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Released on the morning of the single drunkest day in the country, Massachusetts senator and possible 1/1024 Cherokee Elizabeth Warren's New Year's Eve announcement that she's formed an exploratory committee to run for president has not been met with much praise or fanfare across the Democratic base. Sure, the announcement trended on Twitter, but her bland announcement video felt remnant of a different political era, and her ill-advised Instagram live video, complete with a beer and a reluctant cameo by her husband, earned more mockery than compliments.

Naturally, the Atlantic's Peter Beinart blames sexism. But Beinart's lamentations ring more of relitigating the 2016 election than an actual argument that Warren has faced any appreciable amount of discrimination due to her gender. Warren doesn't have a misogyny problem; she has a Hillary Clinton one.

On paper, Warren should be a compelling candidate. She was once a nationally esteemed professor specializing in bankruptcy and commercial law; Wall Street's irresponsibility and the Great Recession spurred her ideological evolution and eventual embrace of progressivism. It's a politically expedient narrative, and one backed by consistency that starkly contrasts with that of Clinton. No one could convincingly accuse Warren of selling out, and she bridges the gap between Roosevelt-style regulatory activism and an appreciation for the necessity of capitalism. She describes herself as "capitalist to the bone," swearing that she wants to save capitalism from itself rather than overhaul it, which arguably represents a contrast to some of her prospective competitors.

But something about Warren rubs people the wrong way. Sure, conservatives have endlessly mocked Warren's repeated assertions that she's Native American enough to qualify as a person of color, but even Democrats can't seem to muster enthusiasm for her Boomer-level lack of charisma. Liberals could point at obvious flaws in Clinton as a candidate: that her career rode on the coattails of her husband (how feminist!), her cozy relationship with Wall Street, her ability to flip on issues faster than a chef at McDonald's, and, of course, decades of baggage regarding her rumored complicity in her husband's alleged rapes and mistreatment of women. Warren has none of these problems, yet she has the same try-hard, labored, and off-putting personal demeanor that renders her candidacy unconvincing.

None of the criticisms levied against Warren fit into misogynistic stereotypes of the overly ambitious Lady Macbeth variety. She simply missed her moment in 2016, when she could have conceivably galvanized the Bernie base as well as the mainstream of the party. She might have been the best bet to beat Clinton. But now that there are younger, shinier, and more intersectional fish in an enormous pond, Warren's personal lack of charisma and seeming (though perhaps not actual) lack of authenticity could do her candidacy in.

As noted by CNN's Harry Enten, Warren, whose favorability rating is 10 points lower than President Trump's, won her re-election in this past "blue wave" by three points less than Clinton won her state in 2016. Her personal brand, built around reconciling markets with vast and expansive government regulation and oversight of the economy, is more 2012 and 2016 than the racially and emotionally charged 2019 political arena.

If this sexism is still so pervasive, why is incoming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., so beloved by Democrats? And why would Kamala Harris, a first-term junior senator with a far messier Pandora's box of a personal life than Warren, be celebrated as serious a presidential contender as Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who's been in the national political conversation for nearly a decade?

Most significantly, why would Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., be seen by so many as the most formidable dark horse of the 2020 election?

Because Warren just lacks the "it" factor and unfortunately has the Hillary Clinton factor instead. That same apparent passion and self-starting nature that draws progressives to Ocasio-Cortez stands in direct contrast to the privileged pedigree and air of performative wokeness that turns Democrats off Warren. Whereas one could conceivably envision Klobuchar as a mother and a friend as they see her deftly issue lines of questioning on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Warren's Instagram antics (as when she thanked her husband for being there and he said, "Pleasure. Enjoy your beer") felt hopelessly forced and desperate.

Liberals ranging from former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to progressives at Vox urged Warren to run for president in 2016. She had her moment, one in which her personal flaws would have paled in comparison to those of Trump and Clinton. But she missed her window, and you can't blame sexism for that.

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Elizabeth Warren has a Hillary Clinton problem, not a sexism ...