In response to an op-ed where Markos Moulitsas told the movement pushing to draft Elizabeth Warren to run for president to "pack it in" and go home, Ready for Warren campaign manager Erica Sagrans wrote the following response in The Hill: The Draft Warren movement: Crashing the gate of the 2016 election
As the founder of Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas led the movement to “crash the gate” of the political establishment in the mid 2000’s — channeling the energy of the newly formed netroots to completely shake up politics in Washington. Nine years after Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong published their book, “Crashing the Gate,” we believe it’s time to crash the gate again — this time, by leading a grassroots effort to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to run for president.
So it’s surprising that Moulitsas is now telling this people-powered movement urging Elizabeth Warren to run for president that we should just “pack it in” and go home. Just as the Iraq War did in 2004, today our movement is galvanized by growing income inequality and frustration at Wall Street banks that crashed our economy. It’s the way the system is rigged in favor of those at the very top, with too many Americans working harder than ever while falling behind. No one has spoken out more passionately or intelligently about these problems — and solutions — than Sen. Warren.
We completely agree with Moulitsas when he says that “Warren’s positions on key issues are extremely popular with voters, from student loan relief to breaking up too-big-to-fail banks to expanding Social Security.” Warren has inspired hundreds of thousands of people across the country with the way she’s fighting for progressive values. It’s rare that a leader emerges to meet the moment the way Warren has, and the energy we’re seeing behind Warren and her ideas is real.
Even with Hillary Clinton as the anticipated the front-runner, wouldn’t it be incredible to have two accomplished women out there representing the Democratic Party, laying out their visions for our country and competing for the nomination? Running for president would give Warren and the values she’s fought for her whole life unprecedented attention in the national debate.
But what if she can win? A recent YouGov poll showed that 98 percent of Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats want a contested primary, and even 60 percent of Clinton supporters said they want Warren to run. Voters in Colorado recently surprised well-respected Democratic pollster Peter Hart, whose major takeaway from a bipartisan focus group was that “[people are] looking for someone who will be a voice for their cause. And Elizabeth Warren has broken through.”
Warren may not have the “narcissistic egotism” that Moulitsas believes leads some people to run for president. Warren is the rare leader who is motivated not by political power, but by political outcomes, and the chance to change people’s lives for the better.
Warren has always been a reluctant politician. Long before she became a senator, Warren was asked to be part of a group tasked with helping reform bankruptcy laws. Here’s how she described her thought process then:
“There were other people on the commission who were perfectly willing to take it over, and who frankly in my view had a totally wrongheaded view about the families who were in bankruptcy and the changes that needed to be made,” Warren recalled in the UCTV interview. “I just looked around and said, ‘Look, either I step up, or nobody does.’”
That’s the moment we’re in now: either Warren herself steps up, or nobody does. And as Moulitsas himself points out, Warren was hesitant to run for Senate in 2012 — until progressives changed her mind. It’s a good thing that the movement to draft Warren then didn’t let anyone talk them out of it, and we’re not about to let anyone else talk us out of it now.
Before the netroots revolution led by Moulitsas and others, politics belonged to the party committees, pundits, and professionals in D.C. But bloggers and progressive activists showed that regular people had something to say about politics, and they created new ways for the grassroots to engage in the political process. Our democracy is unquestionably stronger because of this. Now, we’re following Moulitsas’ lead— giving people a voice, and crashing the gate of the 2016 election. Sagrans is a former Obama 2012 staffer who now serves as the Ready for Warren Campaign Manager.
