Liz joins Dems in big left turn to excite base
2020 hopefuls feeling blue
Things are going left for the Democratic Party on the way to 2020.
Among the growing list of potential Democratic presidential hopefuls, there is a decided move to embrace more liberal policies and stances in the hunt to grab the mantle as the party’s leader.
Even those who backed Hillary Clinton for president two years ago are now working harder to associate themselves with her more liberal primary opponent.
The latest: Bay State U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who will join Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders — the progressive Vermont independent she declined to endorse in 2016 — at a televised town hall on income inequality tonight on Capitol Hill.
Sanders said the event is an offshoot of the effort he launched to push his single-payer health care plan.
Sanders said he wants to “build on the success of our ‘Medicare for All’ town hall and go outside the traditional media to talk about who owns America, why the middle class is declining, extreme poverty and how we create an economy that works for everybody, not just the 1 percent.”
Warren, who is seeking reelection to her second term as Massachusetts’ senior U.S. senator this year, has insisted she is not running for president, though she was more coy when asked if she will serve out another six-year Senate term if she wins in November.
And while she has always taken a progressive tack on issues such as consumer rights and Wall Street reform, since the 2016 election she has staked out left-leaning policies beyond the financial front. In September she signed on as a co-sponsor of Sanders’ “Medicaid for All” legislation. At the time she said that “everything should be on the table.”
The same is true for Democrats who will try to reclaim the mantle of populism from President Trump in their bids to unseat him. Riding the momentum of recent congressional races where Democrats were able to sway workingclass and suburban voters who backed Trump, they are bent of portraying themselves as the party of the people and not the political establishment.
Warren has a lot of company. Among other possible White House contenders co-sponsoring Sanders’ single-payer bill are Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). And as the presidential race draws closer, the space on the left promises to only grow more crowded.