‘Fighting back is an act of patriotism’: Elizabeth Warren revs up supporters at Denver rally
Undaunted by her fourth-place finish in the Nevada caucuses a day earlier, Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren came out swinging Sunday at a rally in Denver, vowing to fight corruption and bring about a government that values people over money.
“It feels to me like Denver is ready for some big structural change,” Warren said as a crowd of 3,800 packed into the Fillmore Auditorium greeted the Massachusetts senator with deafening cheers.
With one of the largest campaign organizations in the state, Warren is hoping for a breakthrough performance in Colorado and other states that vote on March 3, after finishing third in the Iowa caucuses and fourth in the New Hampshire primary and Saturday’s Nevada caucuses.
She is flatly rejecting pressure to drop out after the disappointing performances in the first three contests, with next Saturday’s South Carolina primary and the 14 March 3 Super Tuesday states fast approaching.
“I’m disappointed, but I’m also out there in the fight,” she told reporters after the rally. “I’ve got the resources to be able to fight these fights.”
Warren said that in the three days after her strong showing in Wednesday’s televised primary debate, her campaign raised $9 million from 250,000 online donors.
“That’s a quarter of a million people who say they are progressives and they want to get stuff done, a quarter of a million people who say this fight is our fight,” she told the crowd.
The theme was struck early by state Sen. Kerry Donovan, D-Vail, the first elected official in Colorado to endorse Warren and the second speaker to address Sunday’s rally, after a campaign organizer.
“We’re being told that this thing is over and done with,” Donovan said. “We will not be silenced. We will not be told that we don’t belong in this race. And we sure as heck won’t step aside for someone else to run for president when we know Elizabeth Warren is the best gal to lead this nation.”
While she drew some distinctions with fellow progressive and primary front-runner Bernie Sanders, Warren pulled no punches pummeling Michael Bloomberg, the free-spending billionaire who pitches himself as the Democrats’ best chance to defeat President Donald Trump.
Echoing the aggressive approach she took in Wednesday’s debate in Las Vegas – during a question-and-answer period, a woman told Warren she “thoroughly enjoyed the trash-can beating you gave Bloomberg” – Warren launched a blistering attack on the former New York mayor at the rally, calling him a “serious threat that we’ve got to pay attention to.”
“He’s making the argument that because he’s the richest guy out there, that makes him the safest nominee to beat Trump,” Warren said before listing reasons she disagreed.
“A billionaire who hides his taxes, a billionaire who has a history of harassment and discrimination against women, and a billionaire who embraces racist policies – the ugly and dangerous policies of stop-and-frisk and redlining,” she said. “Michael Bloomberg is not the safest nominee for the Democrats, he is the riskiest nominee for the Democrats.”
Making the parallels with Trump explicit, she added: “We are not trading one arrogant billionaire for another.”
Warren’s campaign manager on Saturday night laid out a path to the nomination, predicting that last week’s debate in Nevada “will have more impact on the structure of the race than the Nevada result.”
Warren, Roger Law tweeted, expects to be “one of at most three candidates with a delegate path to the nomination after Super Tuesday,” in part because Bloomberg and Sanders might have “effectively unlimited resources to compete (for very different reasons), but each also has a significant ceiling on their eventual support both in the primary and the general.”
Warren kept the gloves on discussing her differences with Sanders, and at one point declined to tell reporters whether she considers the Vermont senator a risky nominee.
“People ask about the difference between Bernie and me,” she said during the rally. “Bernie supports the filibuster; I’m going to get rid of the filibuster.”
The Senate filibuster requires 60 votes to advance most legislation, a hurdle Warren said will block all of the Democrats’ ambitious proposals. Sanders has said he would retain the filibuster in most cases but use a Senate budget reconciliation rule to pass major legislation.
“If there’s a filibuster in place,” Warren said, “I know what happens, and I won’t let billionaires have a veto over the wealth tax. I won’t let the fossil fuel industry have a veto over climate change. I won’t let the NRA and the gun industry have a veto over the safety of our children. And I won’t let everyone who has been stirred up by Donald Trump’s hateful policies and positions keep stirring – we’re going to get immigration reform.”
Drawing an implicit contrast with Sanders, she added: “I don’t want to go to Washington just to talk. I want to go to Washington to make big structural change.”
Asked about some proposals she shares with Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, Warren made clear another difference between the two leading leftists in the primary.
“I’m not a democratic socialist. I believe in markets. But markets without rules are theft,” she said, adding that she doesn’t believe markets are the best solution for education, health care and other areas.
“But I believe in a market economy that we make work for everyone in this country,” she said, pointing to the 2008 financial collapse.
“We became a government that was deeply in the pockets of the banks,” she said. “And when that happens, the banks end up helping themselves, and everybody else gets left behind.”
Republicans weren’t buying the distinction.
“In addition to her failed $32 trillion healthcare plan, Elizabeth Warren has a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution to every problem – increase our taxes,” said Kyle Kohli, the Republican National Committee spokesman in Colorado, in a statement.
“Warren’s extreme socialist agenda will not take her far in a state like Colorado where voters have consistently rejected statewide tax increases.”
One of Warren’s signature proposals is a 2% tax on wealth, which her campaign says would only apply to the estimated 75,000 American households with a net worth of $50 million or more. Her proposal would up the tax to 6% on every dollar over a net worth of $1 billion. In total, she estimates it would raise $3.75 trillion over 10 years.
She said Sunday that the tax would pay for universal child care, universal preschool, a big boost in funding to public schools and cancellation of student debt for 40 million people.
“That’s a statement of our values,” Warren said, adding, “They’ll never miss it, except for Scrooge McDuck who rolls in it.”
Warren repeatedly portrayed herself as a fighter and electrified the crowd when she challenged her supporters to get in the fight.
“I’m not a lifelong politician, but i’ll tell you what I am, I’m a lifelong fighter,” she said
Warren said that when she was growing up in Oklahoma, her father suffered a heart attack and was out of work, so her mother put on her best dress to get a minimum wage job answering phones at Sears, saving their home. The lesson, she said, was that “no mater how scared you are, you get in the fight and fight for the people you love.”
Noting that she hears all the time from people who say they’re afraid for the country after three years of the Trump presidency, Warren said, “Are you going to be timid, or are you going to get in the fight?”
She added: “Fighting back is an act of patriotism.”
“Get in the fight,” she said, “because, understand this: this is the moment in history that we have been called to. This is the moment that will determine the fate of our nation and the fate of the world, not for four years, not for eight years, but for generations to come.”
It was Warren’s first campaign visit to Colorado since April, when she held a town hall in Aurora and unveiled her public lands plan.
Before Sunday’s rally began, she addressed several hundred supporters who didn’t make it inside to the packed auditorium. Answering a question, Warren said she is opposed to fracking and will stop all new driving and mining on federal lands, as well as new off-shore drilling.
Warren told the crowd Sunday that she had a plane to catch for South Carolina right after the rally so wouldn’t be staying to take photos with everyone who wanted one, as has been her custom. But, she added, if she wins Colorado, “I’m coming back for a selfie with each and every one of you.”


