Only The (Fight For The) Confirmation Will Matter
But the nomination is the easy part of this entire process that has been made somewhat difficult by this political trepidation to just nominate her now. The legitimately hard part though is confirming her for the position.
There will be premature celebrations of happiness when Warren is placed from the White House hands into the arms of the House of Lords, praising Obama for making the move to show that he truly means it when he says that he will possibly stand up to Wall Street to the fullest of lengths.
It is a wonderful move to basically take all the blame off itself (or have an excuse that it's official and unofficial PR spokespeople) and place the potential failure of Warren at the top of the CFPB on the hands of that chamber where almost every good thing comes out of it a wrangled debilitated mess.
If President Obama and his Administration truly want Warren in this must important role, they need to show 100% intensity on this. They just can't nominate her and then let the Senate handle the rest of the process while they stand idle and twiddle their thumbs.
They need to come out and publicly hammer Ben Nelson for voting against her (which he probably will do since he voted against Fin Reg and is basically a Republican nowadays). And they need to call out the royal hypocrites that are Snowe, Collins, and Scott Brown if they vote against her after saying "Yes" for Fin Reg. Highlight how "if they want Fin Reg to be the strongest thing to protect you, the consumer, than why are they voting against the lady who will help make it the strongest thing for you in the short and long term?"
It's a total political win, where you either get the 60 for her (since you won't simply recess appoint her) or you you give the optics of fighting for her. Anything less than that fervor will lead to the White House not being fully enthused about Warren in my mind.
It's one thing to see Warren's confirmation be defeated 59-41 and show the public how broken and corrupt the Senate is, denying the best person her rightful position.
But it sure is another when you just do one thing.
And while some will exempt the White House of any blame for just doing stage one (or for anything else really), stage two is the real test to whether they want this wonderful individual or not.
With how they boggled the Dawn Johnson for Office of Legal Council deal, their level of desire for Warren is hanging in the balance.
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