Well, friends, as the perennial wheel of the Trump administration heads into the latter half of its life, rumors surrounding who the potential candidates for the 2020 Presidential election might be, which have remained on a low-simmer on the back burner, are now being brought to medium-high heat, ready to boil. With the 116th Congress set to meet a few days after the new year, the “blue wave” will finally take its seats in the House and the Senate. In addition to this exciting news, parts of the United States federal government remain shut down at the behest of President Donald Trump who is displeased with the fact that no one seems willing to give him $5 billion to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. Regardless of one’s opinions on the current administration, we are only a year or so out from the Iowa caucus, and this is personally my favorite time period because we, as Americans, have the unique pleasure of witnessing politicians from all political preferences attempt to guise their intentions for running for office.
One such mystery candidate decided that she no longer wished to remain in the shadows as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced Monday that, after months of speculation and videos explaining her alleged Native-American heritage, she is establishing an exploratory committee to pursue a 2020 White House bid for the upcoming election. For those of us less privy to jargon used in domestic politics, an exploratory committee is a collective of individuals tasked with determining the candidacy of potential candidates running for an elected office.
“Exploratory, draft or “testing the waters” committees are formed solely for the purpose of determining the feasibility of an individual’s candidacy for office. The activities of exploratory committees may include polling, travel, and telephone calls to determine whether the individual should become a candidate.”
–DC Official Code § 1-1101.01(6)(B)(vi))
Warren is the first Democrat to actively pursue candidacy for the upcoming election following her recent announcement. Warren informed supporters early Monday morning with a crisp email, nearly 13 months ahead of the Iowa caucus. In the email, Warren detailed her master plan to form an exploratory committee, which will allow her to fundraise and hire staffers before she formally announces she is running for office. In addition to the email that went out, Warren released a video that erred on the side of “anti-Wall Street” according to the New York Times.
Warren’s email said:
“I’ve spent my career getting to the bottom of why America’s promise works for some families, but others, who work just as hard, slip through the cracks into disasters. And what I’ve found is terrifying: there aren’t cracks families are falling into, they’re traps. America’s middle class is under attack. But this dark path doesn’t have to be our future. We can make our democracy work for all of us. We can make our economy work for all of us.”
–Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA-D)
In addition to the mounting anticipation preparing to kill each and every one of us as we approach another election system, other possible Democratic candidates all claim to be deliberating, contemplating, pondering, chewing, and some other verb ending in “-ing” about whether they plan on running in 2020. Following the aftermath of his defeat in the Senatorial race in Texas, Beto O’Rourke previously told media outlets that he had little to no interest in running for president. He told reporters that when he ran for Senate, he was “100 percent focused on our campaign, winning that race and then serving the next six years in the United States Senate,” but given that the outcome wasn’t in his favor, Republican incumbent Ted Cruz retained his seat, O’Rourke continued to say that now he is “thinking through a number of things.” When a Politico reporter asked if O’Rourke’s position on 2020 was any different than it was before the midterms, he said “yeah, yeah it is.”
“People are motivated by him as a political leader and a human being. He is authentic, and luckily, authentically cool. For him to play air drums to the Who or skateboard is both authentic and cool. People want to hang out with him.”
–Jim Messina on Beto O’Rourke, NBC News
As for who will actually run for the Democratic presidential slot, no one knows for sure, but Sen. Warren has laid more groundwork than her fellow comrades.
