Yes, Elizabeth Warren should run

By Richard K. Barry

Anna Galland has an opinion piece in today's Boston Globe in which she argues that Senator Elizabeth Warren should run for president.

Less than three years into her Senate term, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has established herself as the country’s leading advocate for working and middle-class families. The Democrat has proven equally adept behind the scenes and in the media spotlight, and has stood up to Wall Street banks and other powerful interests to win changes that are improving millions of Americans’ lives. Already, more than one observer has compared her to Massachusetts’ first “liberal lion” in the US Senate, Ted Kennedy.

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Warren should run. Our country will be better off if she does. She would be a strong candidate — one who injects valuable ideas into the conversation and ensures the kind of debate our country needs. And she could win.

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Put simply, this moment was made for Elizabeth Warren. With income inequality at its highest level on record, and corporations and lobbyists wielding enormous power in Washington and state capitals around the country, we need a president who is firmly grounded in making government work for regular people. Senator Warren has spent her career taking on corporate interests and winning historic financial protections for workers and small businesses.

Perhaps Warren is concerned that her candidacy would only anger Hillary Clinton, the person most likely to win the whole thing in November of 2016. But what Warren needs to realize is that the Clintons respond to only one thing, and that is power. 

A Warren candidacy would give the Massacusetts Senator that power and an even larger base from which to be the voice of real progressive politics in America. Should Clinton win the presidency, Warren will be in a better position to make demands of the White House instead of approaching a President Clinton with cap in hand.

And, who knows, if Warren ran and did better than expected, it wouldn't be the first time an upstart Senator gave the Clintons a run for their money.