Elizabeth Warren noncommittal on primary endorsement, but praises Bernie Sanders
Hillary Clinton was endorsed for president last Monday by every female Democratic senator, with one major exception: Elizabeth Warren.
The progressive Massachusetts senator, who has withheld her coveted endorsement, was asked about that Friday night by the Boston Herald’s Chris Cassidy at a holiday lighting ceremony in Melrose.
“It’s just not time for me to do that yet,’’ Warren told Cassidy, adding that she doesn’t know when she might make an endorsement. She also rejected Cassidy’s suggestion that Clinton’s primary rival, Bernie Sanders, was losing popularity.
“Bernie is doing what Bernie always does — he’s out there talking from the heart, raising the issues that he’s raised for decades now,’’ Warren said. “That’s just who he is.’’
Her words echoed past appraisals of the Vermont senator, who trails Clinton in the polls in all early-voting states besides New Hampshire.
“Bernie is there on the issues,’’ Warren told Cassidy in June. “That’s what matters to a lot of people.’’
In September, Warren told The Boston Globeshe expected to endorse a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary.
Warren and Clinton, who has campaigned toward the Demcratic party’s progressive base, share common ground on many issues. However, the two split on the issue Warren cut her teeth on as a Harvard professor and consumer protection advocate: banks.
Clinton has been more critical of Wall Street in her 2016 campaign, but she does not go as far as calling for breaking up investment and commerical banks by reinstating Glass-Steagall Act, which was repealed in 1999.
Warren, meanwhile, has crusaded to bring back Glass-Steagall and introduced a Senate bill to reinstate that law. The bill was co-sponsored by Sanders.
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