There is no doubt that Elizabeth Warren has a very strong progressive platform. Yet while her strong positions on curtailing the excesses of Wall Street and pay-to-play Washington, plans to tax wealth and regulate large corporations, remain, the big question is why is she waiting to endorse Sanders?
Maybe, she wants to be a bigger player than Sanders when it comes to convention backroom dealings. Maybe she has an inflated opinion of her own power. Maybe she just wants the attention and the spotlight for a few more months.
But her delayed endorsement of Sanders will not be welcomed by progressives who think she is playing a spoiler role in the Sanders campaign. Even worse, she could be the Hillary reincarnation from 2016.
That is not likely since Warren seems to have a higher ethical base than other politicians. But she has to wonder what the cost of delay will be as she watches the Trump administration take the wrecking ball to her best and most visible pro-individual regulator creation, the Consumer Finance Protection Board.
As she was deliberating her withdrawal from the race, Trump took the CFPB to court to forcibly remove its chairman. That would be the first step towards dismantling the entire pro-investor entity and putting it on the scrapheap of progressive reforms that Trump and the Republicans despise.
So, as Warren delays her endorsement, she is damaging the momentum of the progressive cause that still has significant traction, especially as the California votes are now being counted.
It should also not escape progressive that the Sanders-Warren combined delegate count now is very much alive. Sanders and Warren have a combined delegate count of 596. This is tied with Biden’s count of 596, according to the Associated Press.
All this means the progressive message cannot be ignored, especially with the California vote count still pending. If California gives a majority to Sanders, he will have the delegates and money to make the most powerful progressive stance since the 1948 Democratic convention.
It is also one that Biden the Corporate Democrat will like to ignore if he gets the nomination. Based on Biden’s long voting record, he will walk away from any reforms that are not first vetted by his corporate donors. That’s why hedge funds, health care, financial services, credit card companies, and military contractors will also get a new free pass and more contracts and regulatory relief during Biden’s presidency. His will be a replay of the free reign given to these same industries by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The same playbook delivered by a much older, but still very much, neoliberal politician.
That may be the reason why the expense accounts of Washington ton’s largest corporate lobbyists were maxxed-out after Biden’s big win on Super Tuesday.
