Warren’s Strategy

Some were surprised that, in the debate Tuesday evening, Warren directed her fire-power at Mike Bloomberg, rather than at her principal progressive rival, front-runner Bernie Sanders. I think she knows that she can’t best Bernie in gathering progressive-minded voters, but that among all Democratic voters, it’s likely that more would prefer her than Bernie. In a brokered convention in which the consensus is that it would be too risky to make Bernie the nominee –– that someone else would be a better bet –– it would be understood that that someone else must not be someone whom Bernie supporters can’t stomach. That would be the case with Bloomberg, for sure. More than that, if Bernie is not to get the nomination even though he is the front-runner, to satisfy his supporters, the nominee must be someone who’s policy proposals are largely congenial with his. That person is Warren. That’s my theory as to why Warren attacked Bloomberg rather than Bernie.