With Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) entering the race for president by announcing she is starting an exploratory committee, a key aspect of the decision that Democrats will have to make about their nominee in 2020 is becoming more clear.
Collectively, the Democrats have to choose whether they want a fighter who will take on President Donald Trump in a brawl, or a candidate who is more low-key anti-Trump. A fighter would try to embody and harness the outrage that excites the hard-core Trump resistance. The cooler anti-Trump candidate would present himself as offering a plea for peace and a return to normalcy in America's politics.
If the Democrats nominate an aggressive, hot personality, they will be asking voters to choose between two well-defined candidates. If they pick a candidate who is stylistically the opposite of Trump and who can avoid direct engagement with the president, then the election will be about whether voters want more Trump or less Trump.
Warren is more of a fighter. She has been an outspoken critic of all things Trump. She and the president have famously fought about her Native American heritage or lack thereof. She is a more aggressive and more liberal politician than Hillary Clinton. And Warren will energize the Democratic Party's core voters more than Clinton did in 2016. A candidate with a calmer demeanor may leave Democrats cool, lacking enthusiasm and suppressing their voter turnout.
So in 2020, Democrats need to ask themselves if they will be better off having voters choose between two brawling candidates, or if they want to try to let Trump beat himself.
A cooler anti-Trump candidate would be someone more like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and less like Warren. Klobuchar has an earnestness and a calm demeanor that Warren lacks. Klobuchar represents a class of Democratic candidates that would be less confrontational and more able to stay out of the way, making the election a referendum on Trump. But in a multi-candidate field, every Democrat running will look for ways to distinguish themselves and develop a foothold in the party.
So are the Democrats in the mood for cool and composed, or are they determined to go hand-to-hand with Trump?
Editorial on 01/04/2019