AND THEY'RE LOOKING AT THEIR PATHETIC CANDIDATES, TOO – AT 12:56 P.M. ET:   Yes, it's true.  Some Democrats are actually interested in finding a presidential candidate for 2020 who can actually win an election.  They are rare.  Some may be in museums.  A number are in cemeteries.  Maybe there's someone walkin' around.  From The Hill: 

Can Elizabeth Warren win back blue-collar Democrats from President Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania?

It’s a question many Democrats are pondering as Warren — one of the leading contenders for her party’s presidential nomination, if she chooses to run in 2020 — goes back and forth with the president over immigration and other issues.

Warren (D-Mass.) has shown an ability to rally and excite progressives, she’s a proven fundraiser and she has policy bona fides from her work in the Senate.

Yet there are creeping doubts among some Democrats that she’s the best candidate to take on Trump.

Some worry the former Harvard professor will have a tough time winning back the Rust Belt centrists and independents who abandoned Hillary Clinton and Democrats for Trump.

“I just can’t see a blue-collar, Rust Belt guy voting for her,” said one Democratic strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns. “I think the party needs to be realistic about that.”

Some Democrats almost certainly remain shellshocked from the last election after Trump’s surprise win. He became the first Republican to win the states of Pennsylvania and Michigan in a presidential election since 1988 and the first Republican to win Wisconsin since President Reagan in 1984.

If Democrats don’t retake those states in 2020, their chances of winning the Electoral College will fall.

Teeth-gnashing over who is best-positioned to take on Trump, as a result, is already taking place ahead of the midterm elections.

Warren’s gender and her political identity as a voice on the left are both likely to be issues for primary voters sizing up Democratic candidates in potential head-to-head matchups with Trump.

Would she be stronger than former Vice President Joe Biden? What about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)? Does the party need the face of a new political generation, such as Sens. Kamala Harris (Calif.), Cory Booker (N.J.) or Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.)?

Warren has her advocates, who say the senator’s anti-corporate economic message will resonate with the types of voters who left the party for Trump.

COMMENT:  No it won't.  First, Trump's message wasn't anti-corporate.  It was "pro you."  Trump, with all his wealth, knew his voters.   He knew what they'd experienced.  He knew their fears.  Hillary Clinton not only didn't know them, she referred to them as "deplorables," the word that may have cost her the election.

Has Elizabeth Warren ever met anyone outside her group?  I doubt it.

There's a wonderful story told by Doris Kearns Goodwin (and other historians) about the day FDR died.  A reporter saw a soldier at the White House gate, just looking at the presidential mansion, with tears in his eyes.  The reporter asked the soldier, "Did you know him?"  "No," the soldier replied, "but he knew me."

And that's what wins elections.  That connection.  That ability to reach people inside.

Elizabeth Warren?  I don't think so.  And you can throw in Kamala Harris and our own local candidate, Kirsten Gillibrand.  They're faculty lounge, not the local eatery.

July 10, 2018