Liberal activists say efforts to push Sen. Elizabeth Warren into the Democratic presidential primary are as much about forcing Hillary Rodham Clinton to the political left as they are about actually finding a viable foe for the former secretary of state.
While Mrs. Clinton and her supporters have spent years laying the groundwork for a 2016 campaign, political analysts say the Democratic front-runner still has yet to articulate a coherent vision or lay out the kind of ambitious platform progressives are hungry for. By contrast, Ms. Warren — who repeatedly has said she won’t run — has, during her relatively short tenure in Washington, become a cultlike figure on the left, and seems to have the crystal-clear message that Mrs. Clinton lacks.
The Massachusetts Democrat not only has cultivated a passionate following among the rank and file, but she already has proven herself to be highly influential, and almost surely will help steer the party’s message heading into 2016. Progressive groups routinely speak of “Warren wing” Democrats — liberals who want much heavier restriction on Wall Street, the expansion of entitlement programs and identify with other parts of Ms. Warren’s agenda.
Even if Ms. Warren sticks to her word and stays out of the race, liberal leaders still envision her having a major impact simply by forcing Mrs. Clinton, Vice President Joseph R. Biden and other likely candidates to move dramatically to the left and embrace economic populism.
“We really have a one-of-a-kind role at this point, which is being a grass-roots force that is working to incentivize all of the Democratic presidential candidates to sound more like Elizabeth Warren. It’s a different strategy, but we want Warren’s positions to be the mainstream Democratic position,” Adam Green, co-founder of the increasingly powerful Progressive Change Campaign Committee, told The Daily Beast this week. “In many ways the prospect of Elizabeth Warren running might be more powerful than the actual candidacy of Elizabeth Warren.”
Other liberal groups, such as MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, have launched a “draft Warren” campaign, urging the senator to seek the presidency. There’s also support at the grass-roots level.
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Just this week, some of the senator’s supporters braved frigid temperatures and trekked two miles from Washington’s Union Station to the White House to express their support for a Warren candidacy.
While Mrs. Clinton has her own passionate supporters — evidenced by the Ready for Hillary PAC, which has raised millions of dollars even before primary season truly begins — political analysts say that, at least right now, she is seen more as a qualified candidate capable of guiding the country rather than a bold, progressive agent of change.
“It’s unclear what the focus of her campaign would be,” said Matthew Dallek, a political science professor at George Washington University. “I don’t know if it’s so much about what she believes, because I think she has a good sense of that, and the country has a good sense of that on a wide range of issues. But it’s a matter of figuring how [she’s] going to marry [her] background, achievements, ideas with the moment we’re in.”
Ms. Warren, meanwhile, has found a unique niche as the “economic conscience” of the Democratic party, Mr. Dallek added.
There are obvious signs Mrs. Clinton wants to latch on to rising progressive enthusiasm. Over the past year her speeches increasingly have included economic populist themes. And on Tuesday The New York Times reported that Mrs. Clinton held a private meeting with Ms. Warren at her Washington home last year.
Despite having work to do to shore up progressive support, Mrs. Clinton remains far out in front of her would-be rivals. An NBC/Marist poll released this week shows the former first lady with the support of 68 percent of Democrats in Iowa, for example. Mr. Biden came in second, with 12 percent, and Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, at 7 percent.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb are among the other Democrats expected to seek the White House next year.
While Mrs. Clinton seemingly will have little trouble sewing up the Democratic nomination, liberal activists say a challenge from the left, whether from Ms. Warren, Mr. Sanders or another figure yet to emerge, would pay huge dividends for the party in the long run.
“A populist challenger in the Democratic primaries can reach out to engage and help educate a new generation of activists,” Robert Borosage, co-director of the progressive Campaign for America’s Future, wrote in a blog post this week. “Most Americans pay little attention to politics amid the daily struggle to stay afloat. Presidential campaigns — beginning with primaries — attract more attention. And, importantly, activists get involved, get inspired or turned off. A strong populist challenger would add fuel to what is already a rising movement on the left of the Democratic Party.”
Mrs. Clinton’s supporters have enlisted high-profile liberals to vouch for the former secretary of state’s progressive credentials. This week former presidential candidate and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean — who in 2004 ran to the left of other candidates and declared he was from the “Democratic wing of the Democratic party” — sent out a fundraising email on behalf of the Ready for Hillary PAC.
“Hillary’s the leader I want to see moving into the White House in two years — and our grassroots firepower will get [her] there,” Mr. Dean wrote. “Hillary is by far the most qualified person in America to continue leading our country forward. Let’s do everything we can now to get her there.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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