Disclaimer: I like Elizabeth Warren. If she is more viable as the candidate that can defeat Joe Biden in my Home State’s Iowa Caucus, I will vote for her and convince others to do the same.

Having said that, the fact of the matter is Warren would not make as good a President as Bernie Sanders, It isn’t just a few issues that separate them. Sanders is clearly the superior candidate, and here’s why:

I. A comparatively lackluster civil rights record.

On Civil rights, Sanders has done more than talk the talk. He has walked the walk. Sanders protested racial discrimination in housing when he was 21 years old in 1963. There, he was chairman of the Congress for Racial equality, a group that merged with the SNCC (whose members included John Lewis, Stokley Carmichael, Diane Nash and John Lewis. Did I mention John Lewis?). He attended the March on Washington in 1968. He established one of the first Gay Pride parades in the country, fought for the Equal Rights Amendment for women, and was for legal abortion rights a year before Roe V. Wade. He was among the first to call the Southern strategy, Death Penalty and Drug Wars racist.

II. “The Republican thing”

Warren was a Republican until 1996. By 1996 George Bush had declared Atheists shouldn’t be called citizens, The GOP was firmly anti-choice, Reagan was complicit in a genocide in Latin America, Reagan instigated the S&L crisis through deregulation, The GOP made a devils bargain with the religious right, horrendous justices were put on the Supreme Court, Reagan used racial dog whistles in his 1980 announcement, a hatchet was taken to the welfare state, The GOP accused the Clinton’s of killing Vince Foster, a series of bogus witch hunts were underway by Kenn Star, attempts were made to dismantle the New Deal, Reagan ignored AIDS, scores of officials from multiple GOP administrations were behind bars, tax rates were cut to the core, Republicans stopped Clinton’s health care plan, Military spending was increased to unheard of levels, tapes showed Nixon as a racist antisemite, Nixon had bombed Cambodia and was taken down by Watergate, Reagan was nearly impeached by Iran Contra, the deficit tripled, and the culture war was fought vehemently. Warren was a member of the party at this time. This wasn’t just a brief period of Warren’s life that she was registered as a Republican. Shouldn’t she explain why?

III. Health Care

In a debate where the argument should be over a VA style system, A Canadian style system with optional private insurance, a Canadian style system without private insurance, a system with a Medicare buy in+lower eligibility age and public option, Warren has basically been all over the place. She’s been for almost every one of these systems, but never taken a bulletproof position of where she wants the end result to be for health care. With Sanders, there isn’t an inch of questioning where he stands on health care. On a somewhat unrelated note, Warren still hasn’t taken a position on how to address the economics of automation. Sanders favors a universal job guarantee, Yang and Gabbard favor Universal Basic Income, and Harris’s tax plan comes close to a negative income tax. Even Biden has taken a position (against all three). Warren has taken no position.

IV. “Alright” Candidate

She’s not as good a candidate by the few measures we have. In a general election (According to RealClearPolitics) Sanders win by an 8.5% margin while Elizabeth Warren leads by 4%. The people who know a person best are their home state constituents. Sanders has a net approval of 31%. Warren has a net approval of 9%. He doubles her margin against Trump and triples her home state net approval. She won in Massachusetts with 60% of the vote in 2018, ten points less than Sanders. She also completely bungled the Native American blood test, an issue she’s had to deal with since 2012 and should have handled by now.

V. Foreign Policy

Warren voted for every increase in the defense budget. She supports the drone program. She voted for Iranian Sanctions that weakened the Iran deal. She attacked Trump from the right on N. Korean diplomacy. She supports military tribunals as opposed to terror prosecutions, She supports Iron Dome and was previously close to AIPAC. Warren wants to spend even more money on the military to make it more environmental. She’s defended Netanyahu’s 2014 illegal bombing campaign and criticized Obama for being to harsh on Israel. Warren has remained Agnostic in the coup against Venezuelan President Maduro. She’s defended pork barrel projects for military contractors in her own state. Warren has additionally taken a very hard line against Russia and China, and said nothing about the political imprisonment of Lula De Silva in Brazil.

VI. The Grassroots Army

She hasn’t built a grassroots organization to support her agenda in office, including primary challenges of politicians who would block her agenda. This is a mistake that would cost her if she were to become President, as progressives learned with President Obama. She claimed (correctly) to be the “intellectual founder” of Occupy Wall Street, but did nothing to defend or harness the movement into a political force.

Warren has been more correct on the issues than most of the field. The problem is Sanders has been too, and for 30+ years. Warren has also shown she’s willing to betray progressive principles if it means securing power. This is seen by failing to endorse Sanders in 2016 and adopting a policy of never backing primary challenges to fellow Democrats. She supposedly didn’t endorse in 2016 in order to extract progressive promises from Clinton, but the only real bone thrown to progressives after the primary was Clinton’s college plan that she worked on with Sanders.

Warren is much better than 95% of the field, but a choice will soon have to be made if Progressives want one of their own in office. Sanders is simply the better choice.