One of the basic laws of campaigning is that when you’re explaining, you’re losing. And Elizabeth Warren can’t stop explaining her claims of Native American heritage as she embarks on her presidential campaigning in Iowa. Even if she wanted to stop, she can’t because people keep asking her questions about it. That’s because – even though she denies it -- without oppressed minority status, she would never have made it to a faculty post at Harvard Law, where a diploma from the very most prestigious law schools was required of everyone else but her.  She was hailed by the university itself as the “first woman of color” at Harvard Law in the midst of a strident campaign to force that very school to increase faculty diversity.

CNN, which would much prefer to be slamming Trump, can’t ignore the story:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren was confronted by a voter in Sioux City on Saturday morning over her controversial decision to use a DNA test to prove her claims to Native American ancestry.

"I am not a person of color," the Massachusetts Democrat said. "I am not a citizen of a tribe. Tribal citizenship is very different from ancestry. Tribes -- and only tribes -- determine tribal citizenship, and I respect that difference."

Watch her eyes and face and listen to her tone of voice. To me, she looks and sounds worried and apologetic. (Notice also, the shutdown clock that CNN is using. If this shutdown lasts for months, will they get tired of it?)

I continue to think that she's a dead phony, walking.

I bet that the consultants that urged her to swig a beer on Instagram also told her to grab the advantage by declaring her presidential campaign first. Now, she gets to stay in the headlines explaining away her claim to victim group status and declaring that Harvard was wrong to hire her as the “first woman of color.”

Photo credit: screen grab from CNN