21st century campaigning
Elizabeth Warren has reportedly posed for 42,000 'selfies' on the campaign trail
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) might not quite understand what a selfie is, but it doesn't seem to be affecting her supporters' enthusiasm.
GQ's Julia Ioffe, who followed the Democratic presidential candidate throughout the summer on some of her campaign stops, reports that Warren has taken somewhere around 42,000 pictures with people who attend her campaign events. When the events are over, the senator waits for every single person who wants a picture before she heads home. Sometimes it can take hours of her time, like when 3,000 people waited in line after an event in Chicago in June. When Warren senses it'll be a long one, she laces up her sneakers for maximum comfort; ultimately she describes the process as "energizing."
Warren's campaign has dubbed the phenomenon a selfie line, but that's technically inaccurate, since in reality one of her staffers takes the pictures of Warren and the potential voter. An actual selfie would require either Warren or the other person in the frame to actually snap the shot, but life goes on.
Dictionary debates aside, the number of people who line up to pose with Warren could be viewed as an unscientific measure of the growing number of fans she has accrued since launching her campaign. The GQ article specifically takes a look at some of her efforts in the Midwest, including states like Wisconsin and Michigan where Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign failed to resonate. Ioffe highlights two Teamsters in Milwaukee, whom she describes as members of the "elusive and coveted white working class," one of whom described Warren as more electable than the other Democratic frontrunners, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Read the full profile at GQ.