Run Warren Run throws in the towel
Run Warren Run, one of the groups that has been urging Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, to run for president in 2016, has finally accepted that its hero will not seek the Democratic nomination.
The draft effort - a joint product of MoveOn.org Political Action and Democracy for America - announced Tuesday that on June 8, it will formally suspend its campaign after it delivers a petition to Warren with the signatures of 365,000 people who believe she should run for president.
"We reached a point where we felt like we made an extraordinarily strong case to Sen. Warren that if she entered the race she'd be a serious contender from day one, and at this point, the chance that adding one more volunteer coordinator in Iowa would convince her to throw her hat in the ring seemed pretty low," Ben Wikler, the Washington Director for MoveOn.org told CBS News. "Thanks in part to this campaign, the presidential debate and the national political debate more broadly is centered on the issues that Warren has spent her life fighting for. It felt to us like this is the time to change tacks and focus on the issue battles."
Warren has said repeatedly that she is not planning to run for president, and even took the step of writing a letter to the Federal Election Commission to disavow any involvement from a Ready for Warren super PAC that was established to raise money and encourage her to jump into the race.
Not that that ever deterred her supporters. The Run Warren Run campaign raised and spent $1.25 million dollars and opened two field offices in Iowa and one in New Hampshire. They hired nine full-time staffers and commissioned polling in early states and battleground states to demonstrate the viability of a Warren run.
Wikler said that the group had still succeeded in elevating Warren and supporting her causes, such as keeping former Wall Street bankers out of the administration, opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and helping young people refinance their student loans.
Plus, he said, "Frankly all the Democratic candidates are speaking to the central issues of inequality and a rigged system," which Warren has championed, he said.
But Ready for Warren, the group that started the super PAC, is not ready to give up on the dream.
"Already, Senator Warren has become Hillary Clinton's top challenger, and as the primary unfolds we'll continue to show voters -- and Warren herself -- that Elizabeth Warren is needed as a candidate in this race," Ready for Warren campaign manager Erica Sagrans said in a statement reacting to Run Warren Run's announcement.
"Our work isn't done, and Ready for Warren will continue to focus on making Warren and the values she champions part of the 2016 election, as well as getting Warren's back in fights that matter to her, from the Trans Pacific Partnership and student debt to taking on Wall Street and expanding Social Security," she said.