It Took 1 Minute for Pundits to Start Talking 'Warren 2016'

Politics moves fast in the age of the internet. How fast? So fast that it took less than a day for the ever-ponderous punditsphere to start talking about Elizabeth Warren as a potential candidate for the 2016 presidential nomination. Actually, to get specific, it took zero minutes. Yes, The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza expertly floated Warren’s name for 2016 in the same tweet in which he announced that she’d won her Senate race. Now that’s efficient punditry.

NBC projects Elizabeth Warren wins Massachusetts Senate race. Let the 2016 talk begin!

— The Fix (@TheFix) November 7, 2012

This is, of course, ridiculous. President Obama hasn’t even been inaugurated. Neither has Warren. Think of how much could happen in four years. So of course, journalists got some sleep last night, and in the morning, cooler heads prevai— Ha ha, just kidding. This morning, people are just discussing Warren’s 2016 chances at greater length.

Forbes’s Meghan Casserly mused that we may have elected the first female president of the United States to an elective office last night. Among the possibilities was Warren, about whom Forbes wrote: “A well-loved liberal, the domain name www.elizabethwarrenforpresident.com is established and a Facebook group with that name has over 2,000 fans since its creation in October.” (Yikes, on that modifier.)

Writing in The Hill, Bernie Quigley declared that an Obama reelection would ruin Hillary Clinton’s chances in 2016, because she’s so closely associated with an administration of which America will be quite sick in four years. That leaves Warren:

No question, the Dem nomination in 2016, the party threadbare after eight years of Obama, will go to that charming Okie grandmother, Elizabeth Warren, the anti-Sarah Palin who brought heart and guts and corn pones and countrification from the hardscrabble heartland to Harvard and got more votes at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention than any candidate ever

Elsewhere in Massachusetts, talk is equally buzzy about Gov. Deval Patrick’s potential run in 2016. He’s number 7 on National Journal’s list of “Top 10 Democratic Presidential Contenders for 2016.” (Warren doesn’t make the list, a fact that has the commenters up in arms.) NJ writes:

As an African-American with a rags-to-riches story, he inevitably draws comparisons to Obama, and he’s been a prominent surrogate for the president. Patrick has built a solidly liberal record as governor, focusing on issues such as health care, the environment, and education. When his term ends in 2014, Patrick has said he plans to return to the private sector.

He actually said that as recently as today, when he very emphatically said he won’t be running.

To put all this in perspective, we checked out some of the speculation back in 2008 for the Republican 2012 contenders. Glen Johnson at The Globe noted that Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee both seemed likely to run. He also mentioned another name: Mitt Romney. But he quoted a Romney adviser who told him, “I’d be surprised if Mitt ever ran again for president…I sure don’t think it was the best experience of his life.”

So at this point four years ago, it looked like Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin would fight it out for the Republican nomination while Mitt Romney sat on the sideline. In other words, talking about 2016 the morning after an election seems like a really useful exercise.