Elizabeth Warren steals credit from real grass roots efforts

Elizabeth Warren's grassroots support has been manufactured by the media, at least partially.

Contrary to the impression most grassroots candidates attempt to give the public, that they rose from the bottom with the help of their supporters, Elizabeth Warren was part of the establishment before she developed a reputation as a grassroots candidate. Twelve years ago when she wrote "The Two-Income Trap," as far as I can tell hardly anyone knew who she was; and I doubt if it was a best seller. In that book she describes connections with several political figures and low level jobs advising some of them. This includes Hillary Clinton who she complements for standing up to an "Awful bill," then follows by criticizing her for caving when she becomes a Senator and helping to pass the same bill.

This is part of what she criticized as politics as usual. The clear indication was that she opposed to this kind of deal making; unfortunately when she became Senator she seems to have followed into a similar pattern.

Actually it began before she became Senator. There were signs that her reputation was developed with an overwhelming amount of support from the traditional media from the time she joined the White House when Barack Obama took office.

Her reputation was developed with an enormous amount of support from the traditional media before she began developing a reputation as a grassroots candidate, unlike real grassroots candidates like Kshama Sawant or Bernie Sanders.

There is an enormous amount of evidence to indicate that she has been supporting the traditional establishment that she pretends to stand up to from the start; and that some of it has been developed by some of the same campaign advisers that help other establishment candidates including Deval Patrick. I have covered some of this in several posts from the past listed bellow, for those of you who haven't been following them; and there is new information confirming this.

The following article is another indication of how she is getting an enormous amount of media coverage that isn't available to Kshama Sawant now and wasn't available to Bernie Sanders until he spent decades at the real grass roots level; for a long time they treated Sanders as a fringe candidate before they could no longer deny his support:

Invoking Warren can work wonders 03/30/2015 (This was headlined "Elizabeth Warren working magic on the web" in the print version.)

Last spring political supporters and opponents took notice when Elizabeth Warren introduced legislation to reduce student debt. So did a company that makes money by connecting students with free government programs.

The for-profit firm is the type Warren abhors, but it happily used her image to hawk its services: “New Student Debt Forgiveness Programs. Call Today Before They Expire!” printed over an image of Warren, who stands behind a podium with palms gesturing to the sky.

Welcome to the world of Senator Clickbait, a.k.a. Elizabeth Warren.

The Massachusetts Democrat’s online marketing power is so strong that even her foes want her as a pitch woman. Put her image on Facebook and it can generate hundreds of thousands of shares. A simple e-mail from her with the subject line “I’m sorry” once yielded more than $430,000.

In the parlance of online marketing, Warren generates clicks. She doesn’t just boost e-commerce, she creates it.

“Every time we test a message about her, the needle breaks the gauge,” said Ben Wikler, the Washington director for MoveOn.org, a liberal group pressing Warren to run for president. “It’s an effect we see with no one else in politics today.”

Warren has long been able to generate tens of thousands of small donations for her own political operation through Internet fund-raising, which helped her overcome Republican Scott Brown’s advantage among Wall Street firms and take away his Massachusetts Senate seat in 2012. In 2014, Warren stumped across the country for fellow Democrats and lent her name to highly effective fund-raising e-mails.

Now, as the political world prepares for the 2016 elections and Democrats attempt to regain control of the Senate, her image has become even more ubiquitous. Even though she is just a freshman in the tradition-bound chamber, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is plastering news websites with fund-raising ads using her face.

Political news sites like Politico and the Huffington Post frequently prominently feature headlines about Warren, no matter how minor or incremental her statements. Stoking the flames is persistent buzz about a possible presidential candidacy — which Warren consistently denies, but without quite tamping down unequivocally. Complete article

There is an enormous amount of legitimate concern about the influence of money in politics; and for some reason many people have been led to believe that Elizabeth Warren is the one to fix it.

But few people are paying much attention to the fact that she is one of the record breakers when it comes to collecting campaign contributions. This has been the way it was since she began her campaign for Senate but once she became Senator she fit in like many other politicians only her propaganda seems to be much more effective at convincing the public that she is a grassroots candidate even when she doesn't support an enormous amount of reforms also supported by the public. In an article, Warren fires back at banks halting donations to Democrats, she criticizes banks for using their financial clout to pressure Democrats to tone down their rhetoric, even though it isn't accompanied by much if any action; but her solution is to attempt to raise even more money from others which would preserve a system that is routinely corrupted by money.

She is doing nothing to try to ensure that different views can be heard even when they aren't supported by wealthy campaign contributors; and at best this would lead to a situation where she might transfer power from one financial interest to another.

In all fairness she has made a few statements that do support the issues the public cares about, including her comments about keeping student loan debt down and the famous YouTube that helped launch her candidacy; however it appears as if this is typical of politicians that promise the voters major reforms before getting into office but do little or nothing when they get in office.

Which is the same thing she once criticized Clinton for; but since then they have reconciled and she has indicated she would support a Clinton presidential run, and even signed a petition urging her to run. According to another article, Hillary Clinton Had A Private Meeting With Elizabeth Warren (02/27/2015), they met privately while Hillary Clinton was preparing to run for president. The information they gave the public implies that she is doing what she can to advise Hillary on the issues; however by now it should be clear to anyone familiar with Clinton that she is entrenched in the establishment and willing to go along with the agenda that is supported by the same campaign contributors that finance her campaign.

She appears to be willing to do what she can to help Hillary Clinton get the nomination without much if any debate. This is how she got her own nomination for her Senate run; pressure was put on other Democratic challengers to drop out of the race before they even had a primary and when there was only one left the rest of the political establishment rallied around Elizabeth Warren to pressure Marisa DeFranco to withdraw her candidacy instead of debating the issues and winning based on her positions. This may have enabled her to avoid some inconvenient questions that she doesn't want to answer. She also refused to fill out her Project Vote Smart questionnaire.

Like many other politicians she is trying to present herself as a grassroots candidates without allowing the grassroots to control the campaign.

Of course Hillary has come out in favor of campaign finance reform and several other issues that the public is concerned about. But this is the same thing that her husband did when campaigning and both the Clinton's have a history of making promises to get elected and betraying them once they get elected.

When Warren was wrote her book she was critical of it but now she seems perfectly willing to go along with the same agenda.

The list of issues where she has either supported campaign contributors or at least remained silent about is much longer than the few issues that she champions loudly. The media repeats the positive positions over and over again, while mention the issues she supports that are against the interests of the public only briefly, making her appear like a grassroots candidate.

She has supported Charter schools that are at the center of the corporate attempt to control education; represented asbestos companies; ignored Single Payer Health care while supporting the Affordable Care Act, which was written by Health Care lobbyists; taken gaming lobbyists on as advisers and at best remained silent about gambling issues; she has provided a very weak position about GMOs and only after receiving a lot of pressure from the grassroots. She also managed to get an enormous amount of credit from the media for opposing Lawrence Summers and action against Climate Change even though she did little or nothing on either issues. In both cases other politicians took the lead to get Janet Yellin in, who still supports many of the same positions as Summers, and to provide a token amount of support fro action on Climate Change.

Perhaps one of the most important positions she has is that she refuted claims by Juliet Schor that people are spending too much on things they don't need because of what she calls an "Over-consumption myth." Juliet Schor has acted as a real consumer advocate pointing out many corporate scams in several books and she has exposed corporations for their tactics marketing to children. It is hard to imagine, after reading the arguments that both Schor and Warren make that there isn't an enormous problem with over spending on products that have little or no value, but people are convinced they need them because of advertising. This is now targeting children before thy develop critical thinking skills.

Juliet Schor speaks out out convincingly about these tactics in a follow up book, Born to Buy, to the one mentioned by Elizabeth Warren, the Overspent America, but Elizabeth Warren remains silent about protecting children from psychological manipulation. She doesn't even seem to be concerned about informing the public about it. When more people understand the "Nag Factor" which Cheryl Idell recommended advertiser take advantage of to get their parents to buy more they're outraged. This is just one of many tactics Juliet Schor exposed while Elizabeth warren remains silent or refutes what she calls the "Over-consumption myth."

Elizabeth Warren got nearly $430,000 teaching at Harvard; net worth more than $3 million 01/17/2012

After looking at her rise in the media months if not years before her grass roots campaign appeared it clearly indicate that she is another typical politician that has done a much better job convincing the public otherwise with the help of her advisers. If we elect either Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren we shouldn't expect a president that supports the public unless he is under an enormous amount of real grass roots pressure to keep his promises, like Obama and Bill Clinton, who both ahve an incredibly long history of abandoning his promises in favor of his campaign contributors. I have provided much more information including many sources on the following past blogs about Elizabeth Warren:

How sincere is Elizabeth Warren?

Elizabeth Warren is NOT as sincere as she appears!!

Is Elizabeth Warren supporting Charter Schools not Unions?

Elizabeth Warren is NOT a “consumer advocate!!”

Elizabeth Warren's propaganda overlooks many flaws!

Elizabeth Warren is a charismatic propagandist not the Messiah

Is Affluenza Real? Ask Senator Elizabeth Warren And Other Experts including Juliet Schor 12/13/2013 A 16 year old who killed four people while driving drunk after stealing alcohol from WalMart was sentenced to probation after his defense team argued he suffered from “affluenza” a malady that affects people who come from affluent families.

Thousands Call on Elizabeth Warren to Run 04/09/2015