For all those Democrats out there not prepared just quite yet to anoint Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee for president two years out, the only other Democrat who is even in the discussion these days as a possible foil to Mrs. Clinton is Elizabeth Warren, who never even held elected office two years ago.
But in our current political culture, that might be a plus, and though Warren gave due respect to the former First Lady and Secretary of State on Sunday, she was not ready to give her an endorsement while being interviewed by George Stephanopolous on ABC's This Week.
Warren did say she hopes Clinton run, but when asked directly if she would endorse her, Warren replied, "Hillary is terrific."
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Now in just her second year as a U.S. Senator representing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the fervor amongst progressive for Warren to think about entering the race as the anti-Hillary is fomenting, and the publication of her new book, "A Fighting Chance," is giving her a platform to discuss what ABC correspondent Jeff Zeleny dubs a "middle-class manifesto."
Perhaps the most interesting exchange was when Warren described why she left the Republican Party back in the 1990's. She told Stephanopolous that she was originally an independent but went to the GOP "for a while because I really thought that it was a party that was principled in its conservative approach to economics and to markets."
But that changed, she says.
"And I feel like the GOP party just left that. That they moved to a party that said, no, it's not about a level playing field, it's now about a field that has gotten tilted. And they really stood up for the big financial institutions when the big financial institutions are just hammering middle class American families.
You know, I just feel like that's a party that moved way, way away."
Warren has been co-sponsoring a bill in the Senate with John McCain that would reinstate portions of the Glass-Steagall Act, which restricted commercial banks from engaging in risky financial behavior. That law was crafted in the 1930's to prevent commercial banks from engaging in investment activities. But over the years the guts of that provision began getting chipped away, and fully repealed by Bill Clinton in 1999.
McCain voted to repeal the legislation then, but now says that was a mistake.
But having said that, the bill hasn't gone anywhere in the Senate since it was first introduced last July.