Reports: Warren Says Obamacare Isn’t Bold Enough, Hurt Dems

FILE - In this June 2, 2012 file photo, Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren speaks in Springfield, Mass. Liberals have groused about President Barack Obama since he was elected, lamenting a lac... FILE - In this June 2, 2012 file photo, Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren speaks in Springfield, Mass. Liberals have groused about President Barack Obama since he was elected, lamenting a lack of progress on issues they hold dear. Even so, most liberal voters are expected to vote for Obama in November over Republican Mitt Romney. But there's no guarantee that liberals, if they continue to be dissatisfied, will turn out to man phone banks and canvass neighborhoods this fall. His fundraising efforts could also take a hit. Their latest beef: that Obama needs to take the fight to Wall Street, much like Warren, the Democratic Senate nominee in liberal-leaning Massachusetts, who has built a national brand around the us-versus-them rhetoric that took root over the past year in the encampments of the Occupy Wall Street movement. For Obama, taking up the Occupy cause as overtly as that carries risks in the dozen or so competitive states that will determine who wins the White House. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told donors gathered by a liberal group on Monday that the Affordable Care Act was not bold enough, which hurt Democrats’ message to working and middle-class class voters still struggling following the economic crisis, according to reports from the Boston Globe and the Huffington Post.

Warren said that Democrats were not able to effectively tell voters that they were fighting for the little guy after making compromises on Obamacare, attendees at the meeting held by the Democracy Alliance told the Boston Globe. She told donors that if Democrats had acknowledged the legislation’s shortcomings and pledged to work for more, the party’s message about healthcare may have been more effective, sources told the Huffington Post.

The Massachusetts senator said that Democrats also failed to push a big enough stimulus package, which also hurt them in the 2016 election. Warren said at the meeting that Democrats did not do enough for homeowners, according to the Huffington Post. She said that Democrats failed in their ideology, not their messaging, attendees at the meeting told the Huffington Post.

She said that Donald Trump’s message to voters, that he would fight for them, resonated in 2016, according to the Boston Globe.

Warren’s comments about Democrats’ shortcomings come as the party tries to regroup following Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss and significant losses down the ballot in the 2016 election. Some are pushing for a shake-up at the Democratic National Committee, backing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) as the next chair.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. No it isn’t, but is is what could be passed.

  2. It is great to see E. Warren taking more aggressive stands, would love it if she became minority leader but don’t believe the Dems have the courage to buck Schumer.

    She should turn the gopers insult of her back on them until they say that “look out for Warren, she will poke and haunt us.”

  3. Dear Sen Warren, Bill Maher, and Michael Moore:

    Ohio here. Ohioans do not talk to you like they do to each other. It is the other side of our Midwestern Nice. If you think this election was just about the white working class in America and not religion and race you are misreading it. Every time you say it was about jobs/economics/healthcare my rural Ohio raised husband laughs out loud. I grew up in the city, but have spent the last 30 years visiting rural in-laws every other weekend.

    In the Ohio rural and exurban areas we have the practitioners of White Flight and the children of White Flight. You may have gotten over school busing, but they still haven’t. And don’t get them started on marriage equality and who they will do business with or hire. And their daughters have become single mothers because of abortion rights/contraception/mandated sex education and the Bible being taken out of the public schools. All this religiosity, but the last time they went to church was a great aunt’s funeral.

    They will not move to areas of the state with jobs because they would have to live and work beside ‘the other.’ The jobs must come to them, And they should, after all they are the embodiment of Real America!

    PS Mr Moore, the backhand of Midwestern Nice also applies to you. You went Hollywood.

  4. You pretty much described rural Virginians.

  5. DNC, please make a note. Stop using terms like:

  6. little guy
  7. average American
  8. ordinary American
  9. common man

    Nobody wants to think of themselves as little, common, average, or ordinary.

    Drop the adjectives. You represent Americans.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

121 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for cabchi Avatar for josephebacon Avatar for jsfox Avatar for nowarino Avatar for wordtoyamamma Avatar for eggrollian Avatar for jimtoday Avatar for fourlegsgood Avatar for randyabraham Avatar for carlosfiance Avatar for chelsea530 Avatar for 26degreesrising Avatar for okay Avatar for justamarine Avatar for darcy Avatar for musgrove Avatar for neal_anderthal Avatar for captaincommonsense Avatar for hjs62 Avatar for beattycat Avatar for jonney_5 Avatar for lizzymom Avatar for cub_calloway

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: