Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts says even though she’s not running for president in 2016, she still foresees having an effect on the political debate.
“You think I’m not forcing a debate? Call me back in a year, and ask me what type of debate we’re having,” Ms. Warren said in a new article published in The New Yorker.
Many liberals have called for Ms. Warren, an aggressive critic of Wall Street who speaks out frequently on the American middle class, to run as an alternative to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the undisputed front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination.
But Ms. Warren said she can still have an impact from her current post.
“I think right now I’m using the best tools to make change,” she said.
When she got into politics, she said, “first, it was for my own family and my children, then a little bit bigger, for my brothers and to take care of my mom and dad, and then my students, and then my work about what’s happening to families just like mine all over this country. I’m still working on exactly the same things, and I’m working on the best possible way to make change.”
Some of the populist positions voiced by Ms. Warren can be seen in the early stages of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, with the former secretary of state decrying the comparatively low tax rates paid by hedge fund managers and comparatively high salaries of CEOs.
Asked by Ryan Lizza, the article’s author, if she believed Mrs. Clinton was co-opting her message, Ms. Warren hesitated and replied, “Eh.”
Ms. Warren added, “She’s laying out her vision for the country and she deserves an opportunity to do that.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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