It appears that the “Run Warren Run” effort by moveon.org and Democracy For America, to recruit Elizabeth Warren as a presidential candidate, has come to a close.
According to MSNBC\’s Alex Seitz-Wald, (and who would know better about hard-left groups than MSNBC?), they have given up, and are now devoting their resources to Bernie Sanders.
If true, this bodes either very poorly for Martin O\’Malley in the sense that he loses their support, or very well, in the sense that he can try to paint himself as a political moderate on the grounds that left wing groups reject him.
How does this play for Hillary Clinton? Hard to tell.
On the plus side, it pretty much insures that she will go unchallenged as the Democrats\’ female candidate (unless Cynthia McKinney decides to be a Democrat again and reminds us that if she had a brother he\’d look like Barack Obama…..well, that probably won\’t happen.)
On the minus side, however, it means that two major left wing venues will actively be working against her during the Democrat primaries. And, in primaries, it is the hardliners who come out to vote more than anyone else. So if Senator Sanders does well in Iowa and New Hampshire – a very real possibility in Iowa and a probability in his neighboring state of New Hampshire, it will show that Ms. Clinton can\’t even hold a major part of her party\’s base.
Does this mean she lurches leftward to capture more early-primary votes, so she won\’t look like a loser? Or does it mean she stays where she is maybe even moves a bit to the right, and tries to entice independents/the moderate-right as a centrist candidate? And what would either of those strategies say about her image, among many, of being a product of political expediency, with no principles or ethical compass?
Let\’s keep watching. This should be fun.
