WASHINGTON — Four years ago, eyeing a defeat of Scott Brown, the liberal activist group Progressive Change Campaign Committee loudly encouraged Elizabeth Warren to return to Massachusetts and make a run for the Senate. The group raised $100,000 to draft the consumer advocate, which it gave to her the week after she announced her candidacy. From there, it raised more than $1.17 million and made nearly 575,000 get-out-the-vote calls on her behalf.
When she won, the PCCC praised the moment as the dawn of an era of unapologetic progressivism in the Senate.
With the progressive community now trying to convince Warren to run for higher office once more — this time the White House in 2016 — one would expect to find PCCC at the vanguard. Instead, it’s stayed on the sidelines as two other groups, MoveOn and Democracy for America, have taken the lead of the Run Warren Run campaign.
“We have different strategies,” explained Adam Green, PCCC’s co-founder. “We do not oppose the Draft Warren campaign. But what we are doing is organizing in early states like New Hampshire and Iowa to incentive all presidential candidates on the Democratic side to endorse and campaign on Elizabeth Warren’s agenda.”
The prospect of Elizabeth Warren running for the White House has been a quixotic, sometimes confusing element of the pre-primary campaign. The school of thought that holds that such a run would be good for the Democratic Party — if only to help presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton rid herself of rust — is overwhelmed by Warren’s dutiful insistence that she has no interest.
–
“I’m not trying to be too harsh on them,” he added. “I’m trying to be honest about it. They have their agenda. We probably share a lot of the agenda. But you have to recognize that they have their own imperatives as an organization. And organizing around a candidate who happens to be enormously popular brings more people to your cause.”
Devine’s comments are a more diplomatic version of a criticism that often bubbles below the surface of talk of the Draft Warren effort; mainly that DFA and MoveOn are doing it out of organizational self-interest — a win-win ploy to promote progressive politics while fattening their email lists.
Were the groups not investing tangible resources into the effort, these charges would stick further. But MoveOn is spending real money ($1 million) and the DFA has pledged $250,000 in addition to hiring three organizers and a state director in New Hampshire. And though they scratch their heads about the methods, even critics don’t question the motives.
“I legitimately believe that they are trying to convince Elizabeth Warren to enter the presidential race,” said Rabin-Havt. “That said, I can take something at face value and believe it is strategically incoherent and wrong.”
