Incredible stuff running a one-hour special to eventually say this:
The board’s decision to back not one but two candidates is a significant break with convention, one meant to address the “realist” and “radical” models being presented to voters by the 2020 Democratic field, the editorial says. While arguing that President Trump must be defeated, the board does not take a position on the best path forward for Democrats, writing that both approaches “warrant serious consideration.” (The editorial board is separate from the New York Times newsroom.)
The two female senators have released some of the most detailed policy plans of the candidates remaining in the primary campaign, prompting the board to praise each one as the “standard-bearer” for her wing of the party.
“There will be those dissatisfied that this page is not throwing its weight behind a single candidate, favoring centrists or progressives,” the board writes. “But it’s a fight the party itself has been itching to have” since Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016, “and one that should be played out in the public arena and in the privacy of the voting booth.”
It’s the most centrist lib thing ever to put out a political endorsement where you explicitly say you’re not going to take a position on policy.
This has been most obvious in her case for “Medicare for all,” where she has already had to soften her message, as voters have expressed their lack of support for her plan.
It felt like they believe they should endorse Warren, but needed to hedge by also endorsing Klobuchar because Warren’s anti-business message is too upsetting for their Wall Street constituency.
I guess Warren has done a good enough job presenting herself as an anti-business candidate that she’s pulled the wool over the eyes of Americans there. She certainly doesn’t seem that way to me. Or if she is, it isn’t extreme enough.
