Distant Early Warren

It's New Year's Day, and already one major Democratic presidential prospect is taking a step toward running for the White House.  Progressive darling Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, has formed an exploratory committee to see if she should throw her hat in the ring.  Exploratory committee members usually don't say no to the prospective candidates, so she's likely going to run.  In fact, you can bank on it.  (Get it?)

Okay, let me come right out and say it: If she's the nominee, I will be more than happy to vote for her, just as I was ready to vote for her for President in 2016 until she decided not to challenge Hillary Clinton.  But I really wonder if Warren can make it to the nomination, given the baggage she's carrying.  Not her staunchly liberal political positions; I'm talking about her personal baggage.

As we all remember, Donald Trump taunted Elizabeth Warren for having claimed Native American ancestry and using it to get preferences in affirmative-action program.  He famously called her "Pocahontas," and he promised to donate to her favorite charity if she took a DNA test to prove her indigenous heritage.  She did.  It turns out that she is 1/1024th Cherokee.  And although she never claimed Indian heritage to get an edge in affirmative-action programs and never profited in any way by her claim, the fact that she tried to beat Trump at his own game - a game Trump is always going to win - and ended up with such minuscule proof of her claim was a disaster.  Trump refused to take the DNA test seriously, and not only has he refused to donate money to her charity, he still calls her Pocahontas.  Meanwhile, Warren's supporters are chastening her for letting Trump play her for a sucker.  In short, her DNA test satisfied no one.

And then there's the issue of sex and politics.  Warren, by endorsing Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016, made it clear that her sex is more important than her politics.  (Note: "Gender" is a literary reference, people!)  Although Sanders was far more in tune with Warren's progressive agenda than Hillary was, she chose political correctness over political integrity by, as a woman, endorsing another woman - a woman whose centrism and opportunism nauseated Sanders supporters who had championed Warren.  Liberals have long memories and short tolerance levels. 

Nevertheless, her celebrity and her feistiness still make her a formidable candidate.  The joke is that she has a 1/1024 percent chance of winning, but then that's better than Martin O'Malley's chances.

When O'Malley (above) began his campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, doubting Thomases asked him how he could appeal to liberals who were pining for Elizabeth Warren.  "Elizabeth Warren isn't running for President," he replied.  "I am."  Thanks to Bernie Sanders, O'Malley's admittedly cocky observation ended up being irrelevant.  But not as irrelevant as O'Malley himself might be in 2020 if he waits too long to decide whether or not he's running.  Warren is already stealing headlines O'Malley never had a chance of getting anyway, but if he intends to run, he'd better declare his candidacy, and soon.  I would argue that he has a chance of getting the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in a large pool of candidates without a clear front runner and without a shrew like Debbie Wasserman Schultz running the show. But he has to get into the race mucho pronto.

Though . . . if it was difficult for O'Malley to run for President without Elizabeth Warren as an opponent for the nomination, how difficult do you think it will be for him to run for President with Warren as an opponent?