But running for president in the age of Donald Trump requires, above all, an ability to handle what John Heileman and Mark Halperin once called “the freak show” (back when it was considerably less freaky). It requires a deftness dealing with scandals and gaffes and accidental blunders, an ability to know when you have a wrestling move that justifies getting down in the mud and when you’re better off sitting on a top rail and acting superior to the pigs.
So far Warren’s main encounter with the freak show has involved her claim to Cherokee ancestry, which was an issue in her last Senate campaign, in 2012, before Trump started in with his nicknaming. And from her initial response to the story through the new DNA test “rebuttal” to the president, she has demonstrated a conspicuous lack of political common sense.
Now, for the first time, they have an opponent who not only fights back, but draws blood (politically speaking). In addition, he says things which, while frightening the pearl-clutching Bush-league Republicans, gets the liberals to respond in foolish ways that expose their hypocrisy, and more importantly, forces the liberal media to carry his message - which they'd prefer to hush up.
In addition, some of the Bush-league Republicans are now feeling their oats, energized so to speak, and responding in kind to the liberals.
Genius.