It is no secret that, should Hillary Clinton decide to mount a White House bid in 2016, she is well positioned to become the first woman president of the United States. It is hard to find a pollster who does not share the view of veteran Democratic analyst Doug Schoen: "Clinton not only leads the Democratic field in polls but also leads potential Republican challengers."
But if Hillary Clinton does not run, or if she runs poorly, does that mean that there will be no woman bidding for the presidency?
No.
In addition to the men whose names get tossed around -- Vice President Joe Biden, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and some have even suggested Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (though he proudly sits as an independent) -- there are a number of prominent Democratic women whose names have surfaced as potential contenders: Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and, above all, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
There's been a flurry of speculation this week -- in a New Republic piece, in Bloomberg BusinessWeek and in Capital Hill journals such as The Hill and Politico -- about the prospect that Warren might challenge the Clinton from the left for the Democratic nod. Warren does not appear to be stoking the speculation. She joined all 16 Democratic woman in the Senate to sign a "secret" letter, circulated earlier this year by California Senator Barbara Boxer urging Clinton to run. That fits with Warren's public pronouncements; asked in May by The Boston Globe if she might seek the nomination, Warren responded: "No, no, no, no."
Pressed on whether that was a "definite no," Warren replied: "No, no, no, no, no"--adding another "no" for emphasis.
But Warren would not be the first presidential "no" who became a "yes."
Circumstances change over the long arc of America's endless campaigns. Front-runners decide not to make races, or stumble along the course of the campaign. There are a fair number of progressives who would love to see Warren take on Clinton. There are even more who want her at the ready should Clinton drop back or fail to gain traction.
But Warren is not just a fall-back contender -- or even a progressive alternative to the centrist Clinton. She is more than just a prospective candidate. She is a purveyor of ideas, whether advanced on the campaign trail or in the Senate, that really do make her what Politico suggests: "Wall Street's Nightmare."
What is appealing about the prospect of a Warren bid -- against Clinton or in a race without Clinton -- is the determination of the Massachusetts senator to reach far beyond the traditional space filled by centrist and even liberal Democrats. She goes to where Bill de Blasio went in a progressive populist bid that swept him into New York's mayoralty with an almost 50-point margin of victory.
Warren's message, in the Senate and beyond, is that Democrats can and should have an economic agenda that speaks to the great mass of Americans.
And when she delivers it, as she did at last summer's AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles, she can and does sound like a very appealing presidential prospect.
Warren, the country's best-known advocate for regulation of Wall Street and the big banks who conceived and organized the establishment of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before her election in 2012 to the US Senate, kicked off the labor convention an address that was equal parts William Jennings Bryan, Mother Jones and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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