Basically, it’s game on.

But, honestly, at this point, there isn’t all that much of a game. Yes, more than three dozen candidates are considering running. And yes, as my colleague Alex Burns and I covered in the paper over the weekend, they’re interviewing staff, scouting headquarters and fleshing out financial plans.

But almost no one is actually running — at least not yet. We’re still in that period of wild speculation. And with little visibly happening, political clichés like “likability” and “electability” are bound to appear out of the ether to fill the void.

That’s part of what Ms. Warren discovered this week.

Within hours of her tweet, she was “battling the ghosts of Hillary Clinton” to avoid being written off as unlikable. She was a “below par candidate,” based on the size of her Senate victory in deep blue Massachusetts, who faces real “electability” problems.

It’s hard to see how these terms apply in the traditional sense in 2020. For the first time in 15 years, Democrats have an open field with no establishment favorite, so measuring electability is pretty difficult. And besides, being in the establishment may not be the asset it once was considered. At this point in 2015, Mrs. Clinton was seen as the most electable, even if she wasn’t likable — and we all know how that story ended.

The Democratic pollster Margie Omero says terms like “likability” aren’t quite accurate in the Trump era. And you should forget about the old political chestnut that voters want “the guy they can have a beer with.”