I wrote recently that Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign already has been defined by her Native American problem much as emails defined Hillary.
Trump has switched, at least temporarily, from calling her “Pocahontas” to mock her false claim to be Native American to mocking the DNA test results that showed Warren may only be 1/1024th Native American (by DNA, which is not how real Native Americans determine whether someone is a tribal member).
Warren is on a tour of Iowa, and appeared at a rally in Sioux City. As if to prove me right, the very first question asked of Warren by an audience member was about her DNA test.
You will recall that the DNA test, which revealed she may have a single Native American ancestor 6-10 generations ago, has been almost uniformly considered a disaster for Warren.
Dave Weigel of The Washington Post was present, and tweeted:
America Rising, a Republican oppo research group which presumably has video trackers following Warren, posted the video.
It’s clear the person asking the question was sympathetic to Warren and framed the question in such a way as to accuse Trump of being a bully:
That’s a really long-winded answer to a simple question. The themes Warren hit, particularly that the accusations against her are racist, are part of a clear Warren strategy, something we discussed in the earlier post:
Even as she attempts recover from the DNA rollout disaster, Warren is still trying to deflate the Native American issue in a way Warren supporters, particularly in the media, have tried since 2012: By attacking people who bring it up as racist….Warren also has a section [of her campaign-related website] devoted to calling people who raise the issue racist….
Warren also tries to parse the wording, with the diversion about whether she is a tribal member. That’s not the issue. She checked the box that said she was Native American when she wasn’t.
When the issue first arose, she didn’t hesitate to claim she was in fact Native American. To the contrary she justified claiming that status based on offensive racial-profiling of Native Americans having high cheekbones:
Warren also claimed she would be the first Native American Senator from Massachusetts:
This issue is not going away, even among Warren supporters.
Those who support her fear the Warren is incapable of responding to Trump’s attacked, and that the issue will be like Hillary’s email scandal, never going away.
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