Ken Berwitz
Mika Brzezinski is the co-host of MSNBC\’s “Morning Joe” show. She is also a lifelong Democrat…the daughter of Jimmy Carter\’s National Security Advisor (and staunch Israel-hater) Zbigniew Brzezinksi
Ms. Brzezinski has come to the conclusion – a very unhappy one for her, you can bet – that Hillary Clinton is in a world of trouble. (With whom? we\’ll talk about that further on).
And – with a lead-in comment by Willie Geist, to establish context, here is her solution:
WILLIE GEIST: Hillary is trying to take a piece of BernieSanders\’ argument, saying I get what\’s happening in the country and I\’m here tohelp, much like Bernie is. To which Bernie says, “Wait a minute. You\’ve beenworking for Goldman Sachs. You\’ve been taking money from Goldman Sachs. You\’vebeen doing all these things with Wall Street, How can you credibly say that you\’re the person who\’s going to take down the banks the way I can?”
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I\’ll just say, the only person thatcan help her now is Elizabeth Warren, and she\’s going to have to make her herrunning mate. There\’s no other way around it.
Translation: just as southern politicians won elections in the earlier part of the 20th century by “out-segging” their opponents (i.e. showing they were more hard-line on segregation), Ms. Brzezinski feels Hillary can only win by showing she is at least as hard-line a leftist as the self-professed socialist Bernard Sanders is, which can be accomplished by bringing Elizabeth Warren on as her VP pick.
That certainly is an interesting idea. Let\’s think about it:
-First of all, Elizabeth Warren has not endorsed either candidate so far…which, given that Hillary Clinton declared her candidacy over nine months ago, means that, at best, Ms. Warren is lukewarm to Ms. Clinton. Not a very good start.-Next, we have the fact that Ms. Warren, politically, is appreciably closer to Sanders than to Clinton. My guess is that, if she had the choice to be either candidate\’s running mate, Sanders would be the one.-Then there is the issue of who this would help with and who it would hurt with.Keeping in mind that primary voters disproportionately tend to be hardliners and political junkies, the fact that a Clinton/Warren ticket would be all-female, and, at least ostensibly, hard-left (that\’s what Hillary projects if her pick is Warren), would delight a large segment of Democrats.But in a general election, which takes in the entire range of voters, including Republicans, Independents…and moderate/conservative Democrats (which still exist and – though you\’d never know it by media coverage – remain a substantial segment of the party), how would an all-woman, hard-left ticket play? Do you see a way it could win? I don\’t.And that is before we get to the the fact that the top of the ticket, Hillary Clinton, is seen by so many people as unlikable and dishonest.How exactly would Elizabeth Warren, a first-term senator with no accomplishments to show for her time there, a history of lying about her ancestry to get ahead in academia, and – like Hillary – a millionaire many times over who claims to speak for the poor and downtrodden, play on election day?
The bottom line: I do not doubt Mika Brzezinski\’s intelligence or her knowledge level. But even intelligent, knowledgeable people sometimes say things that are profoundly ridiculous.
Chalk Mika\’s Hillary solution up as one of them.
