IT’S ON! LIZ LAUNCHES 2020 CAMPAIGN
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren launched her 2020 presidential bid among the mill buildings in Lawrence, delivering a fiery speech against the ultrawealthy with President Trump weighing in soon after on his newest campaign rival.
“Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for President,” he wrote on Twitter. “Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore? See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!”
Thousands of supporters from across New England joined curious locals clustered outside the Everett Mills, a diverse group clad in hats and mittens to brave a blustery Saturday morning for the Cambridge Democrat’s long-expected campaign announcement.
It was here that thousands of workers, mainly women and immigrants, walked off their jobs to fight for better pay and the right to unionize during the Bread and Roses strike of 1912. They won.
Saturday, Warren said, “Millions of American families are also struggling to survive in a system that has been rigged by the wealthy and the well-connected.
“Like the women of Lawrence, we are here to say enough is enough,” she cried. “We are here to take on a fight that will shape our lives, our children’s lives and our grandchildren’s lives.”
Warren then blasted President Trump, whom she did not mention by name, as the “most extreme symptom of what’s gone wrong in America. A product of a rigged system that props up the rich and the powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else.”
She pledged to stick it to billionaires and to Washington, to root out corruption and put power “back in the hands of workers,” and to fight for criminal justice reform. She promised to overturn voter suppression rules and to not take a dime from super PACs and federal lobbyists. And she welcomed support from U.S. Reps. Joseph P. Kennedy III and Lori Trahan, whose district includes Lawrence, U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu and longtime friend Mayor Daniel Rivera of Lawrence.
But her lengthy remarks failed to address the continued controversy over her Native American heritage claims. After apologizing to Cherokee Nation, she came under renewed fire this week for identifying as “American Indian” on an old Texas bar card.
“I think it’s a big deal that she lied about her ethnicity,” said 18-year-old John Boyle of Andover, who attends Central Catholic High School in Lawrence. “That really rubs me the wrong way. If she lied about that, is she going to tell the truth about other things?”
Scott Dubow of Wakefield worried Trump would continue to use Warren’s ancestry to “set the narrative.”
But Cheryl Wilson of Chelmsford called the attacks on Warren’s heritage claims “ridiculous.”
Warren’s campaign kickoff was buoyed by some Lawrencians, but the crowd contained many fans from outside the Merrimack Valley, some from as far as Nyack, N.Y., and Portland, Maine.
“She’s so passionate; she’s so real,” said Kathleen Conrad of Portland.
Jim Eddy, who drove in from Douglas, called Warren a “rock star.”
Alejandra Garcia of Lawrence said, “You could tell she was ready for a fight.”
But Lawrence native and Republican Paul Zapert said Warren was “unproven” beyond Massachusetts.
“I don’t think she would do well west of the Connecticut River,” he said.
Warren joins a throng of Democratic candidates for 2020: U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, and expected entrants U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
Lawrence was the first stop in a seven-state tour that continued Saturday in Dover, N.H.
The Republican National Committee on Saturday blasted Warren for her “disastrous handling of her false minority claims.” A new super PAC, “Stop Pocahontas,” also launched on Saturday to derail her fledgling campaign and force Warren to resign from the Senate.