Is the Democratic Party Leaning Too Far Left? Elizabeth Warren’s Answer Speaks for Itself.

Another zinger at the expense of John Delaney.

Paul Sancya/AP

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) put former Maryland congressman John Delaney in his place twice in one night at Tuesday’s second Democratic presidential debate. After rebuffing Delaney’s attacks on Medicare for All, Warren demolished his suggestion that the Democratic party was offering unrealistic proposals and leaning too far to the left.

Delaney stuck to a centrist line, promoting the old line of “kitchen table, pocketbook issues.” “Democrats win when we run on real solutions, not impossible promises,” he said. “When we run on things that are workable, not fairytale economics”—seemingly a reference to Warren’s expansive financial reform proposals.

Warren was unfazed. “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” she said, as the audience burst into a sustained applause. “I don’t get it.”

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

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