Advice for Mrs. Warren

Following on my recent endorsement, i'm just trying to help my candidate by offering these suggestions.

 ( If you're pressed for time and want to skip ahead to the advice itself, it's in Bold, large type, at the bottom.)

The upcoming debate Tuesday is Sen. Warren's last, best chance to give herself a decent outcome on Super Tuesday.  She has suffered through a long period when she was either scorned or ignored; she was a good trendy pick for imminent demise for quite a while.

That turned around at the last debate, in Las Vegas last Wednesday.  The occasion was the entry onto the debate stage (far right, from the view of the stage) of Mike Bloomberg.  Warren shed her appeal for unity, just for the night, and attacked him viciously, and successfully, on a variety of topics.  She was even ready with attacks for the lesser healthcare plans put forward by Buttigieg and Klobuchar, revenge for the attacks she suffered, back when hers was tied too close to Bernie's Medicare for All.

As has been the case throughout this ridiculously long pre-campaign, the attacker derives an immediate benefit; I would say that has been true even when the actual attacks were not thrust as effectively as Warren's were.  It's a one-time lift, and it mostly has led toward mutual destruction in the long term.   There was no mistaking the intention; she wanted to take Bloomberg out of the consideration set for as many as possible.  Finally, a share of popular support she could win back!

She finally got some consideration in the post-debate discussion of winners and losers, and it was mostly positive.  (A notable exception was the Queen of Snark herself, Maureen Dowd; as a connoisseuse of the genre, she was Not Impressed)  The evidence of a lift, though, has been hard to detect.  The timing of the last debate in the run-up to the Nevada caucuses was such that the majority of votes there had been cast early, and she had been polling poorly there previously.  Worse for her developing some momentum in the days before the Mar. 3 vote bomb will be the South Carolina primary results this Saturday.

Here, though, is a glimmer of real hope that has gone unnoticed.  The poll is by CBS News/YouGov, and it has an unusually large national sample:  6,495 likely Democratic primary voters.  It was conducted Feb. 20-22, i.e. after the last debate.  It is the only national poll on the RCP chart conducted after the debate. *
Long story short, Elizabeth Warren is in second place, narrowly ahead of Joe Biden (19% to 17%), with Bernie in first place at 28%.   Bloomberg is at 13%, a bit of a dip for him.

I recommend reading the full report, which is well and clearly written.  It doesn't have all the crosstabs of the Quinnipiac reports, but it reproduces the survey itself.  The (online) sample may be a bit biased despite their weighting efforts, so massage the numbers a little if you must.  The bottom line:  Progressive Takeover is underway, due to the failure of the moderate wing to generate a single viable alternative, and there is complete alignment between her supporters and Bernie's.

Those who said Warren's problem was that she peaked too soon may have been way wrong:  if she makes a successful move upward on Super Tuesday, there is still very much of a path all the way.

Strategy of the Debate Itself 

Do not take the bait of the commentators, who are looking for you to bare claws against Bernie.  Continue what you are doing:  pounding Bloomberg silly.  (Get some new material, though:  everyone saw the lines you had last time.) 

When the inevitable Stop Bernie?  question comes, this should be your response: 
"Stop Bernie--No!   Bernie is my friend, I love his passion.  I want him to join with us--then we will truly be unstoppable." 

Just stick with that.  Let Mayor Pete go after Bernie, for now.  Your point of view is that you should be the one to lead the way forward, this time, and his digital machinery should be joined with yours.  The more subtle point is that Bernie, alone, cannot win--which, whether or not it is true, is a concern many people share.

Additional Strategic Points

Build more endorsements from the other candidates:  Steyer, Klobuchar (after Super Tuesday, or before, if she prefers), Booker.  Accept the reality that supportive PAC's will do what they do. (such as Steyer's)
Kamala should be Kourted. 

Warren already has Jay Inslee's, and Julian Castro's.  She gets enough endorsements, she can return to the unity candidate line, which should work (for someone) as the field shrinks.  She doesn't need to play the gender card anymore; now she's got her "meme", and the identification will stick.   But it could earn her endorsements, and generating enthusiasm from women voters will be far more important in the general election than the few white men that might be pried loose by someone like Sanders.

Money Stuff
Looking at it "from a CFO perspective", Warren has to gamble on something resembling an inside straight:  focusing media efforts and also paying bills, but not paying them for too much longer.  She has to count on others' opposition to Bernie keeping him from a clear majority, but none of them emerging well beyond her support level. What happens after that will then all depend on how the next three weeks go.  If they go well, money will be much less of a problem, as the field will surely be less crowded.

Spend the money in five states, but one must be California.

California is super-Tuesday-critical:  I saw a poll last week which had no one, at all, over 15% besides Bernie.  He could win a margin of +300 delegates just in one state, if he is not effectively challenged.  After a result like that, nothing else will matter.   Sanders' team is doing expert analysis at the Congressional district level; nothing less will be acceptable from yours.  Spend money to target media well in the biggest of all states.

Picking the other four states--targets to win one or more, in Super Tuesday and in the week following--now that's real strategy.  Warren has the advantage of choosing her terrain, and now she has some money, too. In terms of choices--She telegraphed that Washington (state) is one by going there straight from Nevada, which totally makes sense to me.  I'd recommend Colorado (ST state), Massachusetts (go big--no choice), and Michigan (Mar. 10) as good choices.  If she can show a good result in Michigan, that augurs well for her being The One who can Hold The Wall.+
The timing for the release of her (awesome!) Cannabis Legalization Plan fits well with these choices, too.

Her objective must be is to maintain a position, one not at the bottom, at each of the winnowing processes that will occur:  from 6 to 5 to 4, from 4 to 3, and then, crucially, from 3 to 2.  If she makes it to the final two, she will win.

Mrs. Warren as a Candidate
I have been crying out in the past weeks, as I really didn't understand why she was going down in the polls and in people's estimation of her chances.   She is clearly the candidate who has done her homework the best, who has the best content in her policies (and the most), and who is articulate and sharp as a debater, who reaches out to others and who listens (a rare skill among politicians).  Many have acknowledged she could be the best President of the lot, while still dismissing her chances.

My conclusion is that the perception of her "electability" suffered, because some don't feel she is "likable".  There's a whole ugly history about this kind of stuff, and I have explained that I believe that I, at least, don't know what electability may be, and I doubt others' expertise as well.  One thing that I do know is real is that some have a visceral, inexplicable (I know, because I've asked) distaste for her.

Here's my theory on this:  she "comes across" (the very subjective, yet perceptive, way that people assess others at an intuitive level) as a schoolteacher.  Which she was, before she was a professor. Not just any schoolteacher, though:  she's that really good teacher, the one who can motivate you to do better than you thought possible.    My theory is that the people who hate her instinctively did not like any of their teachers in school; she reminds them of those hated teachers, in the school they did not like attending.   Let me know whether your interaction with others confirms this theory, or not.  I know that support for her tends to correlate with education level.

My advice, based on this:
Don't try to educate; be sure to relate.  You can do it. 

* Disclosure:  I am on the YouGov panel and did the survey.
+ A bit too Game of Thrones, maybe.