The seven-year-old daughter of the wisest soul I know had one question when Mom asked child who she would vote for in the Democratic primary if she had a vote.
“Which one has a cat?” the girl queried.
From the mouth of babes. (Perhaps) unwittingly, her question underscores the embarrassment of riches — and choices — facing Democrats this election year.
Consider the GOP slate of top contenders when they were vying for the top office. A brain-dead brain surgeon. A Senator who fries his bacon on AR-15 muzzles. A Senator who suffered the greatest flop sweat since Broadcast News.
And of course, Agent Orange This isn’t just low-hanging fruit. These are coconuts, rolling off the truck and down the street, ripe for the scooping.
Now consider the Democratic slate: two successful (and legitimate) billionaires, the former vice-president to America’s first African American Chief Executive; an eloquent, gay mayor with Mideast war experience, and a Senator whose looniest notion is Medicare for all.
And we haven’t even gotten to the best candidate: Elizabeth Warren.
This endorsement is wholehearted, but the girl was right. Their pets could as well be the deciding factor in who to choose. Even if one owned a rabid baboon, they’d still get my vote should they win the nomination. You know, since we’re currently presided over by one anyway.
But look closely at the Democratic candidates, and you’ll see Warren’s story arcs eerily similar to our last Democratic president. And both are, at their core, un-corporate American success stories.
Warren grew up in a working class home and neighborhood. She began her career in education. She is criticized for being too ponderous, too deliberate, and too detailed in her answers.
Warren’s victory would be as equally historic as Obama’s, though you’d never know that from the 24/7s. It’s wonderful that the news has paid no attention to the popularity of Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg, two Jewish contenders who would be the first from their faith to become president (remember when being Catholic was a deal breaker?) 
But let’s not underplay Warren’s story so much that we forget its history. America tried to elect the first female president four years ago (and her 3 million+ margin of victory should have been the end of the electoral college). An arguably stronger candidate has taken her place, only without the scandals. There are no Burismas, NDA’s, stop-and-frisk scandals in Warren’s closet, so far as we know. Her undressing of Bloomberg in the debates demonstrated she can scrap with a billionaire.
She’s also laid out her plan as president to the smallest details (perhaps too small for a U.S. electorate). But just her first two oaths of her prospective administration — that it will not hire any current lobbyists and that it will not hire employees of for-profit federal contractors — are enough to counteract the nepotism and cronyism that has left the country on life support (literally if coronavirus isn’t brought under control).
Warren, too, is about as progressive as America is ready to go. While Sanders has been refreshingly blunt about his political status — he considers himself a “democratic socialist” — it won’t be long until the GOP labels all his supporters socialists. We do the same thing with Republicans, calling them Trumptards. Well, this outlet does. It’s just so damn on the money!
Warren is just to the right of Sanders, to the left of Biden. Both her and the Biden administrations are more likely to close some of political divisions that riddle the political landscape and draw lawmakers from across the aisle, if not make red states competitive in the Senate. It’s hard to picture Sanders suturing wounds with those in MAGA hat country.
Oh, and in answer to that child’s brilliant question: Most of the candidates have dogs. And Warren’s is a Golden Retriever named Bailey, who accompanies her and her husband on countless campaign stops. ‘Nuff said.
Finally, Warren represents where we are as a nation. The time has never been more right for women to take the reigns. They took the streets with #MeToo. They took Hollywood predators (and others in boardrooms and high-rise offices) off those streets. What would be more fitting — more American — than to pound an authoritarian rapist into the gravel?
Oh, and a side note from my mom, a secret progressive in South Carolina. She reports that, on the cusp of the S.C. primary, Trump was in her state, pleading for them to vote Bernie in what he’s termed “Operation Chaos.”
He’s right. However you vote, vote. Be heard. Cause some chaos. Just not where he expects it.
