Yesterday, I opined that if Elizabeth Warren runs for president, she will face a steep uphill climb. Today, it looks like she intends to embark on that climb.
The Boston Globe reports that Warren announced she is “exploring” a run for the presidency in 2020. She plans, according to a campaign source, to ramp up her operation right away, with travel to early primary states expected soon.
With Warren “exploring” — running, in effect — we can expect a large contingent of hopefuls to follow suit soon. As the Globe puts it, “the former Harvard law professor is likely to come up against numerous candidates beating the same drums of economic fairness.” This represents “a marked departure from 2016, when left-leaning grass-roots groups were hungry for Warren to take on the more establishment Hillary Clinton in the primary as their candidate.” Now, says the Globe some, perhaps much, of that hunger is for other candidates.
By November 2020, it may be that any Democrat can beat President Trump. In that case, conservatives should hope that Warren is not the Democrats’ nominee. There isn’t much space to the left of Warren in the Democratic Party.
On the other hand, it may turn out that no Democrat can beat Trump. It that case, it won’t matter much whom the Democrats nominate, though it’s possible that Warren would drag down a few more Democrats than some of the other contenders would.
Assuming that Trump’s reelection quest could go either way, I think he would profit marginally from facing Warren. She suffers from many of Hillary Clinton’s defects. She’s an elderly woman who spent most of her life in an elitist bubble and who struggles, it seems, to relate to ordinary voters.
Moreover, Trump has already gotten into her head with the “Pocahontas” bit. He pushed her into the error of taking that DNA test. Maybe he would force her into other mistakes.
For what it’s worth, though, my guess is that Trump won’t get that opportunity. The Democrats will probably nominate someone else.
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