(Fauxcahontas)
WASHINGTON (AP) Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency, hoping her reputation as a populist fighter can help her navigate a Democratic field that could include nearly two dozen candidates.
No matter what our differences, most of us want the same thing, the 69-year- old Massachusetts Democrat said in a video that highlights her familys history in Oklahoma. To be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules and take care of the people we love. Thats what Im fighting for and thats why today Im launching an exploratory committee for president.
Warren burst onto the national scene a decade ago during the financial crisis with calls for greater consumer protections. She quickly became one of the partys more prominent liberals even as she sometimes fought with Obama administration officials over their response to the market turmoil.
Now, as a likely presidential contender, she is making an appeal to the partys base. Her video notes the economic challenges facing people of color along with images of a womens march and Warrens participation at an LGBT event.
In an email to supporters, Warren said shed more formally announce a campaign plan early in 2019.
Warren is the most prominent Democrat yet to make a move toward a presidential bid and has long been a favorite target of President Donald Trump.
In mid-December, former Obama housing chief Julian Castro also announced a presidential exploratory committee, which legally allows potential candidates to begin raising money. Outgoing Maryland Rep. John Delaney is the only Democrat so far to have formally announced a presidential campaign.
But thats likely to change quickly in the new year as other leading Democrats take steps toward White House runs.
Warren enters a Democratic field thats shaping up as the most crowded in decades, with many of her Senate colleagues openly weighing their own campaigns, as well as governors, mayors and other prominent citizens. One of her most significant competitors could be Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who is eyeing another presidential run harnessing the same populist rhetoric.
She must also move past a widely panned October release of a DNA test meant to bolster her claim to Native American heritage. The move was intended to rebut Trumps taunts of Warren as Pocahontas. Instead, her use of a genetic test to prove ethnicity spurred controversy that seemed to blunt any argument she sought to make. There was no direct mention of it in the video released Monday.
Warren has the benefit of higher name recognition than many others in the Democratic mix for 2020, thanks to her years as a prominent critic of Wall Street who originally conceived of what became the governments Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
She now faces an arduous battle to raise money and capture Democratic primary voters attention before Iowa casts its first vote in more than a year. She has an advantage in the $12.5 million left over from her 2018 re-election campaign that she could use for a presidential run.
Warrens campaign is likely to revolve around the same theme shes woven into speeches and policy proposals in recent years: battling special interests, paying mind to the nexus between racial and economic inequities.
Americas middle class is under attack, Warren said in the video. How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie. And they enlisted politicians to cut them a fatter slice.
Poster Comment:
The biggest problems facing America is not gun violence. People like her are and always will be America's biggest problem.
Women in this country who look up to these silly female politicians, vote for them and still think they have their finger on the pulse of America. Well you liberated girls just keep proving one thing equal with men. You can be just as stupid and behave just as bad as the worst of us. Fortunately many women in America see what these phony harpies are and thank God Hillary wasn't elected president.