‘Run Warren Run’ Committee Finally Giving Up

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

After convincing everyone* that Elizabeth Warren should run for president—except, of course, Elizabeth Warren—the Run Warren Run committee is finally abandoning their attempt to draft the Massachusetts senator for a 2016 campaign.

The organization was jointly run by Democracy for America and MoveOn, and in a Tuesday op-ed for Politico, leaders of the two organizations explained their decision to give up, long after most of us took Warren at her word that she was definitely, maybe, 100 percent, please-leave-me-alone NOT running for president. Ilya Sheyman, of MoveOn.org Political Action, and Charles Chamberlain, of Democracy for America, write:

Senator Warren has heard our case, and she declined to run. We respect her decision. If she chooses to reconsider, due to shifting circumstances or a new intuition, the movement that urged her to run could regroup at a moment’s notice.

The group formed to provide formal organization and funding to the grassroots movement of people who hoped Warren would promote her agenda in the Democratic presidential primary. Warren, though, always remained steadfast that she wasn’t considering a run.

Still, the group is claiming a victory of sorts. After all, they’ve turned all the actual Democratic candidates, including frontrunner Hillary Clinton, into walking, talking Elizabeth Warren impersonators:

Echoing Warren’s famous adage that “the game is rigged,” Hillary Clinton declared in her campaign announcement that “the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.” Bernie Sanders emerged out of the gate as a far stronger contender than political bookmakers could have imagined just a few months ago. And Martin O’Malley launched his campaign on Saturday calling for the breaking up of big banks and jailing of Wall Street crooks.

Still, as victories go, this crew didn’t exactly pitch a perfect game. The group, after all, was named “Run Warren Run,” and “there’s no sugar-coating it,” they write in Politico. Warren is, well, not running. Still, post-disbanding, the group will likely take what small victories they made and lend their efforts to keeping Warren’s issues alive among the progressive candidates that have answered the call.

*Everyone who works for the Boston Globe, that is.