Center for American Progress Ideas Conference 9am-4pm **live commentary thread**

[Mr. Morden]

This event is a week away, but I figured I’d start the thread early to crowd source information on it.  It’s the first cattle call of the 2020 cycle, and several prospective 2020 Dems will be there.  This lineup was announced in March:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/democratic-party-realignment-cpac-235806

Booker
Bullock
Garcetti
Gillibrand
Harris
Murphy
Warren

And now this new story suggests that Kander will also be speaking:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/dems-next-nominee-president-might-speaking-conference/

Has any additional information been released yet?  Any additional speakers?  Looks like Schumer is headlining some kind of after party:

http://interact.americanprogress.org/invitation/2017/ProgressiveParty/index.html

but otherwise I don’t have any info on how this thing is going to operate, or who will speak when.

[Mr. Morden]

OK, I managed to find this press release here:

http://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015b-e912-d192-a75f-fd1b08610000

It includes the full schedule of the event, though it says that the schedule is tentative, and they may add more speakers.  Looks like it runs from about 9am to 4pm.  Looks like some additional 2020ers will be there who weren’t previously announced, like Klobuchar and McAuliffe.  Also looks like the previously mentioned Kander and Murphy will only be participating on panels, not giving solo speeches.

speeches (in chronological order):

Eric Garcetti (opening keynote)
Roy Cooper*
Susan Rice
Amy Klobuchar*
Nancy Pelosi
Kirsten Gillibrand
Kamala Harris
Elizabeth Warren (lunch keynote)
Steve Bullock
Tom Steyer*
Khizr Khan
Terry McAuliffe
Cory Booker (closing keynote)

* = listed as “in conversation”.  I don’t know what that means.  Maybe they’ll be interviewed rather than giving a speech?

It is open to credentialed media, including broadcast cameras, so maybe it’ll be viewable on C-Span?

[Mr. Morden]

OK, here’s the final agenda, which I think is identical to the tentative agenda that I already posted:

https://cdn.americanprogress.org/content/uploads/2017/03/09082832/2017-CAP-Ideas-Conference-agenda1.pdf

9am hour: opening keynote by Eric Garcetti, followed by Economic Policy panel which includes Jeff Merkley

10am hour: Roy Cooper, Susan Rice, Amy Klobuchar, Nancy Pelosi

11am hour: Kirsten Gillibrand, National Security and Russia panel which includes Chris Murphy and Adam Schiff

12pm hour: lunch keynote by Elizabeth Warren

1pm hour: Steve Bullock, Tom Steyer, “The Resistance” panel

2:20pm: Khizr Khan, followed by Terry McAuliffe

3pm hour: Civil Rights and Democracy panel which includes Keith Ellison and Jason Kander, followed by closing keynote by Cory Booker

Conference closes at 4pm.

I don’t know if any of this will be covered by C-Span, but it’ll at least stream on Youtube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_oSwXIufMA

[Mr. Morden]

I am not going to make a habit of doing this, but since Dave ignores all of my pleas for him to take away my mod powers, I'm going to use them to sticky this thread for the next ~24 hours or so.  If any of the actual 2020 board mods object, feel free to un-sticky it, and I won't complain.

The first "cattle call" of the 2020 race is tomorrow starting at 9am ET, so feel free to discuss it here.  Live video stream is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_oSwXIufMA

[Mr. Morden]

Also, not surprised that there is only one Pro-Israel (by my definition) speaker at a CAP event, and that's Elizabeth Warren.

Huh?  How is Warren as far to the right on Israel as Booker, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar?  Warren said nothing on UN Security Council Resolution 2334, while both Booker and Gillibrand were quite critical.  Booker, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar are all among the 78 Senators co-sponsoring Rubio’s resolution that condemns the UN action, while Warren is not:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-resolution/6/cosponsors

Booker, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar were all among the Senators who signed on to a letter urging Kerry to use US aid to the Palestinian Authority as a lever to block them from joining the International Criminal Court, while Warren did not.  Booker, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar also signed on to a resolution in support of Israel’s actions in Operation Protective Edge, which Warren also did not do:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/1/30/1361281/-75-Senators-Sign-Letter-to-Kerry-Defending-Israeli-War-Crimes-Demanding-More-Palestinian-Suffering

Finally, Warren was one of only 8 Senators to boycott Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, which Booker, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar all attended.

Warren took the more “dovish” line on all of the above, and the only other Senators to agree with her in in every single one of those cases were Leahy and Sanders.  She seems to be one of the least hawkish Senators on Israel.

[Mr. Morden]

Weigel has a short preview of the event here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/05/15/possible-2020-democratic-presidential-hopefuls-gather-for-progressive-ideas-conference/?utm_term=.e8ff4eea3abb

[Mr. Morden]

Also, not surprised that there is only one Pro-Israel (by my definition) speaker at a CAP event, and that's Elizabeth Warren.

Huh?  How is Warren as far to the right on Israel as Booker, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar?  Warren said nothing on UN Security Council Resolution 2334, while both Booker and Gillibrand were quite critical.  Booker, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar are all among the 78 Senators co-sponsoring Rubio’s resolution that condemns the UN action, while Warren is not:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-resolution/6/cosponsors

Booker, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar were all among the Senators who signed on to a letter urging Kerry to use US aid to the Palestinian Authority as a lever to block them from joining the International Criminal Court, while Warren did not.  Booker, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar also signed on to a resolution in support of Israel’s actions in Operation Protective Edge, which Warren also did not do:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/1/30/1361281/-75-Senators-Sign-Letter-to-Kerry-Defending-Israeli-War-Crimes-Demanding-More-Palestinian-Suffering

Finally, Warren was one of only 8 Senators to boycott Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, which Booker, Gillibrand, and Klobuchar all attended.

Warren took the more “dovish” line on all of the above, and the only other Senators to agree with her in in every single one of those cases were Leahy and Sanders.  She seems to be one of the least hawkish Senators on Israel.

In my opinion, Warren was, and personally still is, quite hawkish on Israel, but turned dovish to pander to the far left base.

I agree that she shifted to the left on Israel over time, but I don’t think she’s “hawkish in her heart”, or anything like that.  I think she just doesn’t care about foreign policy at all, and gives boilerplate responses on foreign policy questions, Israel included.  Her past “hawkish” comments on Israel are the same things that virtually every other Democratic Senator says on the subject: She supports a 2-state solution, opposes unilateral moves by the Palestinians to join the UN, and defends “Israel’s right to defend itself”, etc.  Does that count as being “quite hawkish” on Israel?  Maybe, but that’s where virtually every other Democratic Senator is too.  By that standard, more than 95% of the Senate is “quite hawkish” on Israel.

What’s happened over time is that, because the people she’s aligned with on domestic policy are largely to the left of every Democratic Senator on Israel, she’s shifted to a new set of boilerplate responses on the issue.  But I wouldn’t assume that she actually has any deeply felt sentiments on it one way or the other.  By all indications, foreign policy ranks at the bottom of issues that she spends time thinking about.

[Mr. Morden]

Apparently, this is what the room looks like:

[Mr. Morden]

Btw, looks like this is airing on C-Span 3.

[Mr. Morden]

I watched Garcetti’s speech this morning, and it seemed mostly apolitical, barely mentioning Trump or the Republican Party.  Like the sort of speech you would expect from a tech company executive about how automation and globalization are creating new challenges, and we have to rise to the occasion to meet them.  Direct quote: “[People] want to hear less about winning arguments, and more about getting results.”  He did mention fighting Trumpcare though.

Not sure if all of the speeches are like that.  Is anyone serving up red meat, like a Ted Cruz CPAC speech?  I watched part of Klobuchar’s interview thing, and it was similarly not very partisan, but in that case she was being interviewed, so at the mercy of what the interviewer wanted to talk about.

[Mr. Morden]

Oh, and Klobuchar had what she herself jokingly referred to as a "Marco Rubio moment", in that she had to stop mid-sentence to get a drink of water.   

[Mr. Morden]

OK, lunchtime for me, so I'm catching up on some of these speeches.  Just started Warren's speech, and she's looking down at her notes quite a bit, which I guess means that there's no teleprompter in the room.  I should go back to some of the other speeches to see if anyone else was relying on their notes very much.  I think Harris did to an extent as well, but with Warren it's more obvious because her head goes up and down with much greater frequency.

[Mr. Morden]

OK, Kamala Harris is a pretty good speaker.  Her speech was more substantive than partisan (focusing on drug sentencing), but I think she could pull off putting up partisan red meat when appropriate.

Warren's speech had more partisan red meat than all of the others combined, with Gillibrand in second place on that front.  (No surprise in either case there.)  Have only listened to the very beginning of Bullock's speech, and I don't think McAuliffe or Booker have spoken yet.

[Mr. Morden]

I’m not watching at the moment, but here is journo-Twitter:

https://twitter.com/edatpost/status/864557217223254017

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https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/864573186540789761

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But also praise for Booker:

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/864578614225981444

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https://twitter.com/edatpost/status/864576594802814980

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[Mr. Morden]

OK, looks like this thing is over.

[Mr. Morden]

Warren is very Pro-Israel, much more than Cory Booker.

What in the world makes you think that?  (That is, assuming that by "Pro-Israel" you're talking about siding more with Israel over the Palestinians.)  Like I said upthread, Warren's past comments on Israel, before she started to drift in a more dovish direction, were just the same sort of boilerplate comments that ~95% of US Senators would make whenever asked about the issue.

I went point by point in my earlier post on examples where Booker has been more hawkish than Warren on Israel, and what is the response to that?  "Warren is secretly even more hawkish on the issue than Booker is, trust me?" 

[Mr. Morden]

http://forward.com/news/343539/elizabeth-warren-is-the-surprising-israel-hawk-on-hillary-clintons-vice-pre/

Elizabeth Warren is very much a hawk on Israel.

I just don’t see any of that as qualifying as being any more hawkish on Israel than the median Democratic Senator.  Look, here is something that Sanders said recently, opposing BDS, but also complaining about American military aid to Israel:

http://forward.com/fast-forward/370906/bernie-sanders-says-bds-wont-solve-mideast-impasse/

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There are plenty of Democratic activists who would agree with that, but virtually no one else in Congress talks like that except some backbenchers in the House.  Sanders is basically alone in the Senate in complaining about “endless amounts of money, of military support to Israel.”

The most likely explanation, based on everything I’ve observed, is that Warren doesn’t care about foreign policy, and so just regurgitates whatever familiar lines that her colleagues are mouthing, and that (as I said) she’s shifted to a somewhat more dovish set of boilerplate lines in recent years, as she realizes that most of her allies on domestic policy are more to the left on Israel.

I’d also note that there’s nothing in the rest of Warren’s record to suggest that she’s a particularly strong hawk in general, if you look beyond Israel.  She mostly just agreed with whatever foreign policies Obama advocated, but the few areas of disagreement they had mostly had her to his left.  E.g., she voted for a bill that would block a major arms sale to Saudi Arabia, and she voted against Obama’s plan to “arm and train moderate Syrian rebels”.

On your point in your other post about the contrast with Booker, maybe I’m just more cynical than you are.    My default assumption is that none of these politicians have deep-seated beliefs on almost anything.  Rather, they stake out positions for political advantage, but some of them are better than others at appearing to have “convictions”.  So maybe Booker botched his Iran vote in a way that Warren didn’t, but I don’t read that as him having any more or less conviction on it than Warren does.