The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Warren makes presidential bid official with a call for change
LAWRENCE, Mass. — Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren made her bid for the presidency official on Saturday in this working-class city, grounding her 2020 campaign in a populist call to fight economic inequality and build “an America that works for everyone.”
Warren delivered a sharp call for change at her presidential kickoff, decrying a “middle-class squeeze” that has left Americans crunched with “too little accountability for the rich, too little opportunity for everyone else.” She and her backers hope that message can distinguish her in a crowded Democratic field and help her move past the controversy surrounding her past claims to Native American heritage.
Weaving specific policy prescriptions into her remarks, from Medicare for All to the elimination of Washington “lobbying as we know it,” Warren avoided taking direct jabs at President Donald Trump. She aimed for a broader institutional shift instead, urging supporters to choose “a government that makes different choices, choices that reflect our values.”
Trump “is not the cause of what’s broken,” Warren told an elated crowd without using the president’s name. “He’s just the latest — and most extreme — symptom of what’s gone wrong in America.”
Warren announced her campaign in her home state of Massachusetts at a mill site where factory workers went on strike in the early 20th century, a fitting forum for the longtime consumer advocate to advance her platform.
Supporters turned out in below-freezing temperatures, many hoisting signs — “Win With Warren,” one read. A Massachusetts bakery created “Persist” cookies for the event to honor the candidate’s slogan, “Nevertheless, She Persisted,” words first spoken in the Senate to rebuke her.
Warren’s rollout rally was a potent motivator for longtime supporters such as Mo Malekafzaly and Carlos Garcia, two longtime backers who attended her rally from Shrewsbury, Mass.
The choice of Lawrence to start her campaign “shows who she’s fighting for,” Garcia said. Asked if fellow New Englander Sen. Bernie Sanders could pose a serious threat to Warren in New Hampshire’s critical primary should he get into the race, Garcia said Warren is “such an effective communicator that I think that people will respond to that very well.”
Warren enters the race as one of the party’s most recognizable figures. She has spent the past decade in the national spotlight, first emerging as a consumer activist during the financial crisis. She later led the congressional panel that oversaw the 2008 financial industry bailout. After Republicans blocked her from running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency she helped create, she ran for the Senate in 2012 and unseated a GOP incumbent.
She has $11 million left over from her commanding 2018 Senate re-election victory that can be used on her presidential run.
Still, Warren must compete against other popular Democrats who will be able to raise substantial money. A recent CNN poll found that fewer Democrats said they’d be very likely to support Warren if she runs than said the same of former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Sanders. Still, about as many Democrats said they’d be at least somewhat likely to support Warren as said the same of Harris or Sanders.
Warren’s launch comes at a challenging moment for the 69-year-old senator. She’s apologized twice over the past two weeks for claiming Native American identity on multiple occasions early in her career. That claim has created fodder for Republicans and could overshadow her campaign.