The Risk of Elizabeth Warren’s Dodging
WESTERVILLE, Ohio—Elizabeth Warren has a lot of plans—including a plan not to cop to how she would pay for Medicare for All.
It’s a simple answer. Everyone knows it: Taxes would almost certainly have to go up on middle-class families, even if Warren is right that their overall costs would go down. She knows it, too. She’s just decided not to say it.
That decision is bigger for her candidacy than a conversation about health care or the tax code is. On the campaign trail, the senator from Massachusetts has presented herself as the truth-teller, the straight-talker, the one who can break down complex economic ideas and bring nonprogressives along. Now, just as she’s started to get the attention from competitors and the press that comes from leading public polls, she’s insisting on talking in circles. In politics, there’s little more dangerous than moments, from the actor Kate McKinnon, is centered on her brutally telling it like it is.
