ELIZABETH WARREN – AT 8:28 A.M. ET:  She seems to be the woman of the hour, or the half-hour.  I mean, things go quickly today.  She is speaking everywhere.  The left-wing fringers love her, and are ready to push Hillary over the side to have the real, genuine leftist as president.  Of course, they have one now, but they haven't noticed.  From Hot Air: 

When asked just how vulnerable former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to a challenge from her left, the Acela Corridor’s political class is quick to note that 2016 is not 2008.

They observe that the factors which made Clinton vulnerable to a challenge from then Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 simply do not exist today.

For example, those grounded political reporters say, the former secretary is wildly popular among Democrats. They cite polling data which shows the former secretary leading her most likely challenger – the sitting Vice President of the United States – often by more than 30 points.

Finally, they note that Clinton’s major vulnerability in 2008, her 2002-2003 support for the Iraq War, is no longer a major concern within the Democratic Party’s left-wing. Her recent apology for her vote in favor of that operation, they say, has buried any hard feelings which might persist.

While the polls do not yet bear this assumption out, it is fair to say that most in the press believe that only individual who could mount a credible challenge to Clinton from her left is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). The “reality-based community,” as it were, is however quick to note that even that scenario is highly unlikely.

This sentiment is best expressed by Slate’s Dave Weigel who recently performed an interview with the founder of campaign aimed at drafting Warren to run in 2016. He confessed that his questions for the founder of this group were “skeptical” in nature, which slightly undersold just how suspicious Weigel seemed to be of the effort to force the senior Massachusetts senator to run for the presidency.

While the political press is suspicious of the notion that Clinton is vulnerable to a challenge from Warren, a non-candidate who has said in no uncertain terms that she is not interested in mounting that challenge, the press is also not ignoring the obvious: the progressive wing of the party is not Ready for Hillary .

A CNN survey from June revealed that, while Clinton remains the favorite prospective 2016 candidate among Democrats, their enthusiasm for her candidacy is muted:

Forty-one percent of Democrats questioned said they’d be enthusiastic if Clinton wins the nomination, with 42% saying they’d be satisfied. One in 10 said they’d be dissatisfied, and 5% said they’d be upset.

The rest of the Beltway horserace watchers are also noticing that Warren commands a measure of enthusiasm on the left that Clinton never has.

COMMENT:  The Democratic Party became destabilized in the late 1960s.  It recovered somewhat under the leadership of Bill Clinton, who understood the need to make it a center-left, not a leftist, party.  It's now drifting again, in part because the party's titular leader, Barack Obama, has no interest in it, and has no problem with the political left.

Could a true leftist candidate like Warren be elected president?  Theoretically yes, because she's deceptive enough to run as a moderate and make it look genuine.  And she'll have the liberal media at her back.

But it really depends on who the Republicans nominate in 2016.  Warren is not a great campaigner, and her electoral experience is limited to Massachusetts, where a Democrat can be elected even if deceased.  I think Hillary would be the much tougher opponent.

July 22,  2014