With Sanders apparently gaining support on the left, Warren has started picking small fights with him and arguing that she is the bridge between the two wings of the party, not Bernie lite. Will it work?
I doubt it. There are too many photos of Warren and Sanders standing arm-in-arm. No one is going to forget “I’m with Bernie” on M4A. Being a watered-down version of Sanders is not the same thing as being a bridge between realos and fundis. Realo voters aren’t going to support her unless Bernie is the only other option.
It didn’t have to be this way. Warren could have made more of an effort to distinguish her world view from Bernie’s, and she easily could have avoided supporting the Sanders version of M4A. In the end, she decided to chase democratic socialist votes instead of tacking to the middle, and as they say in “The Irishman,” it is what it is.