Bestselling self-help author Marianne Williamson, who brought quirky spiritualism to the 2020 presidential race, has announced she’s running for president again, becoming the first major Democrat to challenge President Joe Biden for his party’s nomination in 2024.
Williamson is formally kicking off her campaign with an event in Washington on Saturday. Without mentioning former President Donald Trump, she noted in a weekend Facebook post that his unconventional White House win makes it “odd for anyone to think they can know who can win the presidency.”
“I’m not putting myself through this again just to add to the conversation,” Williamson wrote. “I’m running for president to help bring an aberrational chapter of our history to a close, and to help bring forth a new beginning.”
Williamson, 70, says she plans to follow her Washington announcement with travel to states voting early in the Democratic primary. That includes New Hampshire, where she’s suggested she’d participate in the state’s primary if it defies Democratic National Committee rules and holds the nation’s first presidential nominating contest despite the party making South Carolina its leadoff state for 2024.
“I feel my forty years being up close and personal with the trauma of so many thousands of individuals gives me a unique perspective on what is needed to help repair America,” Williamson wrote. “We need a politics that treats not just symptoms, but cause. That does not base itself on the crass imperatives of endless corporate profit, but on the eternal imperatives of our principles and values.”—AP
