Please liberals, take the advice and nominate Sanders or Warren.
And say hello to President Walker.
The problem isn't liberal ideas, it's that working class voters in middle America have come to associate them with coastal elites. Somebody like Brian Schweitzer who governed as an old school prairie populist winning in Montana is proof that progressive ideas can win if they're framed in the right context. The problem is a culture war narrative and shallow identity politics dominating our current discourse instead of economic populism.