Overlong 2020 Democratic Presidential primary endorsement thread incoming. Twitter probably isn't the optimal medium, but it's where I have the largest audience and full editorial control. Maybe I'll reformat. Maybe I won't
RIP my mentions, both for my choice and my explanation
RIP my mentions, both for my choice and my explanation
I made a promise to myself at the beginning of this interminable campaign that I’d focus on giving credit where due, calling bullshit where I saw it, and trying to share a point of view when I had one that I hadn’t seen elsewhere and had receipts to present when necessary.
As a consequence it shouldn’t be hard to find tweets from me that praise, criticize, and occasionally successfully make jokes at the expense of every single candidate in the race, even Steyer.
But we’re getting to the business end of the process, and it’s well past time that I make a decision for myself.
And probably more importantly, it’s time I be transparent about my preference as I continue to try to call it like I see it. I honestly don’t know that anyone cares, and there are plenty of solid arguments against anyone doing so. This is awkward for me. It is what it is.
I believe Elizabeth Warren is the best of the remaining candidates to be President of the United States.
That doesn’t mean that I won’t continue to give praise elsewhere when appropriate, and it doesn’t mean I won’t criticize Senator Warren when I think she’s got it wrong.
I’ve struggled, for example, with her handling of the Native identity issue and would entirely understand someone for whom that sincerely meant enough that it rendered her other attributes moot.
Ultimately, every voter is making a choice about who to hire for the temp job of running the country, abiding by and driving it closer to full embodiment of its claimed fundamental principles of equal rights under the law to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We’re also hiring someone to represent the best interests of every American in situations both foreign and domestic.
Fortunately, we have and have had an extraordinarily strong pool of candidates to choose from. I’d hire most of them for the job I described and sleep well at night, and we all deserve that at this point.
In a hiring situation, I’d probably want to create a job for most of them if I could figure it out. Fortunately, a new Democratic President will be hiring for quite a few.
Much has been written about @ewarren’s intellect, her competence, her energy, her PLANS, and I doubt I have any insight to offer on that score beyond the fact that I agree that they are exceptional and near singular in this race. elizabethwarren.com/plans
And then there’s her bio:
Hopefully you know by now that she grew up in and near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
And hopefully you know that her father, a salesman at Montgomery Ward, had a heart attack when she was twelve, saddling the family with medical bills that sent her mother back to work and Elizabeth waiting tables at her Aunt Bee’s restaurant at thirteen.
Hopefully you know that she left college two years in to get married and then, with a child in tow, managed to get a degree at the University of Houston for $50 a semester. (This was a truly hilarious tweet in context)
Hopefully you know that that degree would allow her to get a job teaching children with speech disabilities, a job she had described as a dream one and she was let go from once she became visibly pregnant with her second child. nytimes.com/2019/10/08/us/…
Hopefully you know that that marriage didn’t work out and that for a time she was a single mother, surviving with the help of her Aunt Bee because child care costs were untenable. medium.com/@teamwarren/my…
Hopefully you know that this experience lead her to her academic work at the country’s finest law schools studying bankruptcy law.
And hopefully you know that that study lead her to the conclusion that the system was rigged against middle class people who were trying to do the right thing, to pay their medical bills, to keep their heads above water. elizabethwarren.com/plans/bankrupt…
And having lived that reality is one thing: Not knowing that everything would work out for your parents. Not being sure if you can provide for your children.
Not being sure that you would ever have the chance to have a career that your talent, intellect, and work ethic could allow if financial circumstances or, you know, life were different.
Having lived that and deciding to go big to make sure it won’t be anyone’s else reality is quite another.
Hers is a campaign built to address the every day struggles of the people she would represent as the President of the United States.
Hers is a campaign built to address the every day struggles of the people she would represent as the President of the United States.
It’s a campaign to create the kind of “big, structural change” we ALL know we need in order to move anywhere near closer to full embodiment of its claimed fundamental principles of equal rights under the law to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Now, almost certainly by now some of you are saying “But why not Bernie?” To which, I say “not unfair.” Y’all, I love Bernie. Genuinely. I love that he’s been in the fight for justice and equity for decades. I love that he still shoots hoops.
I love his reactions to (and general dismay at) Desus and Mero revealing the prices of hypebeast shoes. (Starts at 5:33. Do yourself the favor if you haven’t already seen this.) sho.com/video/69535/be…
I love that he can’t be bothered to wish people happy birthday.
And I love that he seemed annoyed that a woman had a Bernie Sanders campaign water bottle unless that woman was going to share the water.
There is exactly zero question in my mind that Bernie is a real one who wants a better life for us all.
There is exactly zero question in my mind that Bernie is a real one who wants a better life for us all.
But I’d rather have President Warren with Senator Sanders keeping her honest on any number of issues, either as part of or outside the administration.
Whatever the results of the election, the GOP won’t lay their guns down in defeat. And if I’m choosing a winner in a guile-off, it’s going to be Warren. Every time.
Moreover, Warren strikes me as non-dogmatic and more responsive to feedback.
Moreover, Warren strikes me as non-dogmatic and more responsive to feedback.
And maybe more importantly, she’s likely to hire people who are more responsive to feedback, which is critical, since every President is going to get it wrong, especially in the incredibly fraught times through which we’re living and likely will continue to live through.
And finally, there’s Ann Richards’ speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.
Born just 16 years and a 4 hour drive south of Warren, she opened her speech with the previously made observation that “Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, she just did it backwards and in high heels.” The applause were thunderous.
And even that’s unfortunately flip (at least in part because often have to be in order to make their point without being mischaracterized as aggressive)
As @bethnovey notes, more accurate would be “concurrently and with inadequate parental leave, competently, but still making $0.79 cents to the dollar, apologetically, lest she otherwise be labeled a ‘bitch,’ amiably so as not to appear ‘aggressive.” nhpr.org/post/can-we-fi…
@BethNovey Oh and after doing hair and makeup.
It is frankly embarrassing that we’ve never had a woman President in this country’s almost 250 year history.
While I would never cast my vote based on a candidate’s gender, I think it disingenuous not to acknowledge the second order and beyond consequences of electing a woman with the commitment to substantive change for the benefit of all Americans that Warren possesses.
While it will herald the end of misogyny roughly as much as Obama’s election ended racism (spoiler: not at all), it will mean something to me personally that the country I call home has offered evidence that we’re at least capable of further embodying the values we claim.
It will mean that my nieces will grow up knowing that a woman can be President. It will mean that my nephews will grow up knowing that. And that the rest of us will too.
I remember what it felt like when Obama was elected. I know how it still feels to look at this photo. You can’t tell me it doesn’t matter. Like, matter matter. 
And not for nothing, if we’re just running the numbers, study after study after study finds that women led organizations perform better. Just ask Pete and my old employer, McKinsey. mckinsey.com/business-funct…
Two moments crystallized all of this for me:
1. When on New Year’s Eve, the campaign’s anniversary & launch into the election year, @ewarren speech focused on poet Phillis Wheatly and how black women’s political imaginations are the best embodiment of American ideals that can guide the way forward. c-span.org/video/?467635-…
2. When in her closing statement at the Iowa debate, she rattled off a list of issues that hadn’t been discussed: “How the disability community is struggling for true equality, how gun violence and active shooter drills worry every mother” (Starts at 3:46) cnn.com/videos/politic…
She continued: “How children are living in poverty and seeing their life chances shrink, how transwomen, particularly trans women of color, are at risk, black infant mortality, climate change that particularly hits black and brown communities,” cnn.com/videos/politic…
And persisted: “People who are being crushed by student loan debt, farmers who are barely holding on, people struggling with mental illness.” cnn.com/videos/politic…
I come at this cynically. Having lived as a black man in America for 41 years, I know that politicians’ - particularly white politicians’ - public statements about minority communities should probably be discounted by half if not more.
I know further that Senator Warren’s speechwriter @CMichaelHuntley is a damn genius, and she has a senior team around her - populated by a ton of black and brown folks of consistently extraordinary caliber - that she clearly listens to.
But that’s kind of the point.
At the end of the day with politicians, either it’s them, or it’s the person the folks they hired to tell them who to be have decided they will be. Either way, I can get with this for this moment in history.
At the end of the day with politicians, either it’s them, or it’s the person the folks they hired to tell them who to be have decided they will be. Either way, I can get with this for this moment in history.
And I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which just happens to fall a month after the Democratic convention and a week before the Republican’s.
And since it is highly unlikely I can have my dream tickets of Warren/Harris or Warren/Abrams facing off against a self-admitted sexual predator and a man who can’t be in the same room with a woman without his wife around...
Give me Warren/Castro, which seems to be the likely result if she gets the nomination.
Regardless, I’ll see y'all on the front lines working for the Democrat, whoever it is. That's how we'll win.
And we must win.
But yeah, #Warren2020.
And we must win.
But yeah, #Warren2020.
