A former Trump campaign staffer praised the “originality” of Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign on Thursday. Jack Kingston, a senior adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign, said that the Massachusetts senator is one of few Democrats running for president who actually has ideas for the country.
“She’s actually the only Democrat candidate who’s putting out detailed proposals with some originality,” Kingston told The Hill’s Hill.TV.
Crossing party lines
Standing in a crowded field of astro-turfed, establishment-aligned nobodies, Warren certainly has a higher profile than some of her competitors, and her ideas may be helping. Unlike other Democrats gunning for the White House, Warren is actually selling a detailed policy platform, Kingston noted.
“Unlike so many of them who are just always, ‘I’m not Trump, I hate Trump, did I tell you I’m not Trump?’ — Elizabeth is saying that but she’s also saying here’s my economic plan, and here’s what I would do income inequality and the Green New Deal,” Kingston said.
Warren has been having something of a moment the last few weeks. After previously being overshadowed by the likes of Sen. Kamala Harris (CA) and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Warren’s poll numbers have been on the upswing.
As of this week, RealClearPolitics has Warren trailing only Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT) and former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls.
A rocky road
Warren was the first major Democrat to declare her candidacy in January, and since then, the 69-year-old has proven a trailblazer of sorts in the policy realm. She has consistently been among the first to push for policies some would consider extreme, from slavery reparations and abolishing the electoral college to breaking up Big Tech.
Warren’s policy detail certainly makes for a contrast with the likes of Joe Biden, whose flip-flops on the Hyde Amendment and other issues betoken a lack of ideas, as well as candidates like Buttigieg and Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke, both of whom have tended to lean on generic rhetoric and a shallow anti-Trump message.
The senator’s current fortunes are a far cry from October, when she rolled out her infamously botched DNA test to prove her Native American heritage. Warren was declared dead on arrival at the time, but it appears that many voters are impressed with her ideas.
Warren’s moment?
Indeed, even Fox News star Tucker Carlson has offered measured praise for Warren. He recently praised her economic plan, in which the senator blasted multi-national corporations that “wave the flag, but…have no loyalty or allegiance to America.”
“On Tuesday, Warren release what she calls her plan for ‘economic patriotism,'” Carlson said. “Amazingly, that’s pretty much what it is — economic patriotism. There’s not a word about identity politics in the document. There are no hysterics about gun control or climate change. There’s no lecture about the plight of transgender illegal immigrants. It’s just pure, old-fashioned economics — how to preserve good-paying, American jobs.”
But while some may like Warren’s ideas, questions linger over her electability and lack of charisma. The senator’s Ivy League administrator vibe puts her at a distance to the “average Joe,” and it’s not clear either if she can overcome the “Pocahontas” label and the fall-out of her Native American claims.
According to a survey by a Democratic group, Warren was the preferred candidate of respondents when asked which Democrat they would pick to automatically become president. But when electability was factored in, Warren slipped to third, behind Sanders and Biden.
Who will ultimately come out on top to challenge Trump for the White House? Only time will tell.
No comments: