Thread by @DaytimeDan

Overall, this pro-Biden piece is a little too glib about his strengths & ignores his weaknesses. Where it's right is that national head-to-heads are not too be believed & all candidates are not equal in an electoral college race.

My focus is on Warren. 1/
thedailybeast.com/gaffes-and-all…

This section: "If it’s Elizabeth Warren, “Pocahontas” will be invoked as mockery—and as a substantive critique on Warren’s honesty and authenticity. Make no mistake, this will move the numbers."

This is important and actually gets at two issues re: Warren and the primary. 2/

First is this, and I know I've said this before: far too many people on woke Twitter (and progressives in the primary) believe Native American identity controversy is just about...Native Americans and how she treated them & their response. I'm not dismissing that.

But that's 3/

NOT core issue in a general election. The issue is an accusation that a white woman misled others about her identity for advancement purposes. Let me be clear: I think accusation is BS & The Boston Globe wrote a good piece debunking idea that it helped 4/ bostonglobe.com/news/nation/20…

her advance.

Good. If we think a Boston Globe article is going to insulate her from Trump's toxic/racist attacks & change anyone's mind, that's a fantasy-land concept.

I keep repeating this because every time I bring up the concerns over this controversy the response is 5/

either that I'M being racist or something totally focused on implications for Native Americans.

But in a general election it's a devastating attack that can absolutely sway moderates whose votes we need. They may not vote for Trump but they can sit out & that's bad enough. 6/

Trump has one political talent & it's making his opponents as toxic and untrustworthy as he is, fair or not. So knowing that he's going to unload on her honesty about something as core as her own ethnic identity, ask yourself this:

Has Warren insulated herself from that? 7/

Has she come up with a good response that puts it to bed once & for all? When Trump releases pictures of her Texas Bar Card which has "Native American" listed as ethnicity in Warren's own handwriting, does she have a good answer for that? When it comes 8/ snopes.com/fact-check/eli…

to fact that Harvard defended its diversity in hiring practices by pointing to Warren and saying they had a minority professor, has she figured out how to dismiss it?

Because if not, get ready for an absolutely toxic destructive campaign against her honesty that will hurt. 9/

This comes to my 2nd point: I've expressed this many times before, but it's remarkable to me that of the top 4 candidates in the primary, Warren has undergone the least amount of scrutiny in the last 9 months. Even Sanders has faced more fire over his plans than Warren. 10/

Kamala Harris got absolutely pounded for embracing Bernie's Medicare for All bill until she finally had to come up with her own different plan because "what about private insurance?" was an incessant refrain on campaign trail.

Warren's plan? Literally "I support Bernie's 11/

M4A Bill." And yet somehow no scrutiny (Unless you count John Delaney lol, allowing for the easiest dunk in the history of dunks).

Why has Warren gone so unchallenged by the press?

It could very well be same issue. 3 weeks before '18 midterms: 12/

This video of Warren celebrating her DNA test and publicizing it in response to Trump's "$1 million" donation bait (then demanding he pay up) backfired so badly that my theory is she was written off by political press & pundit class. So in essence, they haven't "bothered." 13/

So that leaves the Democrats in the position of having a fast-ascendant candidate whose fairly dramatic proposals have gone without much scrutiny and with a political liability for the general election that has gone the better part of a year without having been addressed. 14/

That's a dangerous spot.

I'm not "anti-Warren," I think she is a brilliant person who's running a terrific campaign and who genuinely is motivated by the fundamental economic issues she confronts so eloquently. I do not believe her plans hold up to scrutiny well, I do not 15/

think she has a realistic route for passing them, and in interest of full disclosure, I don't actually agree with many of them (including/especially her trade policies). But more importantly I believe on both substance and politics, she's one of the weakest candidates for 16/

the general election with large looming liabilities. It does Democrats AND Warren absolutely no good to leave both the Native American controversy and her large policies unscrutinized during the primaries. Nor would it do anyone any good (and also, btw, I AGREE with attacks 17/

made on Harris for her M4A position which was a muddled mess and poorly communicated). This is the point though: all candidates should be scrutinized and tested. It doesn't weaken them, it makes them better general candidates.

And existential to Warren's viability in a 18/

general election is ensuring she comes up with a good answer that puts to bed once and for all her "Native American" controversy. If you support her, you should want that most of all.

I am transparent that she isn't candidate "for me" but if she's nominee I want her to win. /end