Tag: vp pick
What Elizabeth Warren’s Trans-Pacific Partnership Critique Means For The Democratic Party

What Elizabeth Warren’s Trans-Pacific Partnership Critique Means For The Democratic Party

Elizabeth Warren can change her party. And she knows it.

As the media speculates on the possibility of a Clinton-Warren ticket, the progressive Massachusetts senator is calling on the Democratic platform committee to take an explicit stand against the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a move that puts Democrats at a crossroads ahead of Friday’s platform meeting in Orlando.

The controversial, Obama-backed trade deal, known as “TPP” for short, looks to open up trade among the U.S. and eleven other Pacific Rim countries, as close as Canada and as far as Vietnam.

And so far, the Democrats’ platform committee has tip toed carefully around the pact, which has proponents and opponents on both sides of the aisle. Current language in the platform says that “there are a diversity of views in the party.”

Warren is looking to change that. In a video released on Thursday for the progressive activist group CREDO, she slammed the TPP as a “lousy” deal that would let “giant corporations rig the rules.”

Warren is primarily opposed to a key provision in the agreement known as the investor state dispute settlement, or ISDS, which would allow foreign companies to contest American law through an independent arbitration system — and reap millions if they win. Congress cannot pass an amended version of TPP without ISDS.

Contrary to the purported goal of protecting American investment abroad, the TPP would create “open season on laws that make people safer but that cut into corporate profits,” Warren says in Thursday’s video.

Although Clinton, Sanders, and Trump (yes, that’s right — Trump) have all expressed their opposition to the trade deal, the platform committee rejected an amendment to explicitly oppose TPP in the party platform.

Robert Borosage, of the progressive Campaign for America’s Future, argued that the anti-TPP amendment failed to pass because it lacked support from committee delegates chosen by Clinton and the DNC. Indeed, Clinton supported TPP as secretary of state and only changed her position on the pact once she entered the presidential race, according to PolitiFact.

While Warren has made her objections to the deal well-known — she gave at least two speeches urging Congress to oppose the deal earlier this spring — her latest criticism comes at a complex moment in the 2016 race.

For some commentators, criticism coming from an increasingly well-known progressive stalwart means death in no uncertain terms for one of two things: either a Clinton-Warren ticket, or the TPP itself.

By picking Warren in the midst of her crusade against the trade pact, it would be difficult for Clinton — and her many Democratic supporters — to support the carefully measured criticism of TPP as expressed in the current platform. (Warren, a noted firebrand, does not seem likely to back down from her position anytime soon.)

Conversely, if Clinton wants the Democratic Party to maintain its middle-of-the-road stance on the pact, a Warren VP choice would be… complicated. A pro-TPP coalition made up of Obama and members of Congress will be more likely to weather the current swell in anti-trade sentiment without rebuke from the Democrats’ presidential ticket — or, for that matter, the party platform.

Many have already raised doubts about Warren, a vocal critic of Wall Street, as a VP pick for Clinton. Her video message may solidify the rationale for keeping the populist out of the presidential race, though it’s Clinton’s prerogative.

As for Obama and other TPP backers, meanwhile, the forecast is grim. Regardless of who Clinton chooses as her running mate, Warren’s strong words — and growing presence — can only hurt efforts to pass a trade effort years in the making.

 

Photo: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren advocates against the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a video from progressive activist group CREDO. Screenshot via YouTube

Major Wall Street Donors Threaten To Pull Support For Clinton If Warren Is Named VP

Major Wall Street Donors Threaten To Pull Support For Clinton If Warren Is Named VP

Published with permission from Alternet.

A new report by Politico’s Ben White reveals major donors to Hillary Clinton’s campaign may revoke their support of the candidate if she chooses Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as her running mate for the general election.

Several donors, interviewed under the condition of anonymity, told Politico that Clinton’s Wall Street base would “leave her” if she picks Warren. “They would literally just say, ‘We have no qualms with you moving left, we understand all the things you’ve had to do because of Bernie Sanders, but if you are going there with Warren, we just can’t trust you, you’ve killed it,’” one donor said.

Another Democratic donor with ties to the banking industry said Clinton will face a massive division in the government, and Wall Street donors need “a vice president is someone who can negotiate for you on the Hill, someone like Joe Biden. And that is not a Warren strength.”

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, said the “volatile” state of politics means “all it can take is pissing off one billionaire on Wall Street to make it difficult.”

“And you don’t run national campaigns for as many years as Clinton has without some serious support from Wall Street, they are just too much of a heavy hitter,” Krumholz added.

Too true. According to the CRP, securities and investments industry has donated $28 million to Clinton’s 2016 election campaign. And tapping Warren, who’s one of the most aggressive Wall Street regulators on the Hill, would be a gamble for the presumptive Democratic nominee.

“It’s very clear that Wall Street guys don’t like her because she has been a lot more effective than most in communicating an anti-Wall Street message that has been part of the Democratic Party for 80 years, since the 1930s,” Wall Street historian Charles Geisst told White. “It’s not so much that Wall Street doesn’t like her personally, most of them don’t even know her, but they don’t like anyone that espouses that particular ideology.”

One Wall Street executive close to Clinton said choosing Warren would indicate Clinton is worried she can’t unite the party and pull Bernie Sanders supporters behind her. “Picking Warren would indicate weakness and panic for no reason and make them look like they are running scared of Trump,” the executive said. “There will be plenty of time to galvanize the left and get them to come out. And Warren would be a nightmare to try and manage.”

Still, Warren’s recent battles with Republican nominee Donald Trump prove the Massachusetts Senator is an effective attack dog for the Clinton campaign. “Elizabeth Warren very effectively called out Donald Trump for cheering the Wall Street collapse because it would make him money,” co-founder of the  Progressive Change Campaign Committee Stephanie Taylor said. “And that moment reminded Democrats how powerful Warren’s megaphone can be.”

Cruz Announces Fiorina As Vice Presidential Pick

Cruz Announces Fiorina As Vice Presidential Pick

In what can only be described as a last ditch effort to stop Donald Trump from securing the Republican nomination, Texas senator Ted Cruz announced former presidential candidate and Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina as his vice president pick.

“I will run on a ticket with my vice presidential candidate, Carly Fiorina,” he announced to prolonged applause from the Indianapolis crowd. “Cara Carleton Fiorina, known throughout the country simply by the name of Carly, is an extraordinary leader. Carly is brilliant and capable and yet she experienced the hard scrabble world of being a woman professional in a business world that extracts a price.”

“Any responsible candidate for president would have spent much time assessing possible candidates, thinking through the pros and cons, studying who these people are,” he said, one of many indirect references to Trump’s mostly-improvised campaign.

Cruz said that Donald Trump wouldn’t know what to do “when a strong powerful woman stands up and says ‘I am not afraid.'”

“This is a fight worth having, this is a fight worth winning, and with your help, we will win this fight,” Fiorina said. “Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, they are two sides of the same coin.”

“They are not going to challenge the system, they are the system.”

During her candidacy, Fiorina was vociferous in her opposition to abortion and often cited manipulated, misleading footage of interviews with Planned Parenthood executives as evidence of the organization’s supposed criminal actions.

“The vast majority of Americans agree, what Planned Parenthood is doing is wrong,” she said during an interview Fox News in November 2015. “That’s why the vast majority of Americans are prepared not only to defund Planned Parenthood, but also to stop abortion for any reason at all after five months.”

Fiorina ended her campaign in February after placing seventh in both the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries. At one point, she briefly rose in the polls, commanding 6 percent likely voters at her height. Her minor political celebrity is unlikely to help Cruz’s campaign in a general election against Hillary Clinton, further reinforcing the notion that the announcement could be little more than a dying gasp for the Texas senator’s presidential ambitions.

Photo: Former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina endorses Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz at a campaign rally in Miami, Florida March 9, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri