragatory statements by what are just a tiny handful of his millions of supporters, and despite even some overzealous staff members. As competitors go, the Warren-Sanders stuff has been quite tame.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
pattyloutwo
(279 posts)I dont like the two old guys yelling at me; joe was yelling like crazy in the last debate instead of speaking. They had their turns in political office, now its time to step down, in my opinion. Im going on record for Warren. I think shes the best candidate for our country.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Progressive2020
(713 posts)I think that Warren would be a very smart VP choice for Biden if Joe wins the nomination. She could help bring in some Sanders Progressives and maybe bridge the divide between moderates and progressives. That is one of Warrens strengths, I think. I was frankly surprised that she did not do better in the early primaries. She seems like she would be a good compromise candidate between the Bernie wing and the Biden wing. Hopefully we will all unite after the primaries are done, and beat the tar out of Trump in November. I would enthusiastically support a Biden/Warren ticket.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Hestia
(3,818 posts)Legalization of Cannabis. Those were some ugly years to live through. I, for one, do not want to bring them back.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/25/18282870/joe-biden-criminal-justice-war-on-drugs-mass-incarceration
https://theintercept.com/2019/09/17/the-untold-story-joe-biden-pushed-ronald-reagan-to-ramp-up-incarceration-not-the-other-way-around/
https://fee.org/articles/joe-biden-the-architect-of-america-s-disastrous-war-on-drugs/
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
blm
(113,063 posts)This was posted to show hope for some advancement of Warren policies should Biden prevail.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
beachbumbob
(9,263 posts)and if sanders is the nominee, the odds are huge with that occurring. Just saying, sanders has NO coattails down ballot
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Happy Hoosier
(7,308 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
thesquanderer
(11,989 posts)I dont know about intends to, but certainly at least may be willing to.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
blm
(113,063 posts)exactly shy about pushing her positions.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden