CNN airs in-kind donation to Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 campaign

Just a hunch: A couple of CNN staffers might be in the tank for Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

The cable news network aired a segment Tuesday afternoon highlighting an endorsement the Massachusetts senator received this week from an obscure Democratic strategist.

The operative, Danny Barefoot, who I guarantee you have never heard of, said in an announcement to his 5,738 Twitter followers (he isn't even Twitter-famous) on Aug. 26: “After a bunch of thought, I’ve decided I’m throwing my support, money, and time behind [Warren]. I told myself I'd keep an open mind before making a choice this cycle. And I did.”

As of this writing, and even after his appearance on CNN, only 140 people have retweeted his note:

I have no idea how CNN decided that Barefoot’s little-noticed endorsement deserved both news coverage and a one-on-one interview. I also have no idea how CNN producers even found his endorsement, given that it got relatively little play on social media before its mention on television.

At any rate, someone at the cable news network thought this interview was a good idea. That blows my mind. Who is Barefoot? For whom has he "consulted?" As it turns out, he was the campaign manager for Krystal Ball, who turned a no-hope congressional campaign in Virginia and some racy photos of herself into a full-blown pundit career. So, you already get some idea that this guy has incredible self-promotion abilities.

“I’m from sort of the more moderate, establishment-wing of the party and, to be completely honest with you, Sen. Warren wasn’t in my sort of even top-three spots at the start of this campaign,” Barefoot said at the outset of his interview with CNN's Brooke Baldwin.

He added, “But I sort of went in with an open mind and watched the campaign unfold, and she’s the only candidate bringing her A-game, in my opinion. She’s sort of checking off every box, as far as I’m concerned. She’s bringing the plans, bringing the proposals, she is also getting the politics right. She’s going to areas like Kermit, West Virginia, and making the case directly to Trump voters that we need big, structural change.”

Elizabeth Warren — she has a cliché for that.

And it goes on like this for the whole interview.

I cannot stress enough that the entire segment is just a random guy (no offense to Barefoot) explaining why he supports Warren's candidacy. There is nothing more to it than that, and CNN gave him nearly five minutes of valuable airtime to do it.

"You know," Barefoot continued, "it’s sort of interesting: A lot of times, the folks that are in sort of the more progressive wing of the party aren’t serious about actually building the party. They sort of are attacking it. And I was really, really heartened to see Sen. Warren, like, she’s building up the party. She’s meeting with party leaders, she’s getting energy, she’s getting enthusiasm, and I — she’s just the person that I have faith to take on Donald Trump next year.”

Baldwin then took the opportunity to hit her guest with a probing question.

“Was there one ‘Boom!’ or ‘A-ha! She’s it!’ moment? Or was it collective?” asked the host, who is similarly bewitched by Warren’s “I have a plan for that” campaign message.

Baldwin also took a moment to ask her guest about 2020 front-runner Joe Biden’s recent claim that he is “not going nuts.”

Woof.

Well, there is CNN's first clear in-kind contribution to Warren’s 2020 campaign. A sign of things to come: at least, if she gets the Democratic nomination.