When it comes to the presidential campaign, America has become a country of old men. The Public’s Radio political analyst Scott MacKay parses Elizabeth Warren’s failed White House try. (Advance copy of commentary slated to run Monday.)
The three candidates left standing –President Trump, former Vice-president Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders –are all white men closer to age 80 than 60. They are household figures whose blemishes and blessings are known to all. So we’re looking at a campaign that promises to be long, ridiculously expensive and likely the nastiest in the memory of any voter alive.
We’re saddled with Trump, the fact-challenged, unpredictable and unfettered id of an incumbent. And Sanders, the grouchy Vermont lefty who does his hair with a fan and yells a lot. Or Biden, the avuncular granddad everyone in the family loves, even if he did mix up the kids names last Thanksgiving.
The last woman to have a White House shot was Massachusetts Sen Elizabeth Warren, who had a plan for everything but won nothing. She dropped out last week and hasn’t endorsed either Biden or Sanders.
It’s hard to blame her at this point for the lack of enthusiasm for either of her former opponents. As she said, “Why would I owe anybody an endorsement.”
Warren began her quest on a high note in a diverse Democratic field that included six women and reflected 21st Century America better than any other presidential campaign. Her entrance came after millions of women marched to protest Trump. It came after a glass-ceiling shattering election in 2018 where more Democratic women ran than ever before. And the ascension of Nancy Pelosi, who has become the most powerful Democratic House Speaker since Tip O’Neill.
It’s easy to criticize Warren’s campaign, particularly after her dismal third place home state finish. Some of the post-mortems are accurate.
Her biggest mistake was a failure to define herself early. That’s always a failing in politics these days, because if you don’t carve a clear portrait of yourself, you’ll be sliced and diced by others. Nowadays that includes opponents, the media, Russian bots, Internet cranks and Trump tweets.
Maybe longtime Democratic strategist and television talking head Paul Bagala put it best. He said that voters “saw Professor Warren from Harvard Law School and not Betsy from Norman, Oklahoma.”
The sad aspect of this, as Democratic consultant Tad Devine says, is that Warren had a strong story to tell, one that could have resonated among primary voters. She never painted that remarkable picture of how a woman from modest circumstances rose from commuter-school student, single mother and special education teacher, to Harvard Law and the U.S. Senate. In the right production hands, her struggle would have made a great biopic television spot.
Did she spend too much money early on staff? Yes. But she still had more money for Super Tuesday ground work than Biden. Should she have reached out more aggressively earlier to voters of color? Of course. But the nominating process begins in the small white states of Iowa and New Hampshire. She didn’t set the calendar.
Did she blow it with the famous DNA test that failed to validate family lore on her supposed Native American background? That wasn’t her proudest moment.
Yet Sanders is still hanging around, even if many of his old Vermont allies believe he’s toast. Maybe all one needs to know about his candidacy is that in 2016 he got 86 percent in his home state primary against Hillary Clinton. Last Tuesday, that dropped to 51 percent. In the 14 Super Tuesday elections, he cracked 40 percent only in his home state. He did build a better Internet fund-raising machine than other Democrats, but it didn’t do him much good. The Pied Piper of a Children’s Crusade, Sanders was better at drawing young folks to rallies and concerts than getting them to polls.
So we’re left with the stain of sexism. Even Rhode Island’s first woman governor, Gina Raimondo, says a woman can’t be elected president this year. (She originally endorsed Bloomberg and has since switched to Biden.)
Has Trump so spooked Democrats that they can’t envision anyone beating him but two men who ought to be on their way to the club house, not the White House?
Sadly, it looks like that for women from Fall River to Fresno.
