What if Elizabeth Warren went back in time and smothered Baby Hitler in his crib

If you have been  perambulating about the internet these past few days, the above is exactly the kind of linkbait bullshit narratives that are being peddled by people who have wearied talking about President of New Jerseymerica Chris Christie or whether Rand Paul was the real life inspiration for the J.L. Borges short story, Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote. It seems that frustrated  writers lacking hobbies have turned their lonely eyes to the Democratic side of the 2016 presidential election which is just around the corner, if by corner, you mean: three years from now. But with Hilary "Killary" Clinton pretty much chillaxing with the nomination ripe for the taking (providing she doesn't rehire Mark Penn, aka The Man Who Could Fuck Up A Baked Potato) there isn't a whole lot of  tension the likes of which you can find on a daily basis on the Republican Wingnut Flavor of the Week side.

Give us conflict! Drama! Story arcs! The spectral ghost of Elections Yet To Come to shake us out of our fat and sassy (NOT A CHRISTIE JOKE!) complacency.

Enter The New Republic's Noam Scheiber:

In September, New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, running on a platform of taming inequality, routed his Democratic mayoral rival, Christine Quinn, known for her ties to Michael Bloomberg’s finance-friendly administration. The following week, Larry Summers, Obama’s first choice to succeed Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman, withdrew his name from consideration after months in which Senate Democrats signaled their annoyance with his previous support for deregulation. Not 48 hours later, Bill Daley, the former Obama chief of staff and JP Morgan executive, ended his primary campaign for governor of Illinois after internal polls showed him trailing his populist opponent.

All of this is deeply problematic for Hillary Clinton. As a student of public opinion, she clearly understands the direction her party is headed. As the head of an enterprise known as Clinton Inc. that requires vast sums of capital to function, she also realizes there are limits to how much she can alienate the lords of finance. For that matter, it’s not even clear Clinton would want to. “Many of her best friends, her intellectual brain trust [on economics], all come out of that world,” says a longtime Democratic operative who worked on Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign and then for Hillary in the White House. “She doesn’t have a problem on the fighting-for-working-class-folks side”—protecting Medicare and Social Security—“but it will be hard, really wrenching for her to be that populist on [finance] issues.”

Which brings us to the probable face of the insurgency. In addition to being strongly identified with the party’s populist wing, any candidate who challenged Clinton would need several key assets. The candidate would almost certainly have to be a woman, given Democrats’ desire to make history again. She would have to amass huge piles of money with relatively little effort. Above all, she would have to awaken in Democratic voters an almost evangelical passion. As it happens, there is precisely such a person. Her name is Elizabeth Warren.

(Click below for proper effect):

I love Elizabeth Warren. I would totally have her baby if she would have me. You love Elizabeth Warren. We all love Elizabeth Warren. Someday Elizabeth Warren t-shirts may very well become as ubiquitous as Che T's. But, outside of the hazy crazy patchouli-scented fever palaces that are the comment sections of the manic progressive websites, nobody really thinks that Warren could, would, or should run an insurgent primary campaign against Clinton. And, to be quite frank, those who think Warren should run to in order to "start a conversation" are the  kind of people who have attempted this kind of thing in the past and , as my grandmother used to put it, "don't have dick to show for it".

I can't say whether Scheiber really thinks this Warren for POTUS groundswell is a 'thing' (of course we have yet to hear from Lady Lynne Forester Sniffnose Wobblebottom  LaDeeDah de  Rothschild lately, and Jeebus knows that where the trade winds have taken her these past few months) or if he's just trying to jack up page views for  TNR owner Chris Hughes.  But the whole piece reeks of inside-baseball I-used-to-play-Risk chin-stroking navel-gazing hey-look-what I just-pulled-out-of-ass,-you-guys bullshit. And I mean that with great respect.

Now that we have dispensed with our daily allotment of respect ... here comes Politico which deserves none:

There are three words that strike terror in the hearts of Wall Street bankers and corporate executives across the land: President Elizabeth Warren.

The anxiety over Warren grew Monday after a magazine report suggested the bank-bashing Democratic senator from Massachusetts could mount a presidential bid in 2016 and would not necessarily defer to Hillary Clinton — who is viewed as far more business-friendly — for the party’s nomination.

Well, played Politco. Booga Accomplished.

Finally, bringing up the rear is Chris Cillizza:

But, there’s more to Warren — and her differences from Obama and Clinton — than simply her willingness to stake out unapologetically liberal positions. It’s the way she does it, a sort of quiet confrontation — yes, we know that seems contradictory — that has created an image of her as one of the only people (in either party) willing to speak truth to the political and financial powers-that-be. It’s that willingness to confront that, more than anything else, has turned Warren into an Internet sensation – her You Tube channel is littered with speeches that have been viewed more than 1 million times, she is regularly part of highly-trafficked items on Reddit.com — and given her a base of political power that lies outside the Senate chamber and, more importantly, beyond the long reach of the Clintons.

...and yet, if Cillizza were to read his only work, he'd see this:

All of the above comes with two big caveats: 1) Warren and her people insist she has no interest in running for president and she has already signed a letter supporting Clinton for president

But, you know, Warren totally could run because, as Cokie Roberts might put it: it's out there now, which is almost as good as a fact when you're working the Villager cocktail weenie circuit where everything is a horse-race for their amusement and they create the reality in which we are supposed to live...