Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was exposed in Tuesday night’s debate as the petty, patronizing, petulant poseur she really is. Pundit after pundit is declaring her a debate loser, and they are right. Yet, she may still be the leader of the Democratic field, for want of a stronger alternative.
Here, then, is an annotated list of Warren’s three worst moments.
1. Political insiders love to focus on policy weaknesses or verbal gaffes, but the deadliest mistake a candidate can make is to appear unlikable. Warren, in extremely petty fashion, did exactly that — it sounded like the audience even hissed at her — when Joe Biden claimed credit for lobbying for votes to help pass one of Warren’s signature bills.
First, Warren boasted about her bill to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Biden jumped in with both his own claim of credit and a generous compliment.
“I agreed with the great job she did,” he said, and then turning to her, continued, “and I went on the floor and got you votes. I got votes for that bill. I convinced people to vote for it. So let’s get those things straight, too.”
Rather than thank him for his help, though, Warren pointedly refused to credit him at all: “I am deeply grateful to President Obama, who fought so hard to make sure that agency was passed into law, and I am deeply grateful to every single person who fought for it and who helped pass it into law ….”
Biden interjected another compliment: “You did a hell of a job in your job.”
Again, Warren refused to acknowledge Biden’s involvement, instead rather prissily thanking him not for his help but for the compliment.
It was a bad look.
2. Warren’s repeated failure to answer direct questions about whether her “Medicare for all” plan would require a tax increase on middle-class households made her look dishonest.
She was first asked, very explicitly, “Will you raise taxes on the middle class to pay for it, yes or no?” Rather than say yes or no, she babbled on about total “costs,” apparently trying to hide the certain tax increase under a possible, hoped-for, and in fact, quite debatable reduction in healthcare costs. Asked a second time, again directly, she again evaded the question: “So the way I see this, it is about what kinds of costs middle-class families are going to face.”
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg immediately lowered the boom: “Well, we heard it tonight, a yes or no question that didn’t get a yes or no answer. Look, this is why people here in the Midwest are so frustrated with Washington in general and Capitol Hill in particular. Your signature, senator, is to have a plan for everything — except this.”
Amazingly, when given a third opportunity to come clean and just say she wants to raise taxes on the middle class, she ducked for a third time. “Senator Warren, will you acknowledge what the senator just said about taxes going up?”
Answer: “So my view on this, and what I have committed to, is costs will go down for hardworking, middle-class families ….”
She looked as weaselly as a politician can look. Then as if things couldn’t get any worse, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar knocked her down again: “At least Bernie’s being honest here and saying how he’s going to pay for this and that taxes are going to go up. And I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but you have not said that, and I think we owe it to the American people to tell them where we’re going to send the invoice.”
3. Warren asserted quite ludicrously that “bad trade policy,” not automation, is the biggest factor in industrial job losses today. This has been ably debunked over the years, and it’s just as factually incorrect when it’s coming out of President Trump’s mouth. But, worse for Warren, Andrew Yang seized upon this error and invoked the human factor to make her look foolish:
“Senator Warren, I’ve been talking to Americans around the country about automation. And they’re smart. They see what’s happening around them. Their Main Street stores are closing. They see a self-serve kiosk in every McDonalds, every grocery store, every CVS. Driving a truck is the most common job in 29 states, including this one; 3.5 million truck drivers in this country. And my friends in California are piloting self-driving trucks. What is that going to mean for the 3.5 million truckers or the 7 million Americans who work in truck stops, motels, and diners that rely upon the truckers getting out and having a meal? Saying this is a rules problem is ignoring the reality that Americans see around us every single day.”
In one quick answer, Yang made Warren look like the ivory-tower elitist, removed from everyday lives, that she really is.
She deserves to take a political tumble from which no machine can lift her back up.
