For the 2016 Democratic Party primary, the two most important things happened on the same day: April 12, 2015. Hillary Clinton officially announced her candidacy for the presidency, and the speculation over whether Elizabeth Warren would run came to an end. There were a few groups that continued to desperately cling to the idea that Warren would change her mind, but the Massachusetts senator was done saying “No” and almost everyone else was done asking her.
Those two things shaped the race entirely. For nearly a year prior, the drumbeats swelled and swelled to enlist Warren. The “Anyone But Hillary” crowd was desperate to get her on board, but in the end, she was happy doing her work in the Senate. Whether that was out of principle and a desire to do more good legislation or simply because she didn’t think she could win is immaterial. (And while dethroning Clinton was seen as impossible at the start, it should be clear to all of us now, given how close Sanders got to Clinton, that Warren would have had an even more serious chance at the nomination.)
But Warren’s final shrug to say “No” was at least as important as Clinton’s 30-year march to say “Yes.” When Warren dropped out by not getting in, she created a vacuum into which stepped Bernie Sanders. A relative unknown despite three decades in Congress, he was really only known to the world at large as the guy with the cojones to vote against George W. Bush’s Iraq War and as the quirky old guy with the overly specific commie-sounding belief system. (If you follow politics more closely, you also knew Bernie as the so-called independent that caucused with the Democrats and for whom the party always cleared the primary field for each election, as well as being one of the sole liberal wingnuts to support the Paul dynasty’s Quixotic, sad, meaningless, tinfoil-hat-wearing Audit the Fed crusade.)
But Sanders filled the need and played the role that was waiting for him. He didn’t build a movement, the movement had already been built for Elizabeth. The audience and the following was there, it just no longer had a candidate. The crowd was assembled and needed a champion. Bernie fit the mold, and to be sure, he played the role well.
But make no mistake, this is Warren’s revolution. Bernie Sanders is not the future of the Progressive Movement in American. Elizabeth Warren is.
Reports are now starting to swirl that Warren is going to endorse Clinton. Of course she is. Warren is not an idiot, and neither is Clinton. They need each other, to both win in November and to govern thereafter. One will run the White House and the other will run the party platform in Congress. (Regardless of her official standing in party leadership, Warren will be the person to reckon with in Congress. Chuck Schumer may be in line to be majority leader if the election goes very well for the donkeys, but it will be Elizabeth’s show in reality.) All of which is precisely why choosing the Massachusetts senator as vice president would be a foolish move. She can do so much more on the Hill.
There will be time to allow Sanders to come back into the fold: to take down his tent, drop his windmill-tilting self-preening need to be the big man in front of the big crowds and to “take the fight” all the way to convention. He’ll be welcomed with open arms to fight like hell to get Clinton and as many other Democrats elected in the fall (both leftists and moderates) as possible. The party will give him a week to come to his senses. Tops.
But if next Tuesday and the D.C. primary comes and goes, and Sanders is still insisting that the fight isn’t over, then the true leader of the movement that he’s been babysitting for the past year will come back and take it. She’ll have to. It’s hers, after all. It’s her future; not his.
Just ask yourself: If you were forced to vote for Warren or Sanders, which would you pick?