If you’re a member of the media, Eric Garcetti wants you to know: He’s thinking about running for president.
Late last month, the Los Angeles mayor sat for an hour-long interview with Vox’s Ezra Klein to discuss the “hunger to go back to a politics of addition and multiplication,” and how “somebody has to say to Washington, D.C.: Enough is enough is enough.”
A week earlier, Garcetti was playing not-so-coy about his 2020 ambitions to raucous applause during an interview on The Daily Show. Two days after that, he was philosophizing about the need to “lead with love” in a glowing GQ profile that cast him as the “anti-Trump, pro–Star Wars man we need.”
The first Democratic primary contest won’t be held for another 18 months. But the campaign for the attention of prospective Democratic primary voters, as exemplified by the Garcetti flirtation offensive (he also, a source said, has held at least one private meeting with members of a top, Democratic-leaning D.C. law firm), is well underway.
Already, a slew of those likely to populate a very crowded Democratic primary field have taken the time-honored step of writing a book that reflects their biography and world view while also allowing them to go on tour to test drive a message to voters.
Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have books scheduled to be published almost immediately after the 2018 midterm elections. Former Vice President Joe Biden has spent the better part of this year on a nationwide book tour. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) announced that his book about his military service in Iraq that will be released in early April 2019. A few weeks before that, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is set to release her political memoir, according to one person familiar with the book.