With her jaw clenched and her eyes glittering, Elizabeth Warren stood up in front of the American people and promised to fight. She would fight them on Wall Street. She would fight them at the border. She would fight Mitch McConnell in the Senate. She would fight big business and big tech and rogue capitalists and lobbyists and pharma and China and Vladimir Putin and everyone else who stood in the way of the benighted American people. Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.
If it all sounds like a souped up version of Hillary Clinton, it should. Clinton’s advisers consistently told her that talking about “fighting” polled well. How did that turn out?
When you think about the presidential candidates who won two terms over the last 40 years–Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama–not one of them talked constantly about “fighting.” There is a message in that.
Fighting constantly is exhausting. Sure, it has to be part of Warren’s populist persona, but she needs to be more balanced. I just don’t see how she can beat anyone who exudes warmth and optimism when the contest is one-on-one unless she provides more variety in her tone. And don’t tell me that’s just sexism; men with the same simple combative message are just as tiresome.