Warren on the Campaign Trail
A Massachusetts politician was center stage yet again in presidential politics, as Senator Elizabeth Warren joined Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail for the first time. Our senior senator quickly assumed a role she's come to relish. A pill bull gnawing on Donald Trump's ankle. Warren's ability to juice the progressive wing of the party with her fiery rhetoric reportedly has her on the short list for Vice President.
Trump was unimpressed, tweeting “crooked hillary is wheeling out one of the least productive senators in the US senate, goofy Elizabeth Warren, who lied on heritage." The Clinton campaign is turning up the heat, running an ad, targeting Trump's response to Brexit as being self centered and unstatesman-like.
It's all an effort by Clinton to keep building momentum. An ABC-Washington Post poll has Clinton up 51 percent to 39. An NBC Wall Street Journal poll has the race closer, 46 -41, with Clinton still in the lead.
Carly Carioli ( @carlycarioli), a contributing editor at Politico. Jesse Mermell ( @jessemermell), former communications director for Governor Patrick (Clinton supporter), and Robert Hedlund ( @SenBobHedlund), mayor (republican) of Weymouth joined Jim to discuss the issues.
Hedlund does not think that Warren will ever be a vice presidential candidate. He thinks at first, no one will vote for two women on the ticket. (Mermell immediately interjected saying that we vote for two men all the time.) Although Hedlund understands Mermell’s comment, he thinks that you wouldn’t see a woman presidential nominee along with another woman as the vice presidential candidate. He also finds that ideologically the democratic party may need a moderate candidate to pick up any state that may swing to the republican direction.
Mermell said, “I see that image of two women up there on stage, potentially leading the country and my heart sings.” She also said that she appreciates thinking strategically. Mermell thinks that the vice president should be someone that ‘clicks’ with Clinton personally and gets along with the machine. A decent candidate is someone who can avoid the internal nonsense. She also thinks that Elizabeth Warren is more powerful as a senator. “I don't know why Elizabeth Warren would want to be V.P. She’s so powerful right now, so powerful in the senate, and she get’s to be her own voice as opposed to being someone’s number two.”
Carioli finds that Warren doesn’t need to be on the ticket. He agrees with Mermell’s point and if Trump is elected he added, “Elizabeth Warren in the senate can be a leader of a new class of senators.” Carioli mentioned that Warren and Clinton on the same target made Donald Trump turn away from tweets and calling Warren ‘Pocahontas.’ He also added that Warren can still pummel Trump the way she has on the campaign trail without necessarily being on the ticket.
