Marianne Williamson 2020 presidential campaign
| Marianne Williamson for President | |
|---|---|
| File:Marianne 2020 logo 51007580.jpg | |
| Campaign | 2020 United States presidential election (Democratic Party primaries) |
| Candidate | Marianne Williamson Spiritual teacher and author[1] |
| Status | Announced: January 28, 2019[2] Exploratory committee: November 15, 2018[3] |
| Headquarters | Sacramento, California[4] |
| Key people | Maurice Daniel (campaign manager)[5] Paul Hodes (senior advisor and New Hampshire state director)[6] Gloria Bromell Tinubu (senior advisor and South Carolina state director)[7] Brent Roske (Iowa state director)[8] |
| Slogan | Join the Evolution[9] |
| Website | |
| Official website | |
The 2020 presidential campaign of Marianne Williamson, a New Age author and spiritual leader, was announced on January 28, 2019, after the initial formation of an exploratory committee on November 15, 2018. Williamson's bid for the Democratic nomination is her second political campaign, after previously running as an independent to represent California's 33rd congressional district in 2014.
Background
On August 2, 2018, The Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs revealed that Marianne Williamson,[10] a New Age author and spiritual leader known as "Oprah's spiritual adviser" thanks to her frequent appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show,[1] visited Iowa earlier that week and was considering a presidential bid as a Democrat, visiting the Des Moines area as well as Fairfield, a cultural magnet for practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation technique and where the Maharishi University of Management is based. Williamson previously contested California's 33rd congressional district in the 2014 elections as a no party preference candidate, securing 13% of the vote in the state's top-two primary after self-funding $2 million in a quixotic campaign supported by Alanis Morissette and Dennis Kucinich.[10] She made several more visits to the Iowa in September and October, stopping in Sioux City and Polk City in addition to returning to Fairfield for small events with fans and local Democrats.[11][12]
On November 15, 2018, Williamson announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee in a video in which she acclaimed that there was a "miracle in this country in 1776 and we need another one" which would require "a co-creative effort, an effort of love and a gift of love, to our country and hopefully to our world".[3] Visiting New Hampshire in early January, she said that she said that she "received enough positive energy to make me feel I should take the next step",[13] and subsequently hired Brent Roske to lead her operation in Iowa.[8] Roske, a film producer who also contested the same 2014 primary for the seat now represented by Ted Lieu,[14][5] maintained a wide network of connections in Iowa due in part to his previous involvement in the state, working on a political television show about the 2016 caucuses.[14] In response to the Iowa Democratic Party's proposed creation of "virtual caucuses" in the 2020 race, Williamson's campaign announced that it would appoint 99 "Virtual Iowa Caucus Captains" (each assigned to a single county) to turn out supporters in both the virtual and in-person caucuses.[15]
Williamson officially launched her presidential campaign in Los Angeles on January 28, 2019,[2] in front of an audience of 2,000 attendees, and appointed Maurice Daniel, who served alongside Donna Brazile in Dick Gephardt's campaign for the Democratic nomination in 1988, as her national campaign manager,[5] with her campaign committee, "Marianne Williamson for President", officially filed on February 4.[4] Following her Los Angeles announcement, she held her Iowa kickoff in Des Moines on January 31.[16] On February 16, in addition to scheduling another trip to New Hampshire, Williamson's campaign announced the appointment of former Congressman Paul Hodes, who represented New Hampshire's 2nd congressional district from 2007 to 2011, as New Hampshire state director and senior campaign advisor.[6] Former Georgia state assemblywoman Gloria Bromell Tinubu, who returned to South Carolina in 2011 to run for Congress in the state's 7th district and later joined Phil Noble's bid for governor in 2018 as his running mate, will serve as South Carolina state director and national senior advisor to the Williamson campaign.[7]
According to the campaign, as of March 19, 2019, Williamson has received 41 percent of the 65,000-donor minimum required for entry into the official primary debates.[17]
Policies
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Williamson claims to be a "pretty straight-line progressive democrat", supporting an increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, reducing wealth inequality, addressing climate change, and tackling student loan debt.[18] She backs a "Medicare for All model", Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants without a "serious criminal background", and says that the U.S. needs to be an "honest broker" in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[1] She also voices support for the Green New Deal, stricter gun control, criminal justice reform, improving public education, free college tuition, raising the top marginal tax rate to a point where high earners pay "their fair share of taxes", describing her policies as a "renovation" of a "sociopathic economic system" focused on "short-term profit maximization".[5]
Her signature campaign promise is a call for $100 billion in reparations for black Americans to be distributed over 10 years by a group of black leaders for selected "economic and education projects",[5][19] a sum far greater than any other primary contenders support. In doing so, Williamson became the only candidate in the Democratic field to submit a detailed plan for reparations for black Americans, though fellow Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris later pledged support for reparations in late February 2019.[20]
Endorsements
| List of political endorsements |
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References
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