The Jersey Turnpike is not for slowpokes.

I learned this first hand several summers ago. I started my journey on the Connecticut highways cruising well above the speed limit and flying past scores of cars.

As I eventually made my way to New Jersey and hopped on the state’s eponymous road, I quickly felt like a golf cart driving the Daytona 500.

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Those same speeds that left Nutmeg State cars in the dust suddenly drew honks, high beam flashes, and tailgating in the Garden State.

Why does this matter and what does it have to do with Elizabeth Warren?

Well, presidential campaigns are much like timing a long commute. And the more the 2020 Democratic primary takes shape, the more I’m convinced Elizabeth Warren has been left in the dust.

In 2016, she was the leftist darling, setting the terms of the debate for Hillary Clinton and the party as a whole.

The problem, however, was that it worked.

Much like when I crossed the Jersey state line, Warren has struggled to keep pace with a crop of candidates who once made her uniquely progressive persona seem fairly ordinary.

Now she’s faced with a question that’s not easy to answer: “How do you break the mold when you’re the one who created it?”

In an attempt to answer that very question, Warren’s nascent presidential campaign has been marked by reactive political gimmicks designed to get attention in a packed Democratic field and in a media cycle with a frenetic attention span.

It began with her New Year’s Eve announcement.

I’ve worked on two presidential campaigns. The launch is the one and only thing that is completely within your control. There is no excuse for it to be anything less than a success.

Warren’s timing, however, was atrocious.

The two latest polls of her neighboring state of New Hampshire—the closest state she has to a “must win”—shows Warren in 4th place, still in the single digits and hovering slightly above Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

The decision to pull the trigger on New Year’s Eve is inconceivable to me. Think about it: Why would you announce your candidacy on a holiday in which almost no one is closely following the news and reporters are largely on vacation? It’s malpractice.

And because of that decision, her announcement got a fraction of the attention it should’ve.

According to AdWeek, the primetime ratings for MSNBC—an audience most Democrats prize—was less than half of what it was on January 2, the day most Americans went back to work and settled into their post-holiday routines.

Next was the filibuster.

Out of the many members of the Senate who have announced for president, Warren has come the closest to calling for the outright elimination of the filibuster, repeatedly telling Pod Save America “all options are on the table.” That’s farther than any other Senator has gone.

Never mind the fact that she’s proudly joined filibusters time and again, most famously on gun control and Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination.

At best, it’s a cheap stunt for the campaign trail that she doesn’t believe will come to pass.

At worst, it’s just plain foolish. It may grease the wheels for liberal policy pipedreams in the short term, but just ask the Democrats who voted to kill the filibuster on judicial nominations in 2013. What comes around, goes around. Maybe that’s why even Bernie Sanders won’t touch this idea.

Now, in her latest desperate gambit, she’s sworn off the high-dollar fundraisers and donor calls that are standard in practically every campaign.

The Boston Globe rightly saw an ulterior motive for the move, saying it gives Warren “a ready-made excuse if her first-quarter fundraising totals are lower than expected.”

That’s quite likely to be the case. In the first 24 hours of her candidacy, Warren raised just shy of $300,000. That’s miles behind Bernie Sanders’ $6 million and Kamala Harris’ $1.5 million in the same timeframe following their respective announcements.

We’ll see if these gimmicks help Massachusetts’ senior senator break from the pack. Thus far, they seem to have fallen flat.

The two latest polls of her neighboring state of New Hampshire—the closest state she has to a “must win”—shows Warren in 4th place, still in the single digits and hovering slightly above Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

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Time will tell if these actions set her apart from the rest of the field or if she’ll continue to flail away while the newcomers gain momentum.

But take it from me, next time she’s on the Turnpike, she better floor it or expect to get passed.

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