5 reasons the left doesn’t believe Warren

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has said time and time that against she’s not running for president in 2016.

But don’t tell that to her fans in the Democratic Party.

{mosads}Supporters on the left are moving full-steam ahead with efforts to draft her into the 2016 race, believing it’s only a matter of time before the Massachusetts senator changes her mind — and becomes the populist challenger to Hillary Clinton that they think the party desperately needs.

Here are five reasons the left hears “yes” when Warren says “no.”

1.) She hasn’t definitively ruled out a presidential run.

Warren has yet to definitely say she won’t run for president in 2016, choosing instead to phrase her denials by saying she isn’t running now.

“Every candidate says they’re not running before deciding to run,” said Erica Sagrans, campaign director at Ready For Warren. 

Sagrans pointed to 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who up until this week insisted he wasn’t running for president. Now there are reports he’s mulling a third presidential bid. 

“Things change fast in politics, and Warren hasn’t ruled anything out,” Sagrans said.

Political watchers say Warren is smart to keep Washington guessing about her political ambitions.

“Warren is wisely hedging her bets. She is underselling herself politically by saying, ‘No,’ which is intriguing to the base but she is leaving room to potentially over-deliver publicly should the circumstances merit her jumping into the 2016 fray,” said Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist.

2.) She’s distancing herself from President Obama.

Warren flexed her political muscle during the budget negotiations late last year and spearheaded a successful revolt against an Obama nominee to the Treasury Department with ties to Wall Street.

Her attention-grabbing moves come at a time when Democrats are fiercely debating whether to move to the middle on economic issues or shift to the left.

“She’s shown that she can rally, hold and lead progressives groups these past few weeks, especially,” said Neil Sroka, communications director at the liberal Democracy For America, which is pushing to draft Warren into the presidential race.

Warren also has worked to get the White House to issue a veto threat on a financial regulatory bill she says would weaken Wall Street regulations.

“She’s battling the White House on a lot of these issues,” Sroka said.

3.) She hasn’t ordered the grass roots groups to shut it down.

Groups like Ready For Warren and MoveOn.org’s $1 million-funded “Run Warren Run” campaign are maneuvering in early caucus and primary states Iowa and New Hampshire. On Saturday, hundreds of supporters are expected to attend MoveOn’s draft Warren kick-off event in New Hampshire.

In August, Warren’s attorney filed a letter with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) saying she wasn’t endorsing “Ready For Warren,” but has yet to personally comment on the groups’ efforts.

“We’re not running this campaign because of some sort of parsing of her speech,” said Nick Berning, MoveOn.org communications director. “We take her at her word. We’re running the campaign because we think our country will be better off if she enters the race.”

“Elizabeth Warren has always been a reluctant politician, but she has always listened to her supporters,” Sagrans said.

Sagrans noted that in Warren’s book, the senator wrote that she was persuaded to challenge then-Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) during the 2012 Senate race after one of her supporters urged her to get in.

“We’ve got an entire nation asking the same question now, and we think it’s in Warren’s nature to give the same answer she gave last time: ‘Yes,

I’ll fight,'” Sagrans said.

4.) Her promotional tour didn’t end after the midterms.

Warren campaigned heavily during the 2014 midterm election campaign, hitting the trail in states like Iowa, Kentucky and West Virginia. While she campaigned for these candidates, it also seems to have fueled national interest in her own political career.

Veteran pollster Peter D. Hart, chairman of Hart Associates, last week released the results of a special interest group with 12 voters in Aurora, Colo. that found widespread intrigue with Warren.

“There’s a connection that she’s made in terms of talking about the economy,” Hart said. “The most established candidates, such as Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie — they did less well.”

Still, Hart noted that, “someone who is appealing before they’re in [the race] may not find the same type of appeal once they’ve announced.”

“That doesn’t diminish Elizabeth Warren,” he said. “But she’s connected as a person who is talking about economic issues in the way the public is responding positively.”

5.) She’s remained tight-lipped about Hillary Clinton.

It seems that virtually every prominent Democratic politician is being asked about Clinton ahead of 2016. While Warren did join each of the female Democratic senators in the last Congress in signing a letter urging Clinton to run, she has not openly endorsed her probably candidacy. 

In an interview with The Washington Post in June, Warren declined an opportunity to defend Clinton after she said in an ABC News interview that she and former President Bill Clinton were “dead broke” after leaving the White House.

The Post reported that Warren paused for “a full 19 seconds” because answering: “Uh, I was surprised.”

“There is no question about Warren is mulling a run and she has the dynastic Team Hillary unnerved,” said O’Connell, the GOP strategist.