The hot rumor is that Elizabeth Warren, the darling of the left, who is running for the Senate seat now held by Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, is on the short list to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic convention.
A Warren address in prime time would be a clarifying moment. It was, after all, Ms. Warren who pioneered (if you’ll pardon the expression, Sacajawea) the “you didn’t build that” line that President Obama later used in his disastrous Roanoke speech. As noted previously on Inkwell, a Berkeley linguist developed the theoretical underpinnings for what the president and Ms. Warren said. Essentially, it is an attack on the self-made man and woman that contains within it pretext to raise their taxes.
Hot Air has videos of President Obama and Ms. Warren delivering what is essentially the same speech. The Obama administration has been trying to disown the president’s remarks. This could deprive us of the spectacle of Warren doing the convention’s opening war dance. As Ed Morrissey notes:
At least Democrats would present their attitudes toward free enterprise honestly if they led off the festivities with [a Warren rant]. We’re probably not that lucky. I suspect that the Warren-as-keynote-speaker trial balloon got popped the moment Obama had to cut that “Romney’s unfair for quoting me accurately” campaign ad.
Whatever happens with regard to the Warren appearance, the AP is reporting that former President Bill Clinton will play a major role at the Democratic convention. The AP notes:
"To us it's about deploying our assets in the most effective way," Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod said. "To have President Clinton on Wednesday night laying out the choice facing voters, and then having Vice President Biden speak right before the president in prime time on Thursday, giving a testimony to the decisions the president has made, the character of his leadership and the battle to rebuild the middle class that's so central to our message."
It appears that President Obama is trying to run on Bill Clinton’s record, but even a political charmer like Bill Clinton is going to have a hard time spinning the last three years as good for the middle class. In a way, the message of having Clinton may be "don't stop thinking about yesterday." He was the last Democrat to preside over a prosperous nation.
This Just In: The New York Sun has a report (including a video) of Ms. Warren “praising communist China as a model for America:”
Massachusetts residents who tuned in to the Olympics opening ceremony saw a new 30-second campaign commercial from the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Elizabeth Warren, that said America should be more like Communist China.
“We've got bridges and roads in need of repair and thousands of people in need of work. Why aren’t we rebuilding America?” asks Ms. Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School who served in the Obama administration. “Our competitors are putting people to work, building a future. China invests 9% of its GDP in infrastructure. America? We’re at just 2.4%. We can do better.”
The ad juxtaposes robust Chinese cranes and dump trucks with decaying American bridges and idle but sympathetic-looking American workers wearing hard-hats….
This might make a good keynote address at the Democratic convention?