I’ve been favoring and/or leaning toward Elizabeth Warren to be the nominee for about a year. And so I have been encouraged by her rise, followed by discouragement at her major decline late last year, and then heartened once more this week by her outstanding performance at the Las Vegas debate.
I believe she’s regained a real chance of getting the nomination. The futures market’s assessment of that probability — 7% the last I checked — understates her chances, I believe, because some of the strategic brilliance behind what she did at Las Vegas that has gone unrecognized.
It is clear that the main thing that re-energized her campaign was how effectively she attacked Michael Bloomberg. (She spread her fire around other competitors as well, but her best shots were at Bloomberg.)
The strategy behind her Bloomberg-bashing performance operates, I propose, at three levels.
First, and most obviously, she managed to blunt the rise of an apparently fast-rising competitor. Always beneficial.
Second, and just a bit less obviously, she showed with her attack on (what she called) the “arrogant billionaire” on the stage with her that she possesses the tools to take down that other “arrogant [supposed] billionaire” whom the Democrats need to defeat in November. Warren abandoned the friendly-to-all approach that wasn’t working, and instead showed her capabilities that back up her “I’m a fighter” claim.
This benefit of her strategy is captured by the tweet from Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: “I don’t know how anyone could watch Warren filleting Bloomberg tonight and not want to see her onstage with Trump.”
But it’s what I’m envisioning as the third level of Warren’s strategy that has the greatest potential to provide her with a path to the nomination.
To envision that third dimension of the strategy, one needs to look ahead to the likely dynamics of the Democratic convention.
The most likely scenario — at least so I see it -- is that
Bernie Sanders will come to the convention with more delegates than any other candidate, but short of a majority; The Democratic Party as a whole will be reluctant to nominate Sanders, with a great many of Democrats fearful that his nomination would result in Trump’s re-election — an outcome that must be avoided at all costs.So what would the party do at that point?
Until the Las Vegas debate, a lot of speculation was that Michael Bloomberg -- having continued his rise and as the previously “Mr. Electable” Joe Biden had fallen — would be the alternative to Bernie Sanders for the “Electability-above-all” Democrats. (Electability being the primary concern of Democrats, and presumably of the delegates at the convention.)
Elizabeth Warren has — at least temporarily — shut down that line of speculation. Warren’s take-down of Bloomberg, by throwing a roadblock in the way of his progress, opens the door for others. But perhaps that door would then open especially for Warren.
There are several reasons why the convention might then turn to Warren, if Bernie Sanders fails to win on the first ballot and the delegates’ fears about Bernie’s vulnerabilities prevents them from crowning him despite his plurality.
Aside from Warren having shown herself as a fighter whom we can envision going toe-to-toe with Trump (the way she “filleted” Bloomberg):
Warren might be able at that point to cash in whatever chips she’s accumulated from her having campaigned as the person who can bring all parts of the party together. And she might also be judged the best choice for minimizing the damage to party unity that is a widely feared consequence of the convention’s refusing to crown Bernie — damage from anger and resentment among those in Sanders’ intensely committed support base.Warren might reasonably be judged as giving the party its best chance of keeping Bernie supporters behind a not-Bernie nominee for a couple of reasons:
first, she has been the one candidate long identified as being in the same (progressive) “track” as Sanders; and second, while Warren has carefully opened a bit of distance between herself and Bernie — e.g. on “Medicare for All” (though her position is pretty identical with that taken lately by major Bernie-backer AOC) -- she has been exceedingly gentle with Bernie, not directing at him that combative toughness she’s aimed at others.By accomplishing these three things — showing qualities that suggest she could best Trump in toe-to-toe combat, weakening a fast-rising competitor, and not just any competitor but the one who was beginning to look like the one the convention might have turned to as best choice on the basis of electability — Warren’s Las Vegas strategy seems like an especially smart way to magnify the possibilities of her becoming the Democratic nominee.
And if I’m right that Warren may give the Democrats their best chance of avoiding the disaster that many have been fretting about — of having a choice between nominating Bernie Sanders, who looks to a great many Democrats like an exceedingly risky standard bearer, or emerging from the convention with the party in tatters (orboth)— that may prove to be good news not just for Warren supporters, but for all who want the powers of the presidency out of Donald Trump’s hands.