A Hat Lands In The Ring

As widely expected, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced she's entering the 2020 presidential contest.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren jumped into the 2020 presidential campaign Monday, offering a message of economic populism as she became the best-known Democratic candidate yet to enter what is expected to be a crowded race.

Warren’s announcement that she was establishing an exploratory committee — the legal precursor to a run — came as other candidates, including several of her fellow senators, made final preparations for their own announcements, some of which are expected in days.

“America’s middle class is under attack,” the Massachusetts Democrat said in a four-minute, 30-second video emailed to supporters Monday. “How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie. And they enlisted politicians to cut them a bigger slice.”

The video is part biographical, showing her hardscrabble Oklahoma upbringing; part economics lesson, replete with charts illustrating how the middle class is losing economic ground; and part red meat for the Democratic base, with images of President Trump and others disliked by liberals: presidential aides Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller and former adviser Stephen K. Bannon.

It made no mention of a recent Warren stumble: her October decision to release results of a DNA test that said she probably had a distant Native American ancestor. The move had been meant to stifle Trump’s criticism of her but only engendered more mockery from him while also angering Democrats, particularly minorities who objected to her defining ethnicity via a test.

While the race for the Democratic nomination is only starting, even Warren’s supporters acknowledge that she has lost ground in the last few months, both by her own hand and because the November midterm elections redefined Democratic success with candidates who were in many cases a generation younger.

Still, the 69-year-old former law professor enters the race as a formidable candidate — a prodigious small-dollar fundraiser with a knack for creating the kind of viral moments that attract attention in a crowded field. In one such episode, she turned an insult from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — “nevertheless, she persisted” — into a liberal rallying cry. 

It's a marathon, not a sprint, as they say.  Would I vote for Liz Warren over Trump? In a heartbeat and without hesitation.  Would I vote for her in the primaries?

That's a much tougher question. Do I think she's the best Democrat for the job?

I don't honestly know, it depends on who is running.

I'm hoping that 2019 manages to decrease the number of Democratic candidates, not increase them.  It's good I think that the Democratic candidate will be decided by Super Tuesday in March 2020, with California moving its primary up into supreme relevance, and Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina all in February.

But I don't see Liz Warren as a favorite in this scenario.  Far from it.