BOSTON, MA – According to sources, Elizabeth Warren has been struggling to keep up with copying Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign platform as the 2020 democratic primary intensifies.

Campaign staff, recognizing Warren’s refusal to endorse Sanders’ insurgent 2016 campaign with the failed hope of getting a VP nod from Clinton, may be a liability in courting Sanders supporters. They are attempting to portray Warren as a viable progressive alternative by copying every policy proposal rolled out by the self-proclaimed democratic socialist.

“When we launched our campaign in February, we wanted to position Warren as a progressive champion to secure Bernie supporters, as well as a palatable establishment insider to gain Clinton supporters. The natural first step was to latch on to Sanders’ Medicare for All plan as a key platform position understanding we could soften this position later in the campaign. We thought this, along with Liz’s ‘tough on Wall Street’ persona would be enough to get us through the first series of debates,” explained communications director Kristen Orthman.

As the primary season moved into summer, the Warren campaign struggled to break out of the single-digits against Sanders and Biden.

“We felt bold action was needed,” said Jon Donenberg, policy director for Warren’s campaign, adding “the easiest next step was to let Liz turn 70 which we were able to achieve on June 22nd. This would put her on par with Bernie as a septuagenarian. We also saw that Sanders had unionized his campaign, so we went ahead and did that too.”

According to Donenberg, the second pillar to Warren’s campaign would be her ambitious Cancel Student Debt Plan, which she unveiled mid-June, saying “we heard that the Sanders campaign was floating around the idea of student debt relief, so we thought we could really jump on that one and gain the upper hand. Then Bernie comes out with a more far-reaching plan that same week and it looks like he’s really been doing his homework.”

Orthman articulated that there’s a fine line between what can be proposed and how the democratic party establishment will react, saying “the Sanders campaign came out with criminal justice reform, and so we knew we needed to do that, but frame it in a way that would also appease the corporate donors we’ll need to court if Liz becomes the nominee. Same goes for the Agriculture policy we just released, we had to make a lot of calls and issue a lot of reassurances.”

At every turn the Warren campaign, running with the unofficial motto I have a plan for that, has had to rush to complete plans in reaction to Sanders’ proposals, the latest of which calls for doubling union membership in four years. Campaign manager Roger Lau stated “Elizabeth Warren has always been pro-labor, and has a legislative record to back it up. But Bernie is calling for a political revolution to upend the political system in order to achieve his goals. We don’t have that, so we’re just working hard to pull something together that will convince voters that Warren has their back, at least through Super Tuesday.”

“When you look at the political landscape, we’ve got to present Warren as the hero of the elite class while at the same time maintain the narrative that she’s a working-class champion, and that’s not easy,” said Lau, who pointed to the electoral success of Barack Obama who ran a progressive campaign in 2008, successfully beating republican John McCain, adding, “Obama promised to end the wars, provide universal healthcare, decrease the influence of lobbyists, and tackle Wall Street reform. Those were bold, progressive plans, and they worked well to get him elected before he abandoned them in order to appease his donors. Our goal is to get Warren elected and after that, what happens is anybody’s guess.”

Despite the challenges of copying Sanders’ campaign, Warren seems to be succeeding, as evidenced by Chris Cillizza who said “The Elizabeth Warren Express is running at full steam and she’s got the media and the party elites on her side now. She is poised to voraciously eat into Bernie’s base, as long as they don’t figure out that she’s merely parroting his positions in a vain attempt to get the nomination, at which point she’ll throw them under the bus like she did in 2016.”

As of press time, campaign staffers were reportedly freaking about about Sanders’ new climate policy.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

Reddit

Tumblr

