Does Mitch Landrieu Have to Run for President?

Politico: “After eight years in his dream job and as he nears turning 58 in August, he wants to take a moment by himself to think. But ever since his speech last year about taking down four Confederate monuments — when he launched himself into the center of a national conversation about race and racism, and saw the hate that others see, and confronted what’s inside America and Americans — he hears at every turn people urging him to think about running for president, and telling him that he’s made for the moment to go up against [Trump] and what his presidency has unleashed in the country. And maybe he is, he thinks. But with a 2020 field that could include a dozen or more serious Democrats, he wonders: Is running for president the only way to get anyone to pay attention?”

“For now, Landrieu is more concerned about understanding why Trump happened, and figuring out what he is prepared to do about it. … For now, there’s no wink-wink travel or fundraising. He doesn’t have consultants, other than a rickety breakfast-nook cabinet of Donna Brazile, James Carville and Mary Matalin… What he does have is a loose affiliation of people who watched that speech last year about removing the Confederate monuments, or heard about that speech, and fell in love: a scattering of Obama alums, desperate Democrats convinced that the bald white guy from the South could be the only way to answer Trump, thought leaders and prominent African-Americans who keep pushing him.”