And then there’s Elizabeth Warren…
…who’s every bit as deficient in the “likability” department as Kamala Harris, but who seems to be doing pretty well and even gaining some support. Why is that?
As commenter “FOAF” writes:
…Warren is scary for reasons beyond herself. She is no more likable than Harris and should have been buried by the fiasco about her heritage. But she is a leftist true believer which is exactly where the Democrat party is now. And even lying about her background doesn’t hurt her with Dems because it also reflects what they are – completely unscrupulous about using identity politics to gain power.
I had originally thought—when Warren declined to run in previous presidential election years—that she would be considered too old to run in 2020. But in this field she’s practically a spring chicken. And, despite her schoolmarmy vibe, she looks very good for a woman her age: trim, not especially wrinkled, and energetic.
But her real appeal is the same as Bernie Sanders’ was in 2016: she and he are the True Believers. At least, I think they are, despite contradictions and the hypocrisies you can point out between their political philosophies and the way they live their lives. They seem sincere—and although the “seem” is all that really matters in an election, I think they are sincere as long as their politics don’t require them to take vows of poverty.
Since the Democrats are now officially leftists, Warren is quite acceptable and even desirable to the party in that sense. She has a certain gravitas that the young ones lack, and unlike the even-older Biden, she doesn’t appear to be poised on the mentally-losing-it border.
Warren also has whatever it was that made some people like Hillary Clinton (yes, some people liked Hillary): a feisty quality that reads as “strong woman.”
FOAF is quite correct that to most Democrats, Warren’s history of using identity politics based on a lie about herself won’t matter. It’s easy to explain away as “But she was merely mistaken; she believed herself to be part-Cherokee.” In the scheme of things, what choice do Democrats have? Warren is one of the most viable candidates—Hillary 2.0 without all the baggage (although Warren has some of her own, it can’t compare in heaviness); Bernie 2.0 without the advanced age and the New York leftist shtick; and creds as a real leftist who can be trusted to do the lefty thing once in office.
What’s not to like?
“But she was merely mistaken; she believed herself to be part-Cherokee.”
if she looked like Cher maybe, but since the blonde blue eyed Warren could be a poster child for nazism I doubt it
Honestly, I don’t think this likability stuff is going to matter next year. Anybody not Trump will do for a large amount of people. The whole Trump thing gets so tiring. Episodes like this morning’s tweets are so infuriating. I can generally support most of his policies but things like this morning anger me greatly.
blonde blue eyed Warren
Very few blondes over 35 come by it naturally, and I doubt Warren is one of them. Some quondam blondes never quite recover from losing their golden locks. I was poleaxed recently to see a dear cousin of mine refer to her hair as ‘dark blonde’ on FB. Her hair is the same shade as that of her daughter, who had blinding platinum hair as a child and a handsome golden mane as an adolescent. Her daughter’s hair is mousy brown, balled up in an elegant bun top of her head.
Warren had an ancestor who lived in the old Indian Territory ca. 1895. I’m wagering that’s how she got the idea she had red Indian blood, not realizing that about 2/3 of the population of the old Indian territory was recorded as white by enumerators.
Good old Indian Princess Liz’s story was kind of an embellished fantasy about her parents having to sneak out of town and elope because marriage to a person of Indian descent was not socially acceptable except that did not happen. Relatives in Oklahoma who attended the marriage and the reception at the local church were quick to point out that the wedding and reception were well attended and written up in the local paper and a good time was had by all.
And of course no Indian tribe wants any part of her identity mess. Meanwhile I have a grand daughter who’s grandmother on the other side took her up to Oklahoma for a sunrise ceremony a year ago and had her entered into the tribal roles, 1/32 Potawatomi and they gave her a feather and an Indian name. That was a nice recognition of my grand daughter’s heritage on her father’s side of the family. That’s how people know they are part Indian, even if it is a fraction.
“But she was merely mistaken; she believed herself to be part-Cherokee.”
HAHAHAHA, that’s exactly what they say too! especially the believing herself to be Cherokee. I know this because I have a really good friend who is a hard core lefty.
A Bottle blonde, it looks from web search pics.
Good old Indian Princess Liz’s story was kind of an embellished fantasy about her parents having to sneak out of town and elope because marriage to a person of Indian descent was not socially acceptable except that did not happen. Relatives in Oklahoma who attended the marriage and the reception at the local church were quick to point out that the wedding and reception were well attended and written up in the local paper and a good time was had by all.
Where and when did she spew that fabrication? Charles Curtis of Kansas was the vice president of the United States and had a long history in Congress. His first run for elective office was around about 1892, at the peak of the post-bellum lynching craze. He made a quite a public point about his Cherokee ancestors. Unlike Warren’s, his were real. LaDonna Harris has long made quite a public point of her Comanche background. She married Fred Harris (later elected to Congress) in 1949, the year Elizabeth Warren was born. Her brief memoir (wherein she says she filters everything through ‘Comanche values’) mentions ‘so much racism’ in Lawton, Okla ca. 1958, but the only concrete example she offers was being blackballed by the local Junior League. (My mother resigned from the Junior League in 1964; she might have told you being blackballed was a blessing).
“blonde blue eyed Warren
Very few blondes over 35 come by it naturally, and I doubt Warren is one of them. ”
obviously true. few blondes stay blonde past their twenties, myself included. however when Heather Locklear did hair coloring commercials, it was appropriate because she looked like someone who was blonde as a child and teen as does Frau Warren who looks like someone who would turn me into a soap bar.
Hence , all Pocahontos had to do was look into a mirror and realize she was Uber Indo-Aryan and not American Indian.
There’s a database of ‘Oklahoma County Marriage Records, 1890-1995’ which records the marriage of Don Herring and Pauline Reed to have occurred in Hughes County, Oklahoma on 2 January 1932. On his 1943 draft registration, he lists his name as “Donald Jones Herring”, his dob as 5 November 1911, his current address as ‘Wetumka’, ‘Hughes County’, Okla, and his employer as ‘G.L. Herring’. That would be his father, Grant Herring. The elder Mr. Herring was, in 1930 and 1940, recorded by the census enumerator as the proprietor of the local hardware store. His son in 1940 was recorded by the same enumerator as working in a hardware store. He was also recorded as having completed two years of tertiary schooling and owning the home in which he was residing (with his wife and Eliz. Warren’s older brothers).
Biden, Warren, Harris, Sanders…,
They make the crude, bombastic Trump look like Saint Francis.
I could understand Warren’s believing family stories told to her as a child. Looking at her European face in the mirror and then claiming to be Indian for the purpose of filling an affirmative action slot is a different matter.
From beginning to end, Warren’s “I’m an Indian too” schtick is just one big, fat, old fashioned lie.
How about the evidence that her parents had an ordinary, well attended, and publicized wedding in the nearby town, and didn’t have to–as she told it–elope to be married elsewhere because of her family’s prejudice against her mother’s supposed “Indian blood”?
Then, there is the fact that, as Warren has said, she self identified as an ‘”Indian” “so that she could meet other Indians like her.”
If this was her aim, why didn’t she ever attend any of the on campus meetings of the “American Indian Law association,” whose leader has said he personally invited her to attend them on three separate occasions while she taught at Harvard? I believe I also remember reading that an Indian leader said that no one in the Indian community can remember Warren ever attending any of their periodic “powows.”
Is she really, honestly thought that she was in “Indian,” why did she drop that claim once she had secured tenure at Harvard?
Beyond all this, she is just a nasty harridan, a woman stiff, humorless, and fanatic in manner, who I can imagine would feel right at home at, for instance, the Salem Witch trials.
Despite my genetics, the Democrat will allow me to choose my gender. Why can’t I choose my heritage too? I’m so confused. Being a Democrat is such hard work.
My blue-eyed, pale-skinned grandmother was from Oklahoma. She lied without missing a beat that she was Cherokee so my mother could get into the Santa Fe Indian Hospital so I could be born.
My grandmother had great cheekbones too. But she was all Scottish, English and German.
1. Her paternal grandfather, Grant Herring, was the son of a pair of immigrants who settled in Missouri. His father was born in England and his mother in Switzerland.
2. Her paternal grandmother, Ethel Virginia Jones, grew up in Missouri the daughter of a married couple who’d migrated there from Tennessee and Kentucky.
3. Her maternal grandfather, Harry Gunn Reed, grew up in southern Illinois, the son of a man who had grown up in Ohio (the issue of parents who had migrated from New Jersey) and a mother whose family had arrived in Missouri as pioneers.
4. Her maternal grandmother, Hannie Crawford was born in Missouri (ca. 1876) of parents born in Missouri. The Crawfords moved around some, decamping to Arkansas ca. 1878, then to Texas ca. 1882, then back to Arkansas within a couple of years, then to the Indian Territory ca. 1891 (farming in all these locations). Eventually her father migrated to Hughes County in the eastern part of the state and opened a butcher shop.
BTW, Elizabeth Warren would have been acquainted with all four grandparents. They all lived in northeast Oklahoma; one of them died when she was 7, two when she was about 20, and one when she was 26. Someone in that family was a serious yarn-puller, and I doubt it was the grandparents.
Art Deco,
I agree with everything you are saying about Warren but do you really think it will matter if she is the nominee? The media will cover for her massively as this will be the story they cover with a pillow til it’s stops breathing.
In some ways this is comparable to Obama’s Rev. Wright problem in 2008. She can give some namby pamby speech that the media will praise to the heavens and then never mention the story again.
Then Trump will bring it up and be accused of somehow being racist against Native Americans (ala his recent Israel comments). And boom it’s now about Trump.
Maybe I’m too cynical and in really bad mood but this seems like something the left will not allow to become an issue.
Warren and huband amassed wealth the good ole capitalist way. If she is the nominee it will come out in the campaign against djt. IMO Gabbard is their best choice. Young, energetic, and does not appeal to the hard left. The hard left is not the base that will win an election outside of CA and the usual suspects. But they will vote for anyone who is not OMB.
Griffin:
The left will certainly TRY to defuse the issue. And they may even succeed.
But maybe not. I don’t think Warren is a package that will win a lot of people over to her side unless they already are pretty much there and hate Trump. The entire thing really depends on how many people are at that point. If enough people are there, it really doesn’t matter who the Democrats choose to nominate.
I agree with everything you are saying about Warren but do you really think it will matter if she is the nominee?
Recall the world we lived in in 1987. Donna Rice was enough to sink Gary Hart’s candidacy and the Neil Kinnock video was enough to sink Joseph Biden’s. The major media were known to favor the Democrats, but they had some professional standards and competitive spirit. They were willing to make Hart and Biden look ridiculous. We live in a jaded age, so that’s likely not possible anymore. But now the DNC operatives with bylines will hammer stories and ignore other stories per their political objects. Most people hardly notice, but they’re not aiming for most people. They’re aiming for vacuous swing voters for whom controversy is a sign of wrongdoing.
Keep in mind the supposedly short-staffed media had the man-hours to undertake a massive fishing expedition into Sarah Palin’s office e-mail (and found nothing they could exploit). Not everyone has skeletons in their closet and carefully crafted frauds.
Another point to note about her is that she is a “political changer”.
https://www.salon.com/2019/04/23/elizabeth-warren-admits-she-used-to-be-a-republican-heres-why-she-abandoned-the-party_partner/
Art,
Yep, and some of the people really involved in breaking the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal were definitely Democrats. Hard to imagine that story ever getting life for a Democratic president now.
But the bigger problem is they have rigged it so much that those squishy swing voters still get their news from old guard media mostly so they won’t be exposed to it if it’s being pushed by right leaning outlets or journalists. Just look at the collusion nonsense. How many of the amazing reporters from the right have cashed in with big jobs at the NYT, CNN or NBC?
When you think of how tight the margins were in those upper midwest states every little bit helps.
I agree with you Neo that I thought Liz was done after her ‘cringe worthy’ video on her DNA results. For a long time now I have thought she will probably be the Dems candidate. We will see. But when you insult half of America, white people and men you lose. Go ask HRC. Liz has low enthusiasm and a limited base. Trump has people that hate him, but he also has people that think he is the ‘Bee’s Knees’. You only have to win by a fraction of 1%. The last time we had a president win by 60% was Reagan. Elections are always close.
One more time;
I think Liz Warren will be the nominee. I cannot help seeing Warren as a Salmon to Trump’s Grizzly bear.
https://youtu.be/TSSPDwAQLXs
Nature is grand.
Parker;
I 100% agree with you about Gabbard, but the Democratic Party is trying to keep her out of the debates. They are so corrupt and they apparently want to lose. MSM is already losing viewers in droves. Rachel numbers have been cut in half. Without Trump, they are done.
huxley
My grandmother had great cheekbones too. But she was all Scottish, English and German.
A cousin of mine, on my father’s side, who shares with me 1/512 Indian ancestry (born before 1700), has high cheekbones. (there could be more, but that is all we can document.) During her college years she worked one summer at Crater Lake National Park. A visitor to the park asked my cousin in she were Indian. She decided to play along, and told the visitor she was the great-granddaughter of Cochise. 🙂
At least I thought it was funny.
My cousin got her high cheekbones from our grandmother, who, as far as we can tell, didn’t have any Indian ancestry.
My mother is from Oklahoma. Her brothers both married women who were mixed race, each 1/8 Indian. And they looked it. Both had successful careers in addition to raising their children. Neither used their ancestry to extract advantage- in contrast to Lizzie using her purported ancestry.
No, they didn’t have to sneak around to get married. Which made me skeptical of Elizabeth Warren’s tale that her parents had to elope because of parental disapproval of marrying someone with Indian ancestry.
Warren is my current pick for the Dem nomination.
Not that’s she’s a great candidate and not that her Native American fraud shouldn’t sink her, but after Biden erodes or implodes in the primaries, who’s left?
Sanders is a no-hoper for no appeal beyond the Bernie Bros. Harris is losing ground already — she doesn’t seem to have the smarts or “It” appeal. None of the dwarves in the race show any signs of take-off.
Warren is a reasonably attractive woman and leftist who has put together a competent “I’ve got a plan for that” persona that looks as good as Democrats are going to get for the 2020 race.
Unless Michelle-O descends from the sky with Barack’s blessing — I’m not giving up on that possibility, though I grant it’s a slim one.
My cousin got her high cheekbones from our grandmother, who, as far as we can tell, didn’t have any Indian ancestry.
Gringo: Good to share an Oklahoma connection with you!
What is it with cheekbones? Was it about getting beyond Neanderthalish features?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/Comparison_of_faces_of_Homo_sapiens_and_Neanderthal.jpg/1280px-Comparison_of_faces_of_Homo_sapiens_and_Neanderthal.jpg
A piece in the Washington Examiner today asks: “What if Kamala Harris endorses Joe Biden?”:
“…. all Pocahontos had to do was look into a mirror and realize she was Uber Indo-Aryan and not American Indian.”
A woman with those awful looks cannot be an Aryan. LOL
I think that at one time in Europe, before the Old Europeans, before the Indo-Europeans, there must have been a race of ugly fair-skinned elf looking types with big cheekbones and upturned noses, complemented by crazy eyes … the windows to their soulless souls.
Ann: A Biden-Harris alliance looks good on paper. I like it.
Such things are always complicated by the details, but if no one in those campaigns is considering the possibility, they should be.
“Episodes like this morning’s tweets are so infuriating. I can generally support most of his policies but things like this morning anger me greatly.” Griffin
No offense but that’s evidence that you can’t see the forest for the trees. “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” is needed not calculated nuance.
—————————————————————————————-
As for Warren, use her lying about her false native american ancestry as an aside. Primarily focus upon her support for extremism during the primary debates, then in the Presidential debates Trump can point out the various aspects of her extremism. He’ll eat her for breakfast.
If the dems run a highly unlikely moderate, their radical base’s voting will at best be lukewarm.
If the dems run a radical, that extremism will counteract liberal supporters distaste for Trump and they will lack the passion needed to drive large numbers of them to the polls.
Much will depend upon the support Trump gets from the republican party establishment. IF the PACs and SuperPacs repeatedly run ads exposing the dems extremism, they’ll lose in a landslide.
Geoffrey,
So you think comparing Jerome Powell to the communist leader of China is appropriate?
Do you really think Trump will be reelected if unemployment goes 6-7%? That’s the point. And it’s far from clear that this approach will even work. But in the meantime I guess we will have to live with constant uncertainty and policy by whim.
Some things are too big to solve in a few years and if Trump is a one and done president all the positives will be wiped out with leftist appointees and burueacrats. I guess I’m just not into messing with people’s livelihoods in such a capricious manner in a quest for a probably unattainable goal.
Biden is mentally fading too fast for my taste, I wish he could delay it until nominated 🙂 If it isn’t Biden, I agree that Warren is the most likely, but that she is probably weak among the electorate who are currently keeping the Biden afloat. My guess is that some Biden supporters would go for Trump instead. But who knows, if I could predict elections I’d be in another business.
Griffen,
Yes I do because Trump MUST have full cooperation from the Fed, which he is not getting. He needs that cooperation to both win the trade war with China and avoid a recession with 6-7% unemployment.
Instead Powell and the Fed are only offering lip service, while doing nothing to assist America. The Fed’s actions are more in keeping with the dems hope for the US to fall into a recession.
Trump as egotistic as he is, is NOT primarily acting to gain reelection, he’s doing this to literally save America from both losing to China, which would have in time disastrous effects to the preservation of other countries self-determination and to save America from what the Left would make of us.
Trump’s bombast and crudeness is clearly preventing you from seeing that he has, BY FAR a clearer appreciation of the threats to America both external and internal than any other major public figure.
History demonstrates that great men and Trump, for all his faults is proving to be a great man… more often than not have great flaws. Perhaps it’s a natural balance; everyone has their flaws and great men and women have flaws commensurate with their greatness.
Geoffrey,
Yeah the only problem is that Powell spoke this morning in Jackson Hole before that tweet and he pretty much in Fed speak said they would cut rates at their meeting next month. The Fed has only raised rates once at Jackson and that was 2008 when the financial crisis was erupting so they weren’t going to cut today. The market wants cuts as bad as Trump and it actually rose off of weak open from China’s tariffs and was up when Trump went off. The Fed’s job is not to work in concert with the President and I don’t want that to be their thinking.
And I don’t think they want a recession. The data is very mixed and making a bunch of cuts too early could limit their tools if things go really bad.
neo, I only just saw this. Thank you for quoting me so prominently.
“Biden would gain a campaigner who has the intellect”
Harris? Oh please. One of the reasons her campaign is fading is that she is not too swift on the uptake.
Having said that, we should probably all lay off predictions for a while … I know of course we won’t, I probably won’t either. But it is still very early. Months before the first primaries/caucuses. I suspect there will be some surprising twists no one has even thought of yet. Ok there’s my prediction lol.