2016 Democratic Primary Tag

The internets have exploded with Elizabeth Warren-mentum. Elizabeth Warren is playing hard to get when it comes to running for President. She still "is" not running, which literally is true, but never says that under no circumstances will she ever run:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is not running for president, but might she in the future? She wouldn’t say when repeatedly pressed on NPR Monday morning. Instead, she just repeated the same present tense denial she’s uttered dozens of times this year: “I’m not running for president.” It’s hardly the first time Warren, who became a progressive hero this week during a high-profile Senate showdown over Wall Street regulation, has dodged a question on 2016. Even as she and her staff insist the senator is not interested in running – and she distances herself from an effort to draft her into the race – Warren appears to be intentionally leaving some doubt hanging in the air. She may not want to run, but she would like voters to think there’s a chance. “She’s never slammed the door shut,” said Ben Wikler of MoveOn.org, who is hopeful she will run and recently launched a campaign to draft Warren. “As senator Warren has said many times, she is not running for president,” Warren spokesperson Lacey Rose told msnbc.

That tease is getting attention.

Elizabeth Warren has said many times that she "is" not running for President. Yet still the progressive movement doubts her, convinced that she is just waiting for the right moment. Because in their heart of hearts, they believe that Warren would crush Hillary. I believe Hillary knows that too. And so does Elizabeth. The polls mean nothing now because Warren "is" not running. Progressives want her so much, they have reached the point of Kremlinology when it comes to Warren:

During the Cold War, lack of reliable information about the country forced Western analysts to "read between the lines" and to use the tiniest tidbits, such as the removal of portraits, the rearranging of chairs, positions at the reviewing stand for parades in Red Square, the choice of capital or small initial letters in phrases such as "First Secretary", the arrangement of articles on the pages of the party newspaper "Pravda" and other indirect signs to try to understand what was happening in internal Soviet politics.

[caption id="attachment_103768" align="alignnone" width="575"] (Photo via Classical Values)[/caption] A recent article in The Nation reflects this technique, Did Elizabeth Warren Just Change Her Tune on Running for President?:

Liberal lioness no match for the heiress to the Clinton machine....

John Dickerson at Slate makes the case that Elizabeth Warren Should Run for President:

If Warren joined the race, she would not win [waj - I disagree], but she would till the ground, putting grit and the smell of earth in the contest. She would energize the Democratic Party’s liberal base, which would then stir up other Democrats who seek to moderate or contain that group. Warren would challenge the Democratic Party on issues like corporate power, income inequality, and entitlements. She would be a long shot and she would have nothing to lose—which means she could keep talking about those ideas out loud. Because Clinton is close to Wall Street and finance executives and Warren is gunning for them, she has the potential to put campaign pressure on Clinton that other candidates can’t. Clinton and other candidates would be forced to explain where they stood more than if Warren weren’t in the race.

The concern, according to Dickerson:

The reason a Warren candidacy should have broad ideological appeal is that if you’re a conservative there’s something in her campaign for you, too. It will either expose Democrats for the socialist one-worlders that they are or bruise Clinton for the coming general election fight.

I think Warren should run and challenge Hillary. But that's just me. Meanwhile, if Warren does run, she's going to have to do a much better job at being responsive to reporters and speaking off the cuff rather than in pre-programmed contexts (like Senate hearings where she gets to ask but not answer the questions), via Capitol City Project: Reminds me of this:

I know, you thought I'd been trolling you these past few months with all my writing about how Elizabeth Warren might actually run for President, and how she would crush Hillary if she did (and they both know it). But I wasn't trolling. Warren's surge in the Wisconsin delegate straw poll was noticed mostly only by us, but was a sign that there could be a groundswell of support. Despite all her present tense denials, there is no doubt in my mind that Warren is seriously considering running but waiting until Democrats demand it. Warren is a unique political talent, in ways we have been documenting since early 2012. There is no one on the political scene today who plays upon and preys upon a sense of victimization and envy as well as Warren. So it doesn't surprise me that Ready for Warren has formed, as reported at HuffPo:

An enthusiastic band of activists has launched a campaign to slow the momentum of Hillary Clinton and convince Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that she should run for president in 2016. "I think there's an opportunity for us to convince her if we're really able to make the case as to why we think she's the right person," said Erica Sagrans, who has signed on as the Ready For Warren campaign manager. The group already has a Facebook page, Twitter account and a new website with a petition encouraging Warren to run. Sagrans, who worked on President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, will be joined by political activist Billy Wimsatt, who previously founded the League of Young Voters and is going to be a senior adviser to the new group. Reached for comment, Lacey Rose, Warren's press secretary, told HuffPost, "No, Senator Warren does not support this effort."

They are not intimidated by the well-monied Ready for Hillary:

If Hillary Clinton runs for President, she's still the odds-on favorite because she has the Democratic machine behind her. The conventional wisdom is that the nomination is Hillary's to lose. If Hillary's disastrous book rollout and tone-deafness about her wealth are any indication, Hillary might just accomplish the unthinkable of imploding a second time as presumptive nominee. Hillary's worst enemy is Hillary. There's only so long you can pretend to be something you are not. Enter Elizabeth Warren. We have been arguing for years that Warren is a unique political talent, someone who can demagogue the national victim narrative better than anyone in recent memory. Do not underestimate the power of a politician whose entire reason to be is to convince people that the problems in their lives are not of their own doing, but of a rigged system in which they are abused by powerful, if unseen, forces. Put aside all the hypocrisy's of Warren's own life. There are many people willing to overlook how Warren tried to rig the system to her own advantage if that is what is needed to believe in their own victimhood. In a nation suffering from an unending decline in workforce participation rates, in which every month hundreds of thousands of people give up hope of finding a job and drop out, blaming a rigged system is a powerful message. Jonah Goldberg calls Warren The Obama of 2016:

I told you so.  Elizabeth Warren's repeated supposed refusals to run for President always were framed in the present tense: I am not running for President. That, of course, technically was correct.  I don't think anyone of note "is" running for President yet, but many are seriously considering it and likely will run. Nothing makes Warren's word games more clear than her interview with (my law school classmate) Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post:

The Massachusetts Democrat insists that she’s not running for president, and there’s little reason to doubt her — although, interestingly, Warren sticks doggedly to the present tense to describe her intentions. I asked Warren about this phrasing the other afternoon over iced tea mixed with lemonade at a restaurant near her Capitol Hill office. In these precincts, senator sightings are commonplace but, even here, Warren enjoys celebrity status; the manager promptly presented Warren with a copy of her memoir, “A Fighting Chance,” to sign. Why not simply declare that she will not run for president in 2016? “I am not running for president in 2016,” Warren responded. Yes, I pressed, but why not say, I am not running and I will not run?

when the world "will even back out"...