Keller @ Large: Elizabeth Warren's Big Gamble
BOSTON (CBS) - Whether you love Sen. Elizabeth Warren or hate her or fall somewhere in-between, you've got to give her credit for standing up for what she believes in.
And after the spectacle of Monday's night's Washington fundraiser for Hillary Clinton featuring 13 of the 14 Democratic female senators – with Warren the lone absentee – it's pretty clear that the flagrantly situational politics that Clinton practices is not to Elizabeth Warren's taste.
Consider the way Warren has handled the politics of this campaign cycle.
After signing onto a 2013 letter encouraging Clinton to run, Warren has pointedly declined to endorse her, first praising Bernie Sanders for his critiques of party centrism, then holding a mysterious, widely-publicized meeting with Joe Biden at the height of the Biden-for-president speculation.
And now, after weeks of what appear to be both the party's leaders and rank-and-file falling in behind Clinton, Warren is still giving her the cold shoulder, refusing to even explain her absence from Monday night's time.
This could cut two ways for Warren.
If Clinton goes on to win it all, history suggests she will long remember Warren's reticence, and not fondly either.
But if Clinton loses, especially if she fails to persuade key Democratic voters that she is sufficiently liberal, that leaves Warren in the driver's seat of the dominant wing of the party, in effect the top Democratic voice in a government totally controlled by Republicans.
That could have a major impact on something very important to us locals – Warren's ability, or lack of it, to protect and deliver federal funding for Massachusetts.
So in that sense, all of us have a lot riding on this particular roll of the political dice.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
