Over the past four decades, the American political landscape has been littered with the wreckage of booster rockets from eagerly anticipated presidential campaigns that failed to successfully take off.



Begin with John Glenn, whom I profiled on the cover of Newsweek in 1983 just after the release of the film version of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff. “Can a Movie Help Make a President?” the piece’s cover line asked—and, as is the general rule with most questions posed in a headline, the correct answer was “No.” Nebraska Senator and Vietnam veteran Bob Kerrey was considered a major 1992 challenger to Bill Clinton—until he ran. Basketball star Bill Bradley never got a clear shot against Al Gore in 2000. And then there was a celebrated also-ran named Joe Biden in 2008.

On the Republican side, the names alone provoke giggles. Rudy Giuliani had a hefty lead for the Republican nomination in all the Gallup polls in 2007. And maybe you remember Jeb Bush and his spendthrift ability to blow through $160 million in both campaign and Super PAC money without winning a single state—together with the woeful campaign-trail appeal that the candidate all but mumbled from beneath all that sunken cash: “Please clap.” Or take Jeb’s erstwhile Florida protégé, who was supposed to be the charismatic standard-bearer of a fearless new brand of Tea Party-inspired leadership: Marco Rubio, who is now best known for quoting Bible verses on Twitter between half-hearted defenses of President Trump’s agenda.

During the winter and early spring, it looked as if Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren would be the next entry in this parade of presidential pratfalls. But now that Warren again has as plausible a path as any candidate to the nomination, it’s worth remembering the way that the political railbirds and TV talking heads seized on her missteps (real and perceived) in the early going.

A cringeworthy New Year’s Eve livestream on Instagram featured the former Harvard law professor in her kitchen announcing out of nowhere, “Hold on a sec, I’m gonna get me a beer.” (The folksy outburst was as heavy-handed as the patrician George H.W. Bush stressing his love of pork rinds during the 1988 campaign.)