海角大神

Notwithstanding the fact that she has denied having presidential ambitions, or plans to run for president, on聽numerous聽occasions, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren keeps being mentioned by pundits and political observers as someone who could potentially be a challenger to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, or an alternative candidate should Hillary decide not to run. Much of this speculation seems to be little more than wishful thinking on the part of political analysts and reporters hoping for something other than a quasi-coronation on the Democratic side of the ballot in 2016 and by Republicans who have been engaged in a rather obvious strategy of trying to undermine Mrs. Clinton before she even throws her hat in the ring. In addition, there seems to be at least some contingent of the so-called 鈥減rogressive鈥� wing of the Democratic Party that wants to see Senator Warren run, either to force Hillary to move to the left on certain issues or because they really don鈥檛 like Clinton. Some of them even聽recently formed a 鈥淩eady For Warren鈥� group聽not unlike the 鈥淩eady For Hillary鈥� movement that has been going for the better part of a year now, although it is much smaller in scope.

Despite all of this speculation and hope in some quarters, though, the actual prospects for a Warren campaign seem dim at best. She has said on multiple occasions that she has isn鈥檛 running for president, and that聽she wants Clinton to run.聽Polling has shown her to be聽far behind the former secretary of State in hypothetical primary matchups, although much of that may admittedly be due to name recognition issues. Additionally, the argument that some have made to try to analogize a potential Clinton-Warren race to what happened in 2008聽falls apart once you recognize the profound differences between the Democratic race in 2008 and the expected race in 2016.聽Perhaps the most important argument against a Warren run for the White House, though, lies in the fact that some of Warren鈥檚 biggest donors are聽warning her not to run for president if Clinton runs:

Even if Clinton decided not to run, some of Warren鈥檚 supporters doubt she鈥檇 be a viable candidate:

Unlike many others, I have never really bought into the idea of Warren as a presidential candidate. Notwithstanding her populist message, which really isn鈥檛 all that different from what we hear from Democrats like Brian Schweitzer and Russ Feingold, whom many Democrats have tried to coax back into politics more than a few times in recent years, she has not struck me as the kind of candidate that would really catch on nationally the way that Barack Obama did in during the 2008 campaign. Additionally, outside of the aforementioned progressive wing of the Democratic Party, I haven鈥檛 seen all that much evidence that the ideas she talks about would really resonate with the electorate as a whole. Most importantly, though, my own observations of her during the 2012 campaign and since she has taken office don鈥檛 indicate to me the kind of person that would come across well on the campaign trail. She鈥檚 not a particularly charismatic public speaker, for example, which isn鈥檛 surprising given her history as an academic. In fact, many of her speeches come across more as law school lectures than campaign speeches, and you don鈥檛 win elections lecturing the voting public as if they were mere students. Compared with many of the other potential candidates that could enter the Democratic race even if Clinton doesn鈥檛, there just doesn鈥檛 seem to me to be anything about Warren that indicates that she would be that special candidate that would be the one to come out of relatively political obscurity to win her party鈥檚 nomination.

Even if you disagree with my assessment of Warren鈥檚 abilities as a candidate, though, the fact that many of her own donors are already telling her that she shouldn鈥檛 run seems to be pretty strong evidence in favor of the idea that she isn鈥檛 going to run or that, if she did, she would not be nearly the threat to Clinton that many suppose she would be, or that the media and Republicans seem to hope she would be.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.