Who Decides, Who Decides? The Orwellian Hit On Elizabeth Warren

<Elizabeth Warren
Official Portrait, U.S. Senate>

<i.>

Every candidate enjoys their moment in the sun, no matter how the race turns out, and Elizabeth Warren is no exception. I remember when it arrived, a couple of months ago, after covering a local board meeting. I was having the usual post-meeting chat with the board's spokeswoman.

Talk turned to who might make noise in this year's presidential election, which horses people were people, and why, all that stuff.

"Most of the folks in my circle," I ventured, "seem to be coalescing around Bernie -- faster than in 2016, when he came up as the candidate from nowhere."

"I'm hearing about somebody else," the spokeswoman responded. "If you look at all the mommy blogs lately, it's 'Warren, Warren, Warren.'"

"Wow, Elizabeth Warren?" The spokeswoman nodded. "Well, that makes sense, since she and Bernie represent the populistic side of the coin...you know, the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

We shared a quick laugh, and hurried off to our cars. Another January night's work beckoned, in all its mid-teen temperature glory -- she, to write the usual post-meeting press release, and me, to serve up the usual post-meeting story.

<ii.>

But maybe the joke was on us. Voters in last week's New Hampshire primary seemed to laugh loudest, relegating Warren to a dismal fourth, at 9.2 percent, or 27,387 votes, and no delegates. It's a drop off from her Iowa performance, where she still managed a respectable third place (18 percent, eight delegates) behind the top finishers, Bernie, and his sleek 'n' scripted nemesis, Pete Buttigieg.

Yet the Orwellian erasure of Warren as a top contender has begun, with a haste that's not hard to miss. One clue came in the Democratic debate held on February 7, before the New Hampshire primary.

As The Week noted, Warren's total speaking time (16 minutes) essentially tied that of Minnesota Amy Klobuchar (16 minutes, 21 seconds), versus Bernie Sanders (19 minutes, 54 seconds), his floundering rival, former Vice President Joe Biden (19 minutes) and Mayor Pete (alias Mayo Pete, or Wall Street Pete, to those who loathe him: 18 minutes).

National polls showed Warren in third place. it's hardly a spot that any candidate wants to inhabit, but offers enough breathing room to move up. But that's not how the mainstream media treated her after New Hampshire. CNN didn't show Warren's post-primary speech. Not to worry, though. We did get Biden's live streamed (!) consolation pitch to supporters in South Carolina -- after he'd fled New Hampshire, where he fnished a notch behind Warren, in fifth place (8.4 percent, with 24,921 votes, no delegates).

Humiliated or not, though, Biden has two factors going for him. First, as a man, he can afford to tank twice in a row, as he did in Iowa, where he finished fourth (again, just a notch behind Warren). Second, there's the possibility -- faint though it seems, as badly as Biden's campaign has sputtered and misfired -- of him mounting the Great Comeback, depending on his showing in South Carolina primary (February 29).

Comeback tropes are a staple of horse race journalism, with all its lopsided focus on money, and momentum, standings and strategy. But that narrative still requires Biden's participation, if only for another week or two. Contrived as they feel, such dramas probably sound more appealing to the pundit class than Warren's populist stance -- which is a more measured offering than Bernie's, but still goes against the narrative they push: Hey, we can't fix income inequality, because capitalism needs a little inequity to work. Now leave us to it. Or else.

<iii.>

Another unpleasant surprise awaited Warren fans in New Hampshire, though. Amy Klobuchar emerged as the mainstream media's true darling, goosed along by her surprise third place finish, one that seemed ample excuse for the usual overripe puns that headline writers love to indulge ("Klobocharge," "Klobosurge" and "Klomentum," anyone?). But it wasn't a major surprise, given the rapturous coverage she'd already garnered in Iowa, where Plucky Amy proudly proclaimed: "We are punching above our weight." Watching at home, I wondered, What's she been taking? How can someone who finished fifth say such things? Is her mixture off?

The strangest aspect of all this flattery, though, is that Plucky Amy -- like her counterpart, Mayo(r) Pete -- has yet to prove that she can win a national race, especially when you see their standings among black voters. The last time I checked, Pete polled four percent, while Amy didn't even register, with zero percent. They do both equally dismally among young and less affluent voters (see my last post, "About That Electability Thing..." for reference).

That blacks seem especially allergic to Amy's and Pete's charms shouldn't surprise anyone with an IQ above room temperature, given their shaky records in dealing with those issues as Hennepin County Attorney, and mayor South Bend, respectively. Barring a major magic trick, I suspect that they're about to hit their electoral ceiling with a sickening thud.

But for now, at least, such trifling details -- like whether voters really want to elect them -- don't bother the pundits a bit. That's because Plucky Amy and Mayor Pete fit another horse race trope -- the Exotic Outsider beaming down from a galaxy far, far away, to coin a phrase. You know, the plain folk, decked out in cowboy hats, plaid shirts, and suspenders, tellin' it like it is to them uncomprehending city folk, those darn reve-noo-ers who want to tax us to death, and confiscate our corn stalks. Time for those pitchforks and torches! You get the idea.

Sounds absurd? Of course. As a Midwesterner, I find it bad enough when politicians from outside of the region stereotype us that way. But it's even more surreal when homegrown types, like Plucky Amy and Mayor Pete, run the same cornball shtick, one that ignores or sidesteps the region's radical history (see links below). Yet the stereotyping serves another narrative, one of "being outspoken about what Beltway elites consider to be objective truths about the limits of political possibility in policymaking," as the New Republic states.

In a weird way, it's reminiscent of the rock 'n' roll gold rush that greeted bands in the mid- to late-'80s, who hurriedly donned plaid shirts and straw hats, and boned up on their Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie covers, as they cranked out twangy ode after twangy ode to the heartland that they'd never known. That they grew up in suburbs surrounded by aluminum siding and got driven to school every day doesn't matter a whit. No forgiveness will await you if your narrative doesn't fit the marketing plan, as Elizabeth Warren is finding out.

<iv.>

So where does this messy post-primary fallout leave us? Critics suggest that Warren bears some of the blame for leaving too many fingerprints on the weapons that caused her poll numbers to sag -- notably, her revised stance on Medicare For All, which now can wait until the third year of her presidency, once she passes her own public option plan. Both ideas rest on huge, untested assumptions, but that's another post for another day.

Like Kamala Harris, however, Warren has found that pivoting on a pet issue won't help more people line up behind you. In many ways, Warren seems to have inherited all the angst of Hillary Clinton's 2016 defeat, as The Week notes --  because the Democratic Party seems skittish about shooting for the stars again so soon, with another female nominee rallying the troops.

But it's difficult to draw a different conclusion when all those old double standards grind on without letup. The commentariat has yet to call out Mayor Pete as a flipflopper, even as he's ditched the progressive rhetoric -- no more talk about boosting the Supreme Court's size -- that he used to launch his presidential bid. Or imagine if Biden suddenly embraced a single-payer system, after decades of opposition to one. He'd be hailed a visionary for changing his mind in a heartbeat. One's person shapeshifter is another person's visionary, and so on. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Time will tell if Warren sticks around for the long haul. However, her treatment by the US media machine seems especially galling, when smaller countries have no trouble electing younger women to lead them, as Finland and New Zealand have done, with Sanna Marin (34) and Jacinda (39), respectively.

Meanwhile, back in the US presidential primary jungle, we're conceivably looking at a race between two aging, go-driven, populist-preening, old white billionaires. At 73, it may be the only time that President Donald Trump can stake out a claim as the youth candidate -- since the man who's trying to buy his place, Michael Bloomberg, is five years older.

Where does this leave us, now that nearly all of the women and candidates of color have  gotten chased out of the race? Nowhere to go but sideways, or it seems. Or maybe straight down the chute. Time will tell soon enough. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before They Fix That Darn Glass Ceiling Again)
Columbia Journalism Review:
The Media, "Klomentum," And
The Erasure Of Elizabeth Warren:
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/klobuchar_warren_new_hampshire.php

The New Republic:
The Elite Media's Amy Klobuchar Blind Spot:
https://newrepublic.com/article/156294/elite-medias-amy-klobuchar-blind-spot

The Guardian/Yahoo News:
Politicians Pander To The Folksy Midwest:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politicians-pander-folksy-midwest-ignore-111610486.html

The Week: Elizabeth Warren 
Is Third In The Polls, But Fifth In Speaking Time...:
https://theweek.com/speedreads/894695/elizabeth-warren-third-polls-but-fifth-speaking-time-democratic-debate

The Week: The Sidelining of Elizabeth Warren:
https://theweek.com/articles/895463/sidelining-elizabeth-warren