It's Elizabeth Warren's Party. Barack Obama Is Just Living in It.

[JeffHead]

By Alex Seitz-Wald February 4, 2014


Any doubts about whether the Democratic Party would embrace Warren's economic populism can now be put to rest.

When Elizabeth Warren announced her Senate candidacy in September 2011, President Obama had just signed into law the Budget Control Act, which raised the debt ceiling but also made concessions to Republicans that would eventually lead to $1 trillion in sequestration cuts. Deficit control was a top priority for both parties, and something that Obama pledged to continue to pursue in a rare address to a joint session of Congress that month on his jobs plan.

But the speech Obama gave last week to a similar joint session of Congress felt very different. His 2014 State of the Union address brushed over deficit reduction quickly before getting onto the main event: a pledge to create "opportunity for all," infused with the themes that Warren rode to Washington a little over a year ago.

After that speech, any doubt about whether the Democratic Party would embrace economic populism can now be put to rest. The party is united behind an agenda that puts economic inequality front-and-center, and they think voters will reward them for it. Warren did not move the needle alone, and perhaps was just a leading indicator of these changing winds, but her once-insurgent message has now become mainstream in the party, albeit with some edges sanded off.

*snip*

And that's something that broad swaths of the party seem ready to embrace. From purple-state governors to red-state senators such as Arkansas' Mark Pryor, many Democrats have lined up to support a hike in the minimum wage ahead of tough reelection battles. The logic isn't too hard to see: Despite business group's objections, it's an idea 71 percent of Americans support, according to a December National Journal poll.

None of this necessarily makes Warren herself the leader of the party. But ideas are often more powerful than people, and there's little doubt that the ones she helped elevate are now driving the party.



http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/it-s-elizabeth-warren-s-party-barack-obama-is-just-living-in-it-20140204

[wyldwolf]

1. Pfft

[winter is coming]

2. Mouthing a few carefully chosen phrases about populism isn't the same thing as embracing it.

At this point, for most politicians, "economic populism" is a likely nothing more than a thin wrapping around the same old ideas.

As I've said before, candidates who can credibly embrace a populist message will be highly electable in 2014 and 2016. The trick for us is to figure out who means it and who's making empty promises.