Steyer, by Sanders/Warren.
S by S/W. Sorry!
I would insist on the inclusion of Steyer in the picture. He represents a potent force (TV ads) which will be available to the winner of the Sanders/Warren competition for leadership of the progressive movement for the campaign. His look of awkward recognition provides the clearest evidence possible of the tone of the interaction Warren and Sanders had. Now, CNN has provided us a covert audio tape which discloses the content: They accused each other of calling them* a liar.
The subject of the debate question, the meeting our progressive leaders had just after the 2018 election, had been reported publicly at the time. Afterward, I anxiously awaited the gracious announcement by one that they* would not be running (with or without implicit, or explicit, endorsement of the other). Such announcement was not forthcoming, and since then both have made their current intentions known.
First, no one is or was lying. Sanders did not say "a woman cannot be elected President". And Warren did disagree with what he said. It is now quite obvious almost precisely what was said.
The topic, of course, was The Movement: Who is going to lead it in 2020? Warren made an appeal for it to be her. She passed on a draft movement and stood down in 2016 and let Bernie run. Now, it is her turn. We join in progress:
Warren: Anyway, you're not getting any younger, Bernie...And that's where we stood--until last weekend. Elizabeth Warren needed to take action, as she was bleeding support on the left to Sanders and on the right to Buttigieg. Warren is conflating the progressives' need for a champion in these primaries with the need to demonstrate that a woman can indeed be President--in the only way it can be proven, by doing it. The strategy may work.
Sanders: Now, now. You're hardly a spring chicken yourself, Elizabeth.
(I'm guessing that, rather than "Liz")Besides, this Trump is no one for a lady to run against. Look at what he did to Hillary Clinton. I don't want to see you go through that. Let me take him on.
W (agitated): Wait, you told me last time "Stay back"** Are you telling me I can't win?
S: No! He would rip you open.
(The actual source of the misunderstanding. Bernie was not saying "No" to the question, but to the idea of her running against Trump. The horror!)
W: I'll tell you what: let's both run, and whoever can't win, endorses the other.
S: You're on.
Neither she nor Bernie stood in critical condition as the voters begin to weigh in for real. Their combined vote in polling always tops Biden's, but rarely do they lead him individually. The need for them to settle the dispute, definitively, is great, but it's not going to happen soon. It will make it tougher if they end up taking both the top spots in either Iowa or New Hampshire (the latter seems particularly likely to me). The Super Tuesday combined delegate haul for the two competing may top Biden's, but he'd be the leader in the count, and the effort to stop him early will have failed. The betting consensus seems to be more that Sanders will survive, or thrive, in IA and NH and Warren will finish third or fourth, and not the opposite, though I'm not buying it or betting on it.
Getting to the meat of the matter, though, the question remains: who should be the progressive champion to face down Biden (or his successor in the moderate lane, if he implodes), and, what is to some degree the same question, who (between Sanders and Warren, or Steyer for that matter) is the progressive who can best face down Trump and win big in 2020?
I can answer it from my personal point of view, but I think a fair way to examine it is on the crucial distinction in their approach. Sanders is the thought leader of the Movement, while Warren's approach is to apply the principles of the Movement in the most practical way to the challenges we face. Sanders continually broadens and makes deeper the reach of what he aims to achieve (in the last debate, though it went unnoticed, he called to "rebuild the United Nations"--a huge, idealistic, unpopular, and even somewhat arrogant challenge for the next President), while Warren tends to glom onto her original set of planned reforms the most popular formulations others develop. I would suggest that US history has many examples of committed idealists who governed pragmatically (Lincoln, FDR, JFK/LBJ), while the closest I can think of as governing movement leaders were Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt. Both are possible routes to the White House (though TR succeeded in after McKinley's assassination, then won re-election).
The objective data from head-to-head polling (vs. Trump) suggests Sanders polls slightly better than Warren (or Buttigieg), about equal to how Biden does, both nationally and in most in-state polls. We've been advised, though, that these polls do not predict outcomes well so far away from the election. The objective data favoring Warren is more subtle and comes when the second choice among candidates is considered. She seems to have recognized this, and is positioning herself as the best chance to unify the party for the general election. Her previous endorsement from Jay Inslee and the more recent ones from Julian Castro and Ayanna Presley support that line of argument. Sanders' script which started this mess went at this perceived Warren strength, suggesting her (first-choice) support was limited to educated elites and did not include other segments of the base. That was the first shot which set off this important side battle.
As for Steyer, his chances to replace both Sanders and Warren as leader of the Movement are long and will depend on their being unable to resolve their dilemma, and the chances of both being buried as a result, so a late move after IA and NH. More likely, he will be able to put his immense resources behind the winner of the face-off.
* Non-gendered single person subject and object pronouns.
** I heard Bernie say in the debate, "Stay back", though the transcript says, "I stayed back". I don't see as how he stayed back--she did.
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