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Elizabeth Warren Is Not Ready to Run for President

The Massachusetts senator remains a dream candidate for progressives no matter how many times she says she isn't running—but the truth is she wouldn't be doing herself or anyone else any good by challenging Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Photo of Elizabeth Warren via Flickr user Edward Kimmel

Last week Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren asserted for the umpteenth time that she will not be running for president. The revelation came in the form of a very straightforward answer ("No") to a very straightforward question ("So are you going to run for president?"). But contemporary political journalism encourages unremitting, aimless speculation about prospective presidential campaigns, so "no" is inevitably construed as "maybe! wink wink."

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As the dream candidate of many progressives, Warren's every utterance is dissected with Talmudic intensity; her speeches and statements are routinely subjected to several layers of meta-analysis totally removed from anything she's actually done or said. This latest declaration has proven to be of particular interest given the apparent shift in verb tense. Warren's previous repeated, categorical denials— such as last month's "I am not running for president"—convinced scores of analysts that she was deliberately referring only to the present. She's not running now, but she could be—or will—be running later!

Warren gets this odd amount of attention because pundits and activists have exalted her to the status of Hillary Clinton's only viable challenger, imbuing her with the savior-like ability to single-handedly initiate a "conversation" about how the Democratic Party must reinvent itself in the post-Obama era. But there's one pesky problem that these observers seems to gloss over: Warren might not be all that great of a candidate.

Firstly, Warren seems largely disinterested in foreign policy. Her main area of expertise is financial industry regulation, for which she has been fiery and knowledgeable advocate. But if the legions of fans spearheading the "Ready for Warren" movement expect her to mount a vigorous campaign for commander-in-chief, she would presumably have to develop some thoughts on how to manage the most powerful military force in the world. If she became president, after all, Congress could prevent her from implementing measures like the "21st Century Glass-Steagall Act," but she'd have near-unilateral control over whether to invade countries or overthrow unfriendly regimes.

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What little Warren has said on foreign policy amounts to pro-interventionist boilerplate—a trait conspicuously ignored by elements of her progressive fan base—leaving anti-war Democrats little reason to rally behind Warren. And if Warren's hypothetical campaign got as far as a televised debate, the notoriously hawkish Hillary would likely have the advantage on the subject.

Secondly, she could arguably do more good for her cause by staying in the Senate. It comes down to what the Ready for Warren crowd is interested in accomplishing: Do they want to shift how the Democratic Party crafts economic policy? If so, Warren already commands an unusual degree of influence in that arena, as evidenced by the withdrawal last week of a Treasury Department candidate she sought to undermine. Minority Leader Harry Reid created an entirely new leadership position for her out of thin air without even consulting the rest of the Democratic caucus, suggesting that her leverage in the party may well be unrivaled.

If she ran for president, Warren would have to forego legislating in favor of touring the country giving stump speeches and debasing herself at fundraising events; she'd have to be schooled in the intricacies of issues (like foreign policy) she doesn't have to deal with as a Senator; and the next time she wanted to castigate some weaselly Treasury nominee for being too close to Wall Street, the frenetic presidential campaign "narrative" would obscure whatever substantive point she is trying to make.

Then there's the strangely overlooked question of whether Warren has the personal ambition to run. She's 65—only two years younger than the aged Hillary—and currently finds herself comfortably ensconced within the Democratic Party establishment. Maybe it's just not her disposition to take on the Clinton machine.

Unfortunately for the legions of operatives and journalists hyping the "Warren takes on Hillary" storyline, the fervor today over Warren looks like sort of a melodramatic prelude to her inevitable endorsement of Hillary. She may never have had sufficient popular support to actually win, and her endless denials of interest might not have required all that tortured psuedo-analysis. But hey, who the heck knows? I can't read her mind any more than any other political watcher can, and Warren could always end up disavowing all her past statements and mount a surprise campaign. It would certainly provide a jolt to listless pundits waiting desperately for something to squawk about. But it probably wouldn't do much beyond that.

Follow Michael Tracey on Twitter.