# Warren forms Exploratory Committee **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 31, 2018, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983 "2018-12-31T14:40:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/181 "2019-01-06T18:36:00Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > I’ll deny it. This s so early, I can’t believe she’s going to be in full campaign mode for this long. “The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama, then junior United States Senator from Illinois, was announced on February 10, 2007 in Springfield, Illinois.” - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_2008_presidential_campaign) Seems pretty comparable to me. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/182 "2019-01-06T19:20:19Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > “The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama, then junior United States Senator from Illinois, was announced on February 10, 2007 in Springfield, Illinois.” - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_2008_presidential_campaign) > > Seems pretty comparable to me. Excepting of course that he announced AFTER both John Edwards did in December '06 and Hillary Clinton had in January '07. Seems to prove the exact opposite to me. The earliest serious candidate mover did the worst and the LAST to announce won. There is, if anything, a first mover curse. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/183 "2019-01-06T19:40:08Z")
Comparable, I guess by some measures. But Obama’s campaign started a little less than 11 months before the Iowa caucus, Warren started a little over 13 months before Iowa. 2 months is a fair amount of more work and money, ISTM. Eta: and yes, he also wasn’t the first serious candidate to announce. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/184 "2019-01-06T19:46:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I think it is one, buit so? It’s not like it’s at her house. Your bias is showing. I’m looking at it on a laptop screen, and it’s _really, really_ not one. I’m not sure of the exact shape, but it looks more like a vase with flowers painted on it. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/185 "2019-01-06T19:59:31Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Your bias is showing. I’m looking at it on a laptop screen, and it’s _really, really_ not one. I’m not sure of the exact shape, but it looks more like a vase with flowers painted on it. What bias? It’s blurry and it kinda looks like one, but again- so what? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/186 "2019-01-06T20:23:10Z")
You said you think it is one. Now you’re saying it kinda looks like one. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/187 "2019-01-06T20:36:38Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > You said you think it is one. Now you’re saying it kinda looks like one. What’s the difference?😕 I am not sure in either case. Maybe yes, maybe no, but in either case- who cares? There’s a member of the NAACP that I heard collects that very sort of stuff. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/188 "2019-01-06T23:18:29Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Excepting of course that he announced AFTER both John Edwards did in December '06 and Hillary Clinton had in January '07. > > Seems to prove the exact opposite to me. The earliest serious candidate mover did the worst and the LAST to announce won. > > There is, if anything, a first mover curse. Sorry if I wasn’t clear - I was responding not to the first mover question, but to the suggestion that Warren’s was an unusually early start. I’d forgotten that Hillary and Edwards had both declared earlier than Obama had, so Warren’s not off the mark particularly early at all. Will she win the nomination? Hell if I know. But unless Biden or Kerry run, I’d say Warren has the most serious policy chops of the entire field, the most well-thought-out arguments about where we need to go from here as a country. The only question in my mind was, how would she be as a candidate? Would she just get a respectful hearing, or would she get people excited? I think that question has been answered. She’s definitely top tier at this point, and IMHO likely to remain so. The question is, who will join her in the top tier? That remains to be seen. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/189 "2019-01-06T23:30:39Z")
I don’t think that question has been answered even frigging remotely. The people excited atm are the people who’ve been itching for her already. She’s also getting a “respectful hearing” from a lot of centrist Dems who know she’s not a crazy radical but have doubts about her electability. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/190 "2019-01-07T00:01:02Z")
But what the hey, since people are talking about the first mover (dis?)advantage, here’s my thoughts: 1. The sample is too small to say that, in general, it’s a plus or a minus or what. 2. Like Eric Clapton once said, [it’s in the way that you use it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP1AFDDJoeE). Paul Tsongas and John Edwards have been brought up as examples. a) Tsongas did in fact get one hell of a boost - he went from being barely known outside Massachusetts to being Clinton’s main early rival. I can’t say I remember whether his early start was the source of that boost, but it can’t be written off. b) Edwards barely left off campaigning after 2004, practically living in Iowa for the next three years, so it probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference when he made it official. c) Whatever ultimately happens with her candidacy, Warren’s rewritten her media narrative this weekend. Yeah, there will still be people pushing the whole unlikable-schoolmarmish stuff, and the DNA testing bit, but they’re gonna be much more fringe, at least for a while. Now it’s gonna be, she went to Iowa, people loved her, and people were lined up around the block to try to get in where she spoke. What first-mover got her was the media’s undivided attention to her Iowa trip. If she’d fallen on her face, she would have been left for dead. But the general reaction seems to be, she hit it out of the park. So she used her opportunity pretty well, I’d say. And it’s not that she’s the first major prospective candidate to go to Iowa. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris both visited Iowa last fall, but there was plenty else going on: Iowans turned out for them in healthy numbers, but if an Iowa trip falls in the forest and the national press doesn’t hear it, does it make a sound? Warren successfully played it so that the national media DID hear, and then made the most of the moment. It’s in the way that you use it. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/191 "2019-01-07T00:07:36Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > I don’t think that question has been answered even frigging remotely. The people excited atm are the people who’ve been itching for her already. Apparently there are quite a few of them in Iowa. That’s \*good. \* > [@](#): > > She’s also getting a “respectful hearing” from a lot of centrist Dems who know she’s not a crazy radical but have doubts about her electability. Didn’t sound like her audiences were giving her a “respectful hearing” and little more. (I’m talking about how she did with her audiences _in Iowa_. That’s where she was this weekend. That’s who she was either going to connect with this weekend, or not.) But to each his own. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/192 "2019-01-07T01:47:57Z")
Her audiences at the moment are about a thousand people at a time in Iowa. I don’t think it’s quite confetti time. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/193 "2019-01-07T01:56:35Z")
I must applaud Warren for taking a strong antiwar position alongside Trump of all people by backing the Syria troop withdrawal. This may explain the center-left rhetoric against her. If she can manage to maintain this posture for the duration, it could bode well and position her as the peace candidate. I am interested to learn more of the Democrat masses’ opinions on the wars. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/194 "2019-01-07T02:12:36Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I must applaud Warren for taking a strong antiwar position alongside Trump of all people by backing the Syria troop withdrawal. Trump is not taking “a strong antiwar position”, he is dancing to Putins tune. So, you think we should do what Russia wants? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/195 "2019-01-07T02:43:10Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Trump is not taking “a strong antiwar position”, he is dancing to Putins tune. So, you think we should do what Russia wants? And the first member of those masses speaks up. Who is “we”? I think the US govt should withdraw from Syria and would prefer a total withdrawal from the ME. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/196 "2019-01-07T02:46:27Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > And the first member of those masses speaks up. > > Who is “we”? I think the US govt should withdraw from Syria and would prefer a total withdrawal from the ME. “We” is the USA. We should withdraw _why_? Because Putin wants us to? How many troops do you think we have there and what are their roles? Let me put it this way- just about every idea trump has had has been wrong, why would \*this \*one be right? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/197 "2019-01-07T03:33:51Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Her audiences at the moment are about a thousand people at a time in Iowa. I don’t think it’s quite confetti time. Actually, that’s a really good turnout for this early in an Iowa January. I went through two presidential cycles in Ohio and we got everyone coming through my small Appalachian town along the river both times. Early on it was people coming through and speaking in elementary schools and on courthouse steps to several hundred. Edwards, Kerry’s VP pick two days before the election drew about 200 people. Biden, in September drew about 750 in 2008. The biggest I ever saw was Palin in Maybe September? She advertised the shit out of it and filled the fieldhouse at the local college. She had baton twirlers as her opening act. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/198 "2019-01-07T04:41:37Z")
I don’t know, man. If you wanted to impress me about Warren’s turnout being good, istm you’d compare it to eventual winners’ turnout numbers rather than saying she beat a bunch of losers’ turnout. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/199 "2019-01-07T09:39:15Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > “We” is the USA. > > We should withdraw _why_? Because Putin wants us to? > > How many troops do you think we have there and what are their roles? > > Let me put it this way- just about every idea trump has had has been wrong, why would \*this \*one be right? The US govt has been backing the losers of the civil war. Time to quit. The bizarre dream of removing Assad is not achievable now, not that it was ever desirable. Trump has been wrong on foreign policy because he has listened to failed bureaucrats and continued Obama’s policies such as in Yemen. Look, I realize the center left thirst for war Ian unquenchable, but it’s time to end this ridiculous policy. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983/200 "2019-01-07T14:27:06Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Her audiences at the moment are about a thousand people at a time in Iowa. I don’t think it’s quite confetti time. Then we’re in agreement! Because I don’t think it is, either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warren-forms-exploratory-committee/826983.md?page=11)