I’d like to suggest that Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich become candidates for president and vice president. I wouldn’t care which was which.

Neither has a discernible ego; each has demonstrated a remarkable resistance to temptation; each is demonstrably devoted to doing what is right for the American people and I think they would work well together and complement one another.

Elizabeth Warren delivered a stunningly blunt speech on the floor of the Senate recently. During those 10 minutes she spoke eloquently and forcefully on the subject of, and the devastating effect of, money in politics.

As a U.S. senator, she gave uncontested witness to what happens to nearly any piece of legislation before it becomes law. If it wasn’t already drafted at the urging – or literally written by – some special interest, it will inevitably, before it comes up for consideration, be subjected to a withering barrage of adverse influence by lobbyists.

They, as Sen. Warren says, slither around Washington with endless supplies of money, tossing it in any number of directions to ensure that those special interests will not be negatively affected, or, often, to see that they are exempted from the legislation altogether, and that the lawmakers whose influence has been thus purchased ultimately come away richer in one form or another. Robert Reich has a clear sense of how the American economy works, an understanding that he communicates quickly and understandably, and his motives, like those of Sen. Warren, are pure and untainted.

Phil Crossman

Vinalhaven