The Vice President selection will come soon, and I hope Elizabeth Warren is chosen.
We need someone who builds good large-scale domestic policy to get out of this pandemic and recession, and nobody does it like her. She was calling to organize federal resources against the virus as early as January 29. On March 26 as the crisis hit, she was laying out which agencies to fund for more medical workers and which policies would create more RNA extraction tests.
Her wealth tax was my favorite big idea of the primary campaign. It's 2% on wealth over $50M, 3% on wealth over $1B, with big IRS funding to hunt the wealth of the super-rich. Concentrated wealth undermines democracy and the market, as it's happy to increase itself through undemocratic and non-market means. Warren's wealth tax, and the enforcement structure she wanted to build for it, is a good battle plan for the war against billionaire feudalism.
She's good in the Senate. But her policy superpowers make the optimal position for her Executive Branch super-technocrat. (Senate leadership positions are better for a bloc-builder like Jeff Merkley, and committees should be chaired by specialists rather than generalists.) She built the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Executive Branch coming out of an academic job, before running for Senate. It returned $12 billion to people ripped off by Wall Street.
We don't know what America's economic and medical situation will be in January 2021. But we need well-thought-out policy dealing with it, and that's what she offers. Base voters we need to turn out and swing voters we need to attract are both genuinely interested in well-thought-out policy on issues that weigh heavily on their lives. Warren earned a reputation for that kind of policy.Biden can cement his lead by offering it.
There are 9 polls on Wikipedia asking about VP preference, sampling various populations -- Democrats, battleground state independents, all voters. Warren leads outside the margin of error in 6, within the margin in 2, and is second in the final one (which was a panel of early primary state voters). What data we have says she's as solid a pick as anyone for getting people to vote for Biden.
Biden already consults her regularly. He's a party man, not a policy wonk. He knows this about himself. His abortion, Iraq, LGBT, and health care views have followed the party leftward over time. He already changed his position towards hers on the big conflict between them -- bankruptcy. I suspect she can change him further.
Biden's special ability is schmoozing DC old boys. That won't beat a pandemic and a recession. But having him schmooze the DC old boys to enact Warren's plans is the way we want it. It looks like they might eliminate the filibuster -- they'll do it for good old Joe!
We need to run Medicare for All and the Green New Deal through that opening. VPs have decided policy before, and Warren can be for the Jedi what Cheney was for the Sith. Biden currently opposes M4A, a party man taking the party line. It's fun when a party man gets asked "what would your view be if the party changed its view?" Philosophers of language will recognize questions about how to rigidify. Those who understand the Executive Branch will recognize the value of having someone who's good on the inside, with four years of locked-in job security, at the second-highest inside position.
Progressives can do a lot to change the party line with Warren on the inside. Biden's plan of public option 2021 is just the first step of her plan to M4A 2023. Biden's positions on this and other issues have changed with the party before, and of course they'll change some more.
Elizabeth Warren can change them, and so many other things, for the better.
