Elizabeth Warren just threw down the gauntlet

| 9:00 pm EST February 20, 2020
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Elizabeth Warren has finally decided that she needs to be the nominee. Not just that she wants to be the nominee, but that she needs to be the nominee, for the good of the country. She may be right about that.

Warren’s likely line of thinking: Mike Bloomberg is fatally flawed and doesn’t appear to be taking this seriously. Bernie Sanders keeps getting more toxic by the day, alienating more democratic voters in the process, and he would likely lose to Trump. Biden may or may not recover from the votes that Bloomberg took away from him. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar keep wasting time feuding instead of keeping their eye on the ball. At this point, who in this field can be relied upon to see this thing through?

So Warren is doing what she has to. She kneecapped Bloomberg during the debate. She’s stopped being diplomatic to Amy. Today she’s hitting Bernie over his medical records. She’s looking to clear the decks. What stands out is that Warren is going after her opponents in proportion, in honest fashion, and she’s being fair. She’s not being dirty about it, like when Bernie sent his press secretary on television this week to spread a fake story about Bloomberg having a heart attack.

Warren is also embracing Super PACs today. All along she’s probably told herself she’d rather lose the nomination without a Super PAC, than win it with a Super PAC. But now she’s concluded she has to find a way to be the nominee, and the reality is that no one is going beat Trump without a war chest.

Warren has never seemed desperate to become president. She didn’t even run in 2016, for fear of turning the far left against Hillary (Bernie ended up doing that anyway). It’s hard to imagine Warren is doing all of this today out of personal ambition. She must truly believe she needs to do to bulldoze a path to the nomination, in order to take Trump down.

This doesn’t necessarily mean Elizabeth Warren is correct. She’s not the only suitable candidate. There may be other viable paths for taking Trump down. Biden isn’t done. Amy and Pete might get their focus back. But Warren has decided she needs to be the nominee in order to ensure that Trump loses – and it’s never been smart to bet against her.