Amanda Terkel, and Ryan Grim of Huffington Post report Ready For Warren Campaign Launches To Convince Elizabeth Warren To Run For President, and they are on their way to Netroots Nation to rally support among the many Democrats attending the conference.
"I think there's an opportunity for us to convince her if we're really able to make the case as to why we think she's the right person," said Erica Sagrans, who has signed on as the Ready For Warren campaign manager. ...
"We don't want to say too much about our exact plans, but we'll definitely be out in force and supporting Warren when she speaks on Friday," said Sagrans, adding, "We're planning on using Netroots as an opportunity to build on a lot of the momentum she's seen elsewhere and to show not only that she has progressive support -- because I think we know that -- but that there is an organized effort and people who are working on harnessing that support and building it into a real Draft Warren campaign."
Warren has gone on an extensive nation-wide speaking tour and is making a personal visit to speak at Netroots to make sure people know she is not candidate for 2016.
Warren's press secretary Lacy Rose responded "No, Senator Warren does not support this effort."
Despite this "Ready for Warren supporters will be arriving at Netroots Nation the annual gathering of progressive activists that is taking place in Detroit this week."
Ready for Hillary supporter will have their own splashy bus at Netroots, and Joe Biden will be speaking there for the first time.
A presence at Netroots Nation is becoming a sin quo non for Democratic presidential aspirants.
Going forward, the campaign will make sure there are Warren supporters to greet her and encourage her to run as she travels around the country stumping for Democratic candidates. Sagrans said the group hasn't yet decided what form it will officially take -- whether it will be a super PAC or a hybrid PAC like Ready for Hillary. But it's going to step up volunteer efforts and fundraising, as well as make sure it's a presence in the early primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire. An explosive amount of fundraising could be one way to entice Warren into the race.
"For people like me, who supported Obama and worked on the Obama campaign, we were in a similar situation before. [Clinton] had the money before, she had the support and inevitability, and it didn't mean she got the nomination," said Sagrans. "I think there's also just value in having a competitive primary and a chance to have a discussion about what you want to see in a nominee and what the Democratic nominee should look like and their values and who they represent."
I think Democrats would be crazy not to have a vigorous primary as it is the largest most effective block of media advertising for the generals, as we have conclusively seen in many of the recent elections. Joe Biden is showing interest. Let's hope we can find at least six high quality debaters so we can prevent the Republicans from doing to us in 2016 what we did to them in 2008. After 8 months of daily excitement and gripping headlines, with John McCain mostly sidelined, we had won that election by the time we had our convention.
2:17 PM PT: Joe Biden to head to Netroots Nation
The announcement Wednesday that Vice President Joe Biden is heading to Netroots Nation means that two of the three biggest stars in the Democratic Party will attend the largest gala of progressives in the nation this year.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, will have a bus visiting in her absence.
Biden will join Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., during the three-day conference in Detroit, Michigan. He’s scheduled to speak a week from Thursday; Warren is slated for a morning address the day after. That same weekend Clinton will be doing a book signing in St. Paul, Minnesota, about a 90-minute flight from Detroit.
Clinton, in the midst of a month long promotional tour of her book, declined an invite. In one sense, it makes sense for her to avoid the risk of a cool welcome by some of the nation’s most hardened liberals. But if The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber is right, she’s already made great inroads with the group who torpedoed her nomination six years ago.