It’s time for Elizabeth Warren to go there
Last week Elizabeth Warren stepped onto the debate stage and slayed Mike Bloomberg so expertly, his approval rating immediately dropped by twenty points. Everyone (including Palmer Report) named her the clear winner of the debate. But it didn’t appear to gain her any votes in the Nevada caucus, and while one new poll suggests she may be rising nationally, the reality is that her Bloomberg takedown didn’t have the positive impact on her own campaign that it should have. I would argue that it’s because she was aiming in the wrong direction.
We were all impressed that Warren was willing and able to take down such a flawed candidate in such efficient fashion. And Bloomberg certainly deserved it; nothing that Warren hit him with was any less than true. But while Democratic voters needed to be reminded of why Bloomberg would be a far from ideal nominee, he wasn’t the only candidate on the stage who deserved the same treatment – and you all know what I’m talking about.
Despite Bernie Sanders’ increasingly ugly scandals, from his medical records, to his online trolls, to his inability to say how he’d pay for his version of Medicare For All, Elizabeth Warren refused to lay a glove on him during the last debate. After the debate, she did call Sanders out on some of these things in various public appearances. But that didn’t have nearly the same impact. Since the last debate, Sanders has become even more of a flawed candidate, with his partial praise of Fidel Castro, and his campaign staffer caught carrying out a secret trolling operation against the other Democratic candidates.
If Elizabeth Warren wants to retain her credibility as a fair minded candidate, she needs to start treating Bernie Sanders’ toxic candidacy in the same way she’s been treating Mike Bloomberg’s highly flawed candidacy. Otherwise it looks like she’s afraid to call out Sanders, for fear of not being able to win over his supporters. But three states in, and the Bernie cult isn’t showing any signs of voting for Warren anyway. She might as well just torch Sanders, and hope it’ll impress mainstream voters enough to switch over from the other mainstream candidates. If Warren doesn’t come out swinging at Sanders tonight, she may never get the chance.
