In Time magazine’s series of the 100 Most Influential People, former Secretary of State, Senator, First Lady and current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton praised U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren as a progressive champion who never hesitates to hold powerful people’s feet to the fire, including “presidential aspirants.”
In a piece entitled “Progressive champion”, Ms. Clinton wrote in part:
It was always going to take a special kind of leader to pick up Ted Kennedy’s mantle as senior Senator from Massachusetts—champion of working families and scourge of special interests. Elizabeth Warren never lets us forget that the work of taming Wall Street’s irresponsible risk taking and reforming our financial system is far from finished. And she never hesitates to hold powerful people’s feet to the fire: bankers, lobbyists, senior government officials and, yes, even presidential aspirants.
Clinton touched on Warren’s background, saying she stands for the American dream and fights hard for “hardworking American families like the one she grew up with in Oklahoma.”
This writing is just another way in which we are seeing a different Clinton than we saw in 2008. This is a more populist Clinton, aligning herself with the Democratic party’s move to the left, and also a lighter Clinton.
Clinton’s easy praise of Warren thwarts the attempt of political agendas from both left and right to cause a rift between the two women.
Hillary Clinton’s graceful willingness to accept having her feet held to the fire by a powerful voice like Senator Warren’s is a signal that she feels confident in her positions and positions and is willing to be challenged and engage in vigorous debate.
The two women met in the late 90s when then Professor Warren gave Clinton a breakdown on problems she saw with the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2000. Warren talked about the meeting during an interview on Bill Moyers’ “NOW on PBS” show in 2004. Warren also talked about Clinton’s shift to centrist as Senator.
The 2016 presidential hopeful got her own profile for the Top 100 Most Influential People, written by Laurene Powell Jobs. Jobs wrote that Clinton is revolutionary and yet she has wisdom.
Poking a huge hole in bizarre Republican attempts to paint Hillary Clinton as “old” and “yesterday“, Jobs opened with, “Hillary Clinton is not familiar. She is revolutionary. Not radical, but revolutionary: the distinction is crucial. She is one of America’s greatest modern creations. Her decades in our public life must not blind us to the fact that she represents new realities and possibilities. Indeed, those same decades have conferred upon her what newness usually lacks: judgment, and even wisdom.”
There is something profoundly empowering in Hillary Clinton praising Elizabeth Warren for Times 100 Most Influential People. The media and political interests have tried to put these two very powerful women at each other’s throats, but they have both shown incredible dignity and loyalty while advancing ideas and policy positions over personality.
The media loves to invent a world in which only one of these women can succeed, but Hillary Clinton is offering another possibility — the possibility both women understand. They share a political agenda to help working families, and Clinton knows Warren will hold her feet to the fire. Warren is a powerful and relentless but artful push from the left. In other words, Warren is exactly what Clinton needs in her corner and Hillary Clinton knows it.
This is a Hillary Clinton (or perhaps, a new campaign) who has learned the fine arts of finesse and flexibility. She had almost everything else before her stint as Secretary of State. Now she looks to be a powerhouse of wisdom and revolution, as Jobs claimed.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
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