Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) presidential ambitions have been rumored for a long time. But in recent weeks her political maneuvering reveals she may be more than just mulling over the idea, according to the New York Magazine’s Daily Intelligencer.
The DI article published on Thursday claimed to “connect the dots” to show Warren is getting more aggressive about putting her presidential campaign plan in place.
Calling her a “potential front-runner” in the next presidential election, the article states Warren’s “moves stand out largely because they break beyond the serious groundwork she’s already laid — from raising gobs of campaign cash and ordering up waves of self-research to strengthening her ties to party power brokers and working to minimize her vulnerability on the touchy issue of her disputed Native American ancestry — further muscling her ahead of the rest of the potential field in terms of political preparation.”
“The effort has also opened Warren to months of extra scrutiny from Republicans eager to define her for American voters before a potential general election matchup against Donald Trump, who used his “Pocahontas” nickname for her yet again in passing during a speech in Ohio last week,” the Daily Intelligencer reported.
Dan Kanninen, a Democratic strategist for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, put it this way:
“I would put her in the category of a few candidates — people who are, without running, doing whatever they can to be running in practical terms,” Kanninen said. “This last two weeks may put her at the front of that pack.”
This latest push, according to the Daily Intelligencer, started a couple weeks ago when she announced new “corporate accountability” legislation that would “force large companies to consider stakeholders in top-level decisions, limit execs’ ability to sell their shares, and require the organizations to get shareholder and board approval for political spending.”
She also proposed legislation that would ban members of Congress, the president’s Cabinet, and the federal judiciary from owning or trading individual stocks; prohibit foreign lobbying and lobbyist donations to campaigns; and ban former members of Congress, ex-presidents, and former agency heads from becoming lobbyists.
With a Republican majority in the House and the Senate and President Donald Trump in the White House, Warren’s legislation will go nowhere, but the Daily Intelligencer sees the bills as a look at a future Warren presidential platform.
Warren’s other notable moves: announcing she won’t take any more money from political action committees (PACs), and she released ten years worth of tax returns — an obvious jab at Trump, who is not required to and has not released any of his tax returns.
Meanwhile, two of Warren’s staff have taken new jobs with the Democratic Party Committee in New Hampshire.
“It’s a classic move for potential presidential hopefuls whose staffers are eager for face time and connections in early-voting states,” the Daily Intelligencer reported.
“If she decided to run in New Hampshire, it would be good to have access to people with New Hampshire experience,” Kathy Sullivan, a former chairwoman of the state party said in the Daily Intelligencer article.
Warren has not, of course, announced officially that she’s running, instead concentrating on her senate re-election bid in November’s midterm.
And the Daily Intelligencer notes that Republicans are not oblivious to Warren’s developing plan and have plans of their own for burnishing her image, much as they did for Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Republican researchers are already combing through her tax returns.
“In her attempt to position herself, she’s brought herself to the forefront, and we’re happy to make the public aware of her record,” Sarah Dolan of the GOP opposition research group America Rising, told the Daily Intelligencer.
“We know she’s running,” Dolan said.
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