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Yesterday on SiriusXM Radio, I was asked to share a behind-the-scenes story that might speak to voters considering Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders -- and really illustrate this point from Warren in this week’s debate:
"Bernie and I agree on a lot of things, but I think I would make a better president than Bernie…We need a president who is going to dig in, do the hard work, and actually get it done. Progressives have got one shot…I will be an effective president."
Here’s a story I never told before: Nevertheless, He Insisted
(Audio courtesy of Signal Boost with Zerlina Maxwell and Jess McIntosh.)
Co-Host Zerlina Maxwell: I want to give you the opportunity. If somebody supports Warren, speak to the base, speak to those progressives who love Bernie Sanders...
Adam Green: I’ll tell a story I haven’t told before. On January 21, 2015, myself and my co-founder, Stephanie Taylor, and some folks from our legislative team met with Bernie Sanders...And we showed him some polling that we had done, the Big Ideas Poll, showing that so many big, progressive ideas were popular.
He went through the pages of the poll and said, “I agree with that, yup. I agree with that.” And then he got to this question we had on infrastructure, proposing a massive infusion of money to create millions of jobs -- rebuilding our roads, our bridges, and schools.
And then he said, “Infrastructure. I’m announcing a trillion dollar infrastructure bill on Tuesday!” Right? And we’re like, “Wait. What?” Nothing like this had ever been proposed before. And he’s like, “Yeah, I’m announcing a trillion dollar infrastructure bill on Tuesday.” And that was like 6 days later. And we were like, “Do you have any co-sponsors?” And he said, “I think we might have Barbara Mikulski.” Do you have any grassroots groups working with you on this? And he’s like I think we have the engineers. Which isn’t actually a grassroots group, because, the engineers, they do math.
After the meeting we begged his office, “Can you please delay this for a couple weeks? Let us help you lobby for co-sponsors. Let us help you get other grassroots groups on board.” And they agreed with us, his staff. But he was insistent. He must introduce his bill on Tuesday. And sure enough, at the press conference he had one co-sponsor, he had one main endorsing group, the engineers. That was January 2015 and the entire Congress of 2015 and 2016, there were zero other co-sponsors that got on board and almost no movement around the bill.
Nevertheless, Bernie insisted. I then described how Elizabeth Warren is effective at building a battle plan to win:
Adam Green: And when I think about that versus what Elizabeth Warren did with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she had an idea, she did the hard work of organizing it on the inside of Congress...but also organizing as the General in the room on the outside of Congress. Giving her thoughts and her gameplan to dozens of grassroots groups. Being told she couldn’t get it done. And then passing the crown jewel of Wall Street reform into law to create this consumer agency that would go to bat against big banks and predatory lenders and credit card companies...go to bat for the little guy, win back 12 billion dollars for 29 million Americans that were cheated. Right? The difference in effectiveness between those two things is just night and day...
I love a lot of what comes out of Bernie’s mouth. I’d want him as that ally in the Senate. But in terms of who is going to take this one-time opportunity to pass a progressive agenda, that’s so clearly Elizabeth Warren.
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Thanks for being a bold progressive.
-- Adam Green, PCCC co-founder
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