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Tigercourse's avatar

I am talking about his campaign in the early 2000's when, as a professor at Brandeis, he attempted to rally the youth vote to become Governor of Massachusetts and lost the primary, coming in just ahead of 3rd place

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Zero Cool's avatar

Ahhh ok. I am not that familiar with the stories about his gubernatorial campaign but thanks for the perspective.

When Reich moved to Berkeley (which he's stayed at permanently since then) he became professor at UC Berkeley, he was aiming to be influential in the 2004 presidential race. He had incorrectly predicted that John Kerry was going to pick Tom Vilsack as his running mate although I believe Vilsack was in fact being vetted by the Kerry Presidential Campaign for this.

However, since the 2004 presidential race ended, I think Reich's primary impact has been in academia and inspiring the next generation of leaders. I don't think he was cut out running for political office. I do believe that President Obama should have considered Reich to be on the Council of Economic Advisors.

The main thing is that Reich is one of those in the Democratic Party who has argued the party should be the anti-establishment party. This means that anything related to the status quo, particularly as it adversely impacts the little guy, Democrats should fight for.

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