Robert Reich Says Elizabeth Warren Should Challenge Hillary Clinton
The Nation
3/6/2015



Former secretary of labor Robert Reich says Hillary Clinton should face “a tough primary challenger” and he knows who he would like to see mount a run against the presumed Democratic front-runner.

“I wish that challenger would be Elizabeth Warren,” Reich explained Friday, in a short statement that has energized supporters of a burgeoning movement to draft the senator from Massachusetts as a populist alternative to Clinton.

...Reich has always spoken well of Warren, with whom he shares many positions. They have worked together. And he has spoken about the prospect that she might might challenge Clinton. But this is more than just an expression of ideological sympathy, and more than punditry. This is a former Bill Clinton cabinet member saying, specifically, that he hopes Warren will run.

Coming as the current Clinton controversies are grabbing headlines, Reich’s move is going to garner attention.

Reich knows this. He is a savvy veteran of the political fights of the past four decades (who has campaigned for many Democrats, advised many more and once sought the Democratic nod for governor of Massachusetts). He is an important figure on the left of the Democratic Party. And he has a following—indeed, there has been soft speculation about the prospect that Reich, himself, might be a presidential prospect.

With all of this is mind, here’s how Reich frames his intervention in the current discussion about 2016:

"I’ve been getting lots of calls from reporters wanting to know if Democrats should have a “plan B” if Hillary’s candidacy implodes. I tell them (1) it’s still way too early (there’s not even a plan A because she hasn’t yet declared, and it’s more than a year and a half before Election Day anyway), (2) if she runs the odds of her imploding are very low; she’s been through all this three times before (once as a candidate and twice as Bill Clinton’s de facto campaign manager) and will be a strong candidate, (3) but it would be good for the Democrats and the country—and good for her (it will make her an even stronger candidate)—to have a tough primary challenger, and (4) I wish that challenger would be Elizabeth Warren."

http://www.thenation.com/blog/200713/robert-reich-says-elizabeth-warren-should-challenge-hillary-clinton