Going into tonight's presidential debate, the final one before the February 3 Iowa caucus, it's illuminating that Elizabeth Warren has decided to go negative (see "Warren Says Sanders Told Her a Woman Could Not Win the Presidency" by Astead Herndon and Jonathan Martin). Illuminating in that it speaks of a Warren candidacy that has given up on running a positive, unifying, policy-driven campaign to go negative in hopes of clawing a few votes from Bernie's base. (Lambert Strether has a full write-up.)
It's a foolish he-said/she-side sidebar about a private conversation regarding what it is going to take to beat Trump in 2020. Bernie vehemently denies he ever said a woman could not win, mentioning, appropriately, that a woman did win the popular vote in 2016. Warren says that Sanders did say a woman couldn't win in 2020.
It's pointless and will likely cost both candidates a marginal number of votes; thereby benefiting Biden and Buttigieg infinitesimally. More importantly it speaks of the desperation of the Warren campaign, and I think it seals Warren's fate as an also-ran. How soon she will join Cory Booker and Marianne Williamson on the sidelines, I'm not sure; it's just a matter of time.
If Warren does have life going forward in the primary, it is exactly as we see it now -- an attack dog for the DNC to tear into the ballooning support of Bernie Sanders.
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