Elizabeth Warren catapulted herself back into the conversation by eviscerating mega-billionaire Michael Bloomberg on the debate stage in Las Vegas. Her surgical takedown translated into more than $5 million online and the wish among some Democrats that she stay on the offensive in tonight’s South Carolina debate—only this time taking on her ideological soulmate, Bernie Sanders, who is on his way to claiming the nomination if he isn’t slowed, and soon.
“She was so tough with Bloomberg, she clearly hurt him,” says Larry Sabato, founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “She could probably do the same thing to Sanders to a certain degree if she aimed her firepower at him. She has more credibility with some of the people on the left. Maybe she can get them to think about electability and some of the attacks that are coming. Honeymooning in Moscow is just the beginning.”
Warren has hinted that she’s ready to take on Sanders, telling Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC last week that “I get stuff done,” citing a bipartisan bill making hearing aids available over-the-counter to older people that passed the GOP senate. “I don’t want to be president just to yell at people, I want to be president to change things,” she said, drawing the contrast between herself and Sanders.
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Still, it’s tricky. One Democratic strategist who did not want to be identified described it as “the classic prisoner’s dilemma,” a phenomenon identified in game theory where completely rational people don’t cooperate. “Every candidate knows Sanders has to be stopped, but each benefits more if someone else does the takedown,” he says.
In a multi-candidate field, Warren can’t be sure where those votes go that she peels away from Sanders. Some of Sanders’ older voters might be inclined to go to Biden. “The best case for Warren is to keep herself in the conversation by continuing to hit Bloomberg and let one of the other candidates take the responsibility for slowing Bernie,” says this strategist, acknowledging that the result of hoping someone else does it is that nobody does it, and that has to end in South Carolina.
Opinion is split on whether it makes sense for Warren to go after Sanders. A consultant to the Warren camp who did not want to be named says Warren will never strip away the Bernie Bros, and she can get the Bernie-curious folks more effectively by skewering Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg, whose health care plan she dismissed in the last debate as “Power Point.”
As this consultant sees it, Warren’s only successful strategy to the nomination is as a unity candidate who can bridge the two wings of the party. “If she's spent the previous few months attacking him, that won't happen—and if it did, he wouldn't be able to bring along the Bernie Bros,” says this consultant.
Putting off the here and now to bet on a contested convention in July seems too theoretical for Warren, who needs another spirited debate performance to keep her campaign viable through Super Tuesday. We’ve heard her best lines about Bloomberg, it’s time to see what she’s got about Sanders.
Yes, they’re allies, but she accused him of calling her a liar on national television after he disputed her account of his skepticism that a woman could win the presidency in this cycle.
Sanders’ post-Nevada push into Super Tuesday states includes Massachusetts, Warren’s home state, where a UMass Lowell poll with a big margin of error puts Sanders at 21 percent and Warren at 20 percent. He’s planning to visit the state, where he got 44 percent of the vote against Hillary Clinton in 2016. His campaign is planning a “Berniepalooza,” a four-day festival of music and canvassing in Worcester, home to nine colleges and lots of young voters.
That should be incentive enough for Warren to have a go at him. “She can’t afford not to take him on,” says Jack Pitney, professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. “When you have two candidates with similar views, that’s how you win. It’s unlikely one picks the other for vice president. This is her shot, and Bernie is in the way.”
Warren’s disappointing results in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada have been attributed to progressives closing ranks behind Sanders. Her insistence that her Medicare for All proposal would not require raising taxes on the middle class is also faulted for her slide in the polls. Analysts didn’t find it believable.
Sanders, in a 60 Minutes interview over the weekend, said he didn’t know how much his plans on health care, the Green New Deal, canceling all student debt, and free college tuition would cost. He put the price tag for Medicare for All at $30 trillion. He has options to pay for that, he said, adding, “I can’t rattle off every nickel and dime.”
Warren has described herself as “a capitalist to my bones,” and part of running a government is figuring out how to pay for it. Sanders has gotten away with simply saying the middle class will pay more in taxes, but what they get back from government in benefits, namely health care, will exceed what they’ve paid in tax dollars.
Warren has performed worse than expected in every state so far. If she truly believes she is the better candidate on the progressive side, now is the time to delineate the reasons why, and sharpen her differences with Sanders. “She could gain the gratitude of the party if she pointed out some of Sanders vulnerabilities,” says Sabato. “I don’t want to say Bernie can’t win. There’s always a path. But they’ve (Democrats) made it much more difficult for themselves.”
