Sen. Elizabeth Warren has again provided a flimsy response to an inquiry about her plans to run for the White House in 2016.
In an interview with Fortune, Warren gave this answer to the pretty straightforward question of “Are you going to run for President?”
Stop prevaricating, senator.
Such a terse reply, issued without any explanation, is an unconvincing way to anesthetize speculation that she may mount a bid for the highest office in the land. The very word “no” is meaningless. Former Republican nominee Mitt Romney, for instance, used the word 12 times last year to say that he wouldn’t run again: “Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no.” Now there are multiple reports saying Romney is this close to entering the race.
We’re to believe that one “no” will do? Looks like somebody’s at least 1/12 short.
It’s not like Warren’s interviewer, Sheila Bair, did the general public any favors. Bair should’ve done what any good journalist is trained to do: Make Warren repeat the question back to her and answer in complete sentence form using at least three adverbs while placing one hand on a copy of “Hard Choices.”
“No?” That’s Warren. “I am absolutely, unequivocally, unalterably not going to run for president, and people really need to stop asking me about it” with her palm touching Hillary’s face? That’s Warrented.
Failing that, we’re left with this:
A spokesman for one of the groups leading the Draft Warren movement recently told me that if Warren closed the door on a future run, “it would end the draft effort.”
And yet, groups driving the Draft Warren effort, it turns out, are only going to continue, even in the face of Warren’s latest. Here’s a statement from Democracy for America and MoveOn:
“We understand that reporters are required to follow every twist and turn of the 2016 race, but let’s be clear: This isn’t a new position for Senator Elizabeth Warren. Senator Warren has been clear for years that she isn’t planning on running. If she were running, there wouldn’t be a need for a draft effort. We launched the Run Warren Run campaign to show Senator Elizabeth Warren the tremendous amount of grassroots enthusiasm and momentum that exists for her entering the 2016 presidential race and to encourage her to change her mind.”
No isn’t necessarily what you think it means.
