'We believe in equal pay for equal work, and we’re willing to fight for it,' Warren said. 'We will fight': Warren rallies base

DETROIT — Elizabeth Warren received a thunderous reception at Netroots Nation on Friday as she pledged to fight a “rigged” system in a country of rising income inequality.

The Massachusetts Democrat ascended the stage here at this annual liberal gathering to chants of “Run, Liz, Run.” Many in the audience touted “Elizabeth Warren for President” signs and some sported hats bearing the same message. The senator, smiling, shushed the 2016 cheers, urging everyone to “sit down, sit down. Let’s get started.”


In the speech, which clocked in at a little more than 15 minutes and sounded at times like a campaign address, Warren depicted America as a place of gross inequality, where the wealthy few are on the rise while everyone else gets squeezed out.

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“The way I see this is, we can whine about it, we can whimper about it, or we can fight back,” she said to cheers. “I’m fighting back. I’m ready to fight back. Are you ready to fight back?”

Employing the populist language she frequently embraces, Warren charged that “the game is rigged and the rich and the powerful have lobbyists and lawyers and plenty of friends in Congress. Everybody else, not so much.”

Warren is a darling of the left, where many wish she would run for president, something the senator says she has ruled out. But her fans see Warren as an aggressive champion for working people, willing to take the fight to Wall Street, to big corporations and to Capitol Hill. And in the address, Warren embraced that image.

“We don’t win every time,” said Warren, who has recently been hitting the trail to stump for Democrats running in the midterm elections. “But we’re learning to win. We’re learning to win, and we will keep winning. We will fight and we will win.”

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She nodded to her 2012 victory over former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in which she played an instrumental role, as two victories accomplished on the strength of the progressive movement. And she ticked through a laundry list of liberal priorities as she outlined where this section of the base stands today.

“We believe —I can’t believe I have to say this in 2014 —we believe in equal pay for equal work, and we’re willing to fight for it,” she said to big applause. “We believe that equal means equal and that’s true in marriage, that’s true in the workplace, that’s true in all of America, and we’re willing to fight for it.”

As the applause mounted, Warren encouraged the audience by murmuring, “that’s right,” and “you bet.”

“We believe immigration has made this country strong and vibrant and that means reform — we are willing to fight for it,” she said.

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Some of the loudest applause of the morning came when she dinged the Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, which allows some private companies to claim religious exemptions and not pay for contraceptive coverage mandated under the health care law. Democrats see the ruling as one way to galvanize base enthusiasm ahead of the midterms.

“Oh, and we believe that corporations are not people,” Warren said, a reference to a comment Mitt Romney made in the last presidential election. “That women have a right to their bodies. We will overturn Hobby Lobby and we will fight for it, we will fight for it.”

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