What Makes The Political Establishment In DC So Frightened Of Marianne Williamson?

After Marianne Williamson published her plank on African-American slavery reparations, something she's been speaking out about forcefully and publicly since 1997, several presidential contenders started exploring the issue themselves. But one who certainly won't be doing so is ole Status Quo Joe. He was quoted in the Washington Post yesterday, having said "I do not buy the concept, popular in the ’60s, which said, ‘We have suppressed the black man for 300 years and the white man is now far ahead in the race for everything our society offers. In order to even the score, we must now give the black man a head start, or even hold the white man back, to even the race.’ I don’t buy that."

Coincidentally, Chuck Todd's team at NBC News was asking, "Can the Democratic Party we saw nearly melt down this week over Ilhan Omar handle Biden’s past-- whether it’s busing, race or Anita Hill?"

Marianne Williamson is about to cross the threshold the DNC is requiring for contenders to make it onto the debate state-- at least 1 percent support in three party-approved public polls or campaign donations from 65,000 individuals with a minimum of 200 donors apiece in 20 states. She's already surpassed 200 donors in each of 20 states and is closing in on 65,000 individual donors. You can contribute to her campaign here and help get her uniquely progressive voice onto the debate stage.

Marianne has been aggressively ignored by MSNBC's prime time swim-- particularly Maddow-- and by the elite Beltway status quo media. That she has millions of followers and admirers nationally and internationally, compared to politician-candidates almost no one has ever heard of outside their own constituencies-- from John Delaney, Terry McAuliffe, Mayor Pete, Tulsi Gabbard and Julian Castro to John Frackenlooper, Jay Inslee and Steve Bullock (all of whom are polling between zero and 1%)-- hasn't encouraged the political establishment to give her candidacy a second look. Quite the contrary, in fact. The mainstream media and the pollsters have done their best to erect a wall around her campaign and write her off as "an outside." She's not in their club.

Insiders especially don't like it when she responds to questions about not having been a senator or congressman or governor by reminding them of what a mess professional politicians have made of the country. The "qualified political experts" she likes to remind them "took us into Viet Nam. The 'qualified political experts' are those who took us into Iraq. The 'qualified political experts' created the greatest income inequality since 1929. These 'qualified political experts' have taken us to a point where the environmental peril in our experience today actually threatens the survivability of the human race 50 years from now. There are different sets of qualifications. I think we need more than someone who's just qualified because they understand how Washington works. We need someone today who understands how we work." Oh, does that piss them off!

This week, Politico, the mouthpiece of the Beltway political class had its self-righteous dander up about Williamson qualifying for the debate stage. "Under newly crafted rules," wrote Elena Schneider,"two little-known candidates with no governmental experience are poised to qualify for the first debate later this year. The extraordinary shift from past campaigns will squeeze the amount of time on stage for candidates looking to the debates for breakout campaign moments. And it will force the senators and governors-- and maybe even a former vice president-- running for president to contend with and respond to the outsiders’ ideas on national TV. Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson, a pair of little-known 2020 contenders, both say they are on track to meet the grassroots donation threshold set by the DNC to get into the first debate in June. They’d join Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, both African-American ministers and civil rights activists, as the only non-elected officials to make the first Democratic presidential debate in the past 40 years." She used "little known" to describe Williamson numerous times, despite her being far better known than many of the politician-candidates Politico routinely takes seriously.

A two-night, 20-candidate event won’t yield much information for voters, said Patti Solis Doyle, a Democratic strategist who managed Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

“The DNC is doing their best to accommodate a huge field, but this is going to be very unruly, and candidates will be lucky if they get a minute on a single question with so many people on stage,” Solis Doyle said. “In the beginning, these debates are going to be useless, even fruitless.”

“If the idea for the debate is to actually get to know the candidates, then they’re going to have to find a way to winnow it down,” she added.

Allowing long-shot candidates to debate “has the potential to diminish everyone on stage,” said Craig Varoga, a Democratic strategist, “but on the other hand, it’s a temporary phenomenon that’ll be dealt with by the brutal economics of running for president.”

Debates often serve up viral, campaign-changing moments without regard for a candidate’s current standing in the field. Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s debate performances prompted a big bump in his 2012 presidential prospects, while former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was already fading from the 2016 Republican primaries when he memorably labeled Sen. Marco Rubio, then on the rise, a robot. Rubio finished fifth in the New Hampshire primary days later.

“One thing that’s sure to come out of these debates is a dark horse who can catapult themselves forward into another tier,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist. “That’s what a lot of them are hoping for, and the more people on stage, the more difficult that becomes, but it certainly won’t prevent any of them from being able to do it.”

And Yang and Williamson could press the rest of the Democratic field on issues that matter to them, like universal basic income or reparations for African-Americans.

If some of those lines stick, “don’t be surprised if you hear those top-tier candidates suddenly start putting them into their stump speech,” Varoga said.