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Join NowWARREN FIGHTS BUDGET DEAL: “In case you’ve been hiding under some coats this week, liberals are keyed up on the idea of recruiting Elizabeth Warren to run for president in 2016” is how Chris Cillizza opens his piece on Warren’s floor speech. (It’s true–bundle up out there!) Here’s more from the Washington Post: “Warren showed why in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, protesting the inclusion of a measure that would loosen restriction on derivative trading in a $1 trillion spending bill Congress is expected to approve this week.”
KEY WARREN QUOTE: “I come to the floor today to ask a fundamental question—who does Congress work for? Does it work for the millionaires, the billionaires, the giant companies with their armies of lobbyists and lawyers? Or does it work for all of us?”
81.3 PERCENT SUPPORT MOVEON EFFORT – that’s the percent of votes cast in MoveOn’s nationwide membership vote in support of launching the Run Warren Run campaign, which started on Wednesday at RunWarrenRun.org.
@aseitzwald: .@MoveOn polled their members and fully 81.3% voted “yes” to launching the Draft Warren 2016 campaign.
IN CASE YOU MISSED OUR LAUNCH VIDEO – our short launch video makes the case for why we need Senator Warren and her bold, progressive vision in the presidential race. It’s worth watching, really: http://rwr.io/video
NEW YORK TIMES EXCLUSIVE ON LAUNCH: “We want to demonstrate to Senator Warren that there’s a groundswell of grass-roots energy nationally and in key states and to demonstrate there’s a path for her,” MoveOn Political Action’s Ilya Sheyman told The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin just before our vote opened to 8 million MoveOn members across the country.
CNN’s Dan Merica has more on the plan: The campaign includes MoveOn.org opening offices and hiring staff in Iowa and New Hampshire, two states that are critically important in the presidential nomination process, and ‘the assembly of a national volunteer army ready to go to work if Sen. Warren enters the race.’
HuffPost’s Chris Gentilviso: “Maybe she has the grassroots movement that’s similar to the type of movement we saw Barack Obama propelled into the White House. You gotta remember: that was a lot of $3 donations.”
DEMOCRACY FOR AMERICA ADDS ITS VOICE. Shortly after MoveOn publicly announced our membership vote, our friends at Democracy for America joined the call and piled on to this movement; on Wednesday, DFA opened a vote of its membership whether to launch a similar effort, joining Ready for Warren, MoveOn, and millions of Americans calling on Senator Warren to bring her bold, progressive vision to the presidential campaign trail. Jonathan Easley has the story in The Hill.
“The involvement of MoveOn and Democracy for America represent a dramatic escalation in the institutional and financial energy being brought to bear on the effort.” –Alex Seitz-Wald on MSNBC.com
IOWA LAUNCH EVENT SET FOR NEXT WEEK. The Run Warren Run campaign is heading to Iowa next week, where we’re ready to lay the groundwork for our field program with paid organizers, events, and media buys. We’ll open offices in Iowa and New Hampshire, and have committed to investing $1 million in the launch of this effort, the Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs reports.
NEW HAMPSHIRE WILL HAVE ‘KEY ROLE’ IN MOVEON, DFA EFFORTS: “Obviously New Hampshire is always a critical state in any presidential primary,” MoveOn’s lead campaign director Victoria Kaplan tells John DiStaso in NH Journal. “And with Elizabeth Warren representing neighboring Massachusetts, we expect to see an increasing demonstration of support for her getting into the race.”
MOVEON EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DISCUSSES LAUNCH WITH BOSTON’S WBUR: Don’t miss Anna Galland, MoveOn Civic Action executive director, talking with Boston’s WBUR Morning Edition to map out details of our campaign and what we’re hearing from MoveOn members. Here’s Anna: “[Senator Warren] listened to a grassroots groundswell in Massachusetts when she entered the race for Senate there. We believe she can do the same thing now vis-à-vis the presidential primary. … If she were already running, there wouldn’t be a need for this kind of effort.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT: This thoughtful piece from David Freedlander in The Daily Beast on where progressives are focused for 2016—from our Run Warren Run campaign to the PCCC’s Big Ideas Project.
NOTE: These are just a few highlights—there was a ton of coverage of our campaign launch—in hundreds of outlets. We’ll keep you updated as the campaign continues.