Why Not Warren?

Looking for Betsy

“I’m a writer, blogger, photographer, Mother and accidental country girl whose recipes have to please my husband, my children and ME. Welcome to my frontier.”

So says Food Network star Ree Drummond, as she introduces herself on every show. This open-face, red-haired, dimple-cheeked “All-American girl” married to a cattle rancher, mother of four, living on a ranch in the middle of nowhere in the wide open spaces of Oklahoma is a winner.

This smart as a whip lady has turned a once-a-week TV show into a business success because everything is so simple, every recipe so straight-forward, everything is family-oriented (two girls and two boys who have grown up on the show). You always know “what’s happening on the ranch” every day..

The success has turned into every chef’s dream – a line of Ree Drummond frozen dinners on sale at your supermarket.

She epitomizes the idea that a hard-working, sincere, smart woman from anywhere in this country can be all the things she is – successfully. And all it takes is knowing how to sell what she is and what she does and as she will be the first to admit, a lotta luck…cause show business is show business.

Ask Donald Trump…he’ll tell you.

So who is another Oklahoma woman – Elizabeth Warren? Can we find a Ree Drummond in her? Is she Betsy from Oklahoma or Liz from Harvard?

She is a woman from a lower middle-class family in Norman and then Oklahoma City who had to work as a waitress in her aunt’s restaurant at 13 years old to help the family survive…who grew up having to change high schools and colleges because her family moved until she went on to become a speech therapist who could help disabled children in public school. She had found her career – until she was told to quit when she became pregnant.

She then decided to go to law school with a two year old in tow and went on to become one of the nation’s leading specialists in bankruptcy law and a law school professor at a number of top law schools including Harvard.

And she is the tough, very smart, cool, calculating corporate-lady who knows exactly how to play the corporate game — passing as an intellectual elite but aggressively turning up the heat on the Wall Street banking interests as she developed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that was the basis for the Dodd-Frank law after the financial crisis in 2008 that almost brought America to bankruptcy. It was she who chaired the Congressional Oversight Panel to oversee the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act which issued directions that helped stop the decline and bailed out banks and General Motors to prevent an economic catastrophe without having to close down the entire financial industry.

This is Liz Warren hated by the very industry she saved because they know that she has a firmer grasp on the essence of America’s economy than anyone else in this nation. So that when she talks about the essential corruption in American corporate life which has led so directly to the economic inequality that so clearly exists…they know she knows…and hate that she has a plan to fix it.

THE CAMPAIGN

Elizabeth Warren has a plan for everything. If you are reading this you are aware of the remarkable breadth of the thinking and planning. No candidate in the past 50 years has gained such a command of so many of the problems that need a solution.

Too advanced? Too progressive? Too impossible to achieve in the political environment that exists? Maybe – to all of these questions but she has done what women do so well…that can make them so special: she plans.

There is no question that she has made her mark on the Democratic Primary campaign to date – is it enough or has it been too much?

But more than that can she do what Hillary Clinton could not do in two attempts – and become America’s first woman President?

What will it take to even get Warren to emerge as the Democratic candidate?

Unless you live in Iowa, New Hampshire and maybe South Carolina or Nevada you do not see even an approximation of the real Warren. All we have actually seen of Warren is her appearances on the numerous Primary campaign debates. It is clear that she has mastered the 75 second response to questions…she always stops at the right moment. And she has essentially held her own in the give and take between the candidates as the line on the stage has slowly been reduced to a precious few.

But this is not the Elizabeth Warren who has taken almost 100,000 selfies as she spends hours after personal appearances in those first primary states to take pictures with those who attended…with no guarantee all those folks will vote for her.

Nor is it the Warren who now spends hours on the telephone actually talking to people in Iowa as she strives to make a mark in that first primary. No one else is doing anything like this.

But where is Oklahoma Betsy? Where is that woman who understands exactly what it takes to grow up and beyond a simple, difficult beginning to become the Mother of two and grandmother of four? When will the Ree Drummond in Betsy Warren show itself …and if it does will it matter?

On January 29, 2016 the New York Times published a major article by the well-known writer and feminist Gail Sheehy about the women who should love and vote for Hillary Clinton but were ambivalent days before the Iowa caucus vote. Sheehy was among them. Once clearly supportive. Now uncertain whether Hillary was authentic or just the product of being famous and infamous at the same time.

The man she ran against still exists. He knows no more now than he did then…but he is the President…impeached for sure…but the President. And he will attempt in his crude way to portray Elizabeth Warren as a communist who will destroy America. That is his relentless way and he will have plenty of company.

What we do not know is whether the very women in the middle of the country who did not vote for Hillary- women Sheehy identifies as those voting from a compassionate nurturing place—will see that kind of woman in Warren and vote for her.

Women vote…women vote more than men do. That vote that Trump received from women who did not like Hillary came from women voters in mid-country…not from the coasts where Hillary ran away from Trump.

If Warren is the candidate she will need that vote.

Much will happen between now and then including the coming impact of what Michael Bloomberg will do to buy the Democratic candidacy.

We began this piece convinced that America is not ready to elect a woman President. We are still not sure. But Warren has shown the capacity to listen and learn…to feel the sense of the public’s need, to change what she has said; to modify her plans…first in healthcare and we believe even in the concept of trying to tax wealth, not income.

Being so aware, being sensitive to what the public can understand, believe in and support is critical…absolutely critical. Trump gets it – bigtime.

We believe that if America is ready, they found the woman in Elizabeth Warren.