"These pseudo-sophisticates who give us their PR about how they're the adults, you see, and the people like me and the people like most of you should really sit down now," crooned Marianne Williamson to cheering supporters at her campaign launch in Union Station. “They'd have us think this whole thing is just too complicated. No, ladies and gentlemen, the problem is not that it's complicated. The problem is that it is corrupt." 

Three days later, on March 7th, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre seemed to embody the precise sort of dismissive Washington insider that Williamson had just described. She laughed off Williamson's challenge to Biden in response to a question from a reporter and made jokes about "crystal balls" and "auras" — in an apparent reference to Williamson's history as a writer of spiritualist self-help literature. Other Democratic Party insiders have called her "not a credible candidate" and "not a major Democrat." 

The Biden Camp isn't taking Williamson seriously. At first glance, it seems that they shouldn't have to. A Morning Consult poll conducted after Williamson announced her candidacy placed her support among likely Democratic primary voters at only 4 percent. However, the same poll found that under half of potential Democratic primary voters have heard of Williamson. Still, only a third have formed views: 20 percent view her favorably, and 13 percent view her unfavorably. She has plenty of room to grow, and it's worth noting that Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy 50 points behind Hillary Clinton according to some polls and would end up garnering 45 percent of pledged delegates in 2016.