Why is the left so focused on Warren when Bernie Sanders is actively considering running?

[Tom Rinaldo]

55. The path to a Warren presidency opens through a Sanders candidacy

Like Bobby Kennedy in early 1968, Elizabeth Warren simply doesn't seem inclined to frontally take on the (all but official) titular head of the Democratic Party. We can discuss back and forth why that is, but that I believe is the current bottom line. before the 1968 Democratic primary in New Hampshire, virtually everyone thought LBJ would be the Democratic candidate for President that year. It took someone with a potentially winning message AND relatively little to lose to derail the momentum of an LBJ run for reelection.

I take Warren at her word that she is not running for President. Any wiggle room she has left herself has to do with never saying never rather than her being coy. I believe she might reconsider her stance, but only if there are hard facts supporting the contention that Hillary Clinton is dramatically bleeding support among Democrats - not just among leftist activists. And I don't 't mean having her lead over other possible candidates drop from 65 percentage points to 40 percentage point. That can be too easily dismissed by asserting that her earlier outrageous lead was unsustainable once potential voters actually focused on the actual candidates.

In my opinion Bernie Sanders, of all the successful national politicians, is among the least driven by ego as opposed to deep concern for issues of any that I know of. This could work to the benefit of progressives in 2016. Eugene McCarthy was disinclined to get out of the way of RFK after he had proven how vulnerable LBJ really was. During the primaries that followed Bobby entering the race, anti Viet Nam war voters split their vote between them. But I strongly suspect that should Bernie exceed expectations as an opponent to Hillary Clinton, that he would not stand in the way of Elizabeth Warren making a run herself if Bernie sincerely believed that Warren had a much better chance of winning and enacting the policies that led him to challenge Hillary in the first place.

Even for those who fervently want Warren to run, I believe backing Bernie now is the most effective way to increase the chances that she ultimately will.