October 23, 2014

Elizabeth Warren’s Latest Comment About Running For President Is the Most Cryptic Yet

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) James Berglie/ZUMA

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With 106 weeks until the next presidential election, speculating about a potential Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) candidacy is like going on a long car ride with a six-year-old. “Are you running?” No. “How about now?” No. “Now?” No. “Now?” No. “What about now?” No. “Are you running?” No. “Are you running?” [exasperated sigh] “Aha!”

But Warren does continue to do the things people who are considering a run for president tend to do—flying to Iowa to rally the troops on behalf of Rep. Bruce Braley, for instance, and going on tour to promote a campaign-style book. Her latest venture, a sit-down interview in the next issue of People magazine, isn’t going to do much to quiet the speculation, even as she once more downplayed the prospect of a run:

[S]upporters are already lining up to back an “Elizabeth Warren for President” campaign in 2016. But is the freshman senator from Massachusetts herself on board with a run for the White House? Warren wrinkles her nose.

“I don’t think so,” she tells PEOPLE in an interview conducted at Warren’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, home for this week’s issue. “If there’s any lesson I’ve learned in the last five years, it’s don’t be so sure about what lies ahead. There are amazing doors that could open.”

She just doesn’t see the door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue being one of them. Not yet, anyway. “Right now,” Warren says, “I’m focused on figuring out what else I can do from this spot” in the U.S. Senate.

“Amazing doors”; “I don’t think”; “right now”—what does it all mean? Warren’s not really saying anything we haven’t heard from her before. But after then-Sen. Barack Obama’s furious denials about running for president eight years ago, no one’s ready to take “no” for an answer. At least not yet, anyway.

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