Free Republic

NEW YORK — There are three words that strike terror in the hearts of Wall Street bankers and corporate executives across the land: President Elizabeth Warren. The anxiety over Warren grew Monday after a magazine report suggested the bank-bashing Democratic senator from Massachusetts could mount a presidential bid in 2016 and would not necessarily defer to Hillary Clinton — who is viewed as far more business-friendly — for the party’s nomination. And the fear is not only that Warren, who channels an increasingly popular strain of Occupy Wall Street-style anti-corporatism, might win. That is viewed by many political analysts as...

Quick, name someone who would have a realistic chance of beating out Hillary Clinton for the 2016 presidential nomination. Martin O’Malley? Nope. Joe Biden? Maybe but probably not. Howard Dean. No way. There’s only answer to that question that makes even a little sense. And that answer is Elizabeth Warren. The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber hits this nail directly on the head in his cover story this week entitled “Hillary’s Nightmare? A Democratic Party That Realizes Its Soul Lies with Elizabeth Warren“. The entire piece is worth a read....

The New Republic magazine was, appropriately, the stimulant that last week gave the Democratic base a frisson of anticipation about a possible Elizabeth Warren presidential candidacy in 2016. Now in her 11th month as a Massachusetts senator, she is suited to carry the progressive torch that was fueled 99 years ago this month by The New Republic’s founding. Its first editor was Herbert Croly, whose 1909 book “The Promise of American Life” — Theodore Roosevelt read it, rapturously, during his post-presidential travels — is progressivism’s primer: “The average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent...

As a Tea Party troublemaker and liberal lightning rod, former Florida Congressman Col. Allen West is used to fending off attacks from Democratic critics. But he admits getting nervous when he thinks about a certain Massachusetts Democrat running the White House. “I’m more ... concerned about Elizabeth Warren than I am about Hillary Clinton,” West said in an interview on Boston Herald Radio.

In her continuing campaign to promote Elizabeth Warren's presidential prospects, Mika Brzezinski has attempted to recruit an unlikely ally: Steve Rattner. Rattner--President Obama's former "car czar"--is an investment manager and what passes for a moderate in the modern Dem party. The notion that he would support leftist Elizabeth Warren in a Dem primary is far-fetched to say the least. But Mika told Rattner he would "root" for Warren "because you will do that for me." A compliant Ratter replied that he would "do anything" for Mika. View the video here.

If the 2016 presidential race were a game of “hot or not,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren would be winning with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton close behind, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would be losing ground, according to a new poll. When Americans were asked to give prominent politicians a score, zero to 100, of how “warm,” or favorable, they feel toward that person, the Massachusetts Democratic senator was the highest-rated of the bunch with a “temperature” of 48.6, according to a Quinnipiac poll out Thursday. Clinton was in second place at 47.8, Republican Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan followed...

With Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) joining Elizabeth Warren and other in deciding not to run in 2016, it looks like Hillary Clinton will have no serious challenger for the Democratic nomination in 2016. According to the LA Times, California Gov. Jerry Brown has ruled out another run for the Democratic nomination in 2016, “No, that’s not in the cards. Unfortunately.” With his impressive record as governor, Brown would have presenting a serious and interesting challenge to Hillary Clinton. However, it is looking more and more like Democrats have decided to clear the field for Hillary in 2016. Last month, Sen....

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is starting a publicity tour for her new campaign-style book, A Fighting Chance. As she talks to the press, Warren is repeating previous statements that she will not run for president in 2016. But her denials aren't really denials, and her party's unique presidential circumstances give Warren plenty of room to run. Judging by what she has said publicly, there's no reason to rule out a Warren candidacy. First, the non-denial denials. This week ABC's David Muir asked Warren, "Are you going to run for president?" Warren's response was, "I'm not running for president."That's the oldest...

Forget the current polling as between Hillary and Elizabeth Warren. It pits Hillary against someone who “isn’t running.” For all my criticisms of Warren, and they are extensive, I am convinced that if she ran, she would crush Hillary, just as Obama did. Warren, as did Obama, has a unique ability to demagogue the core Democratic narrative of victimhood in ways that would make Hillary blush. She is more cunning than Hillary, more popular with the base, would bring an excitement the contrived Ready-for-Hillary movement could only dream of. Democrats may be “ready” for Hillary, but they don’t really want...

A new French book that decries income inequality has become such the rage among the U.S. left that it is sparking debate on a smoldering political issue: That Hillary Clinton isn't liberal enough to win the Democratic nomination in 2016. Thomas Piketty's “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” uses a mountain of historical data to show that income inequality, a subject President Obama has seized on, will grow without government intervention. One idea is to devote up to three-quarters of income to taxes. Progressives, many of whom are eyeing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or even Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders leading up...

The Democrats’ push to hike the national minimum wage is merely the crown jewel in the so-called “fair shot” agenda that they hope will erase ObamaCare from voters’ minds by the time they hit the ballot box this November; the next action item on their intellectually (not to mention fiscally) bankrupt list is a similarly redistributive and equally lame pander to the young people who have lately been electorally shuffling away from them. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, it’s your cue: Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, is poised to introduce a bill which, in part, would allow people holding student loans financed at...

Bill Maher said he would “love” to see Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) run as part of a 2016 presidential ticket with Hillary Clinton, calling the potential duo “a granny ticket.” Speaking on Ora.tv’s PoliticKING with Larry King, the liberal comic called Warren one of the “most gutsy” people in politics. When asked by King whom he thought would be able to lead the country to address climate change, Maher said: “I think someone like Elizabeth Warren, one of the most gutsy people I’ve seen in politics in a long time. She’s somebody, I think, who would really say what she...

Because when President Barack Obama was blaming every problem under the sun on his predecessor President George W. Bush, he just wasn’t go back far enough. Via RCP:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO WARREN: I grew up in an America that was investing in kids. It was investing in public universities. It had a higher minimum wage. It was an America that said every kid would get a fighting chance. And that’s how we built America’s great middle class. Then starting in about the 1980s, we turned in a different direction.COLBERT: You mean when Reagan came in and it...

Who will prove the champion of the little guy and gal? Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — on deck for her party’s presidential nomination should Hillary Rodham Clinton bow out — has become the political leader of choice for those who advocate Big Government as that champion. This columnist is skeptical about Big Government improving the lives of the citizens. Yet … there is a case to be made for Warren. She is, at very least, a magnificently worthy adversary for advocates of limited government and deserves to be taken seriously. America has had a decade of lousy job creation and...

She’s said many times that she has no intention of running, going so far as to co-sign a letter beseeching Her Majesty, Queen Hillary, to take her rightful place upon the throne in 2016. But would-be candidates say lots of things early in the cycle. Remember when Obama said, a few months after being elected to the Senate, that he wouldn’t run for president in 2008 because he was a big believer in knowing what you’re doing when you apply for a job? Two years later, he decided he knew what he was doing after all. And that’s how we...

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:

Paging Elizabeth Warren: This is your moment. In 2007, Democrats were delirious with rage about the Iraq war. Hillary Clinton, the "inevitable" presidential front-runner, had voted for the war and refused to apologize for it. Other leading candidates, including Joe Biden, John Edwards and Chris Dodd, voted for it too. This left a huge opening for a credible antiwar candidate. Barack Obama, inexperienced and underqualified, nonetheless jumped into the vacuum. The rest, as they say, is history. Today, the issue that obsesses the base of the Democratic Party is income inequality. I think that's foolish. The underlying causes of inequality...

Obama’s Mini-Me will protect all of Obama’s, ahem, accomplishments.Ed Klein reports that Obama is using Valerie Jarrett to urge Elizabeth Warren to challenge Hillary in the primary to protect Obama’s transformation of the nation into something of which he and Michelle can be proud. Warren will protect Obama’s, ahem, achievements, Hillary can’t be trusted to do that. It’s entirely believable. Whether it’s true remains to be seen. Here is part of the report, This means Warren: Obama backs challenger to Hillary: "President Obama has quietly promised Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren complete support if she runs for president — a stinging...

In this clip, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren says it's rumored that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, but that unfortunately, too many went to Wall Street.

Oh, minimum wage — the simple- and friendly-sounding yet actually regressive and economy-damaging populist throwback that just refuses to die. President Obama once again resurrected the timelessly terrible idea in his State of the Union speech in February, and it’s been percolating among the Democrats as a potential 2014-oriented rallying cry for how those obstructionist Republicans must really, really hate poor people because there’s no other possible explanation for their opposition (except that, you know, minimum wage hikes are actually counterproductive to an inclusive and prospering economy, but let’s just rid ourselves of any lingering school-girl notions that facts are...