Quinnipiac national poll: D: Clinton 56% Warren 14%; R: Walker 18% Bush 16%

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Clinton at only 56%.

#BidenMentum
#WarrenMentum
#2008Redux

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Warren

How long do the media and the pollsters intend to keep up this ridiculous farce?

You sound uneasy.

Yes, I'm very uneasy that Hillary only leads someone who isn't going to run by 42 points. You caught me!

No, I'm just annoyed at the blatant double standard. In 99% of polls, only candidates who have shown interest in a run (or at the very least, have not explicitly ruled it out) are included. Elizabeth Warren is the only exception to this. It's just more proof of the media's grudge against Hillary and their desperation in trying to create a competitive primary.

Of course, as someone who also likes accurate polls, it's annoying on that point as well. If they continually include someone who isn't going to run in their polls, it's hard to get a sense of the actual state of the race. I guess it really doesn't matter whether she's leading by 35 or 60 points since she's already the nominee, but it would still be interesting to see. I would figure a forum of election/map/polling geeks would agree with me on that point. It would be like if Strickland said he wasn't going to run, and rather than testing Sittenfeld against Portman, every pollster only tested Strickland every single time.

The whole idea of why the media doesn't believe Warren has ruled out running is, 1) The massive grassroots 'Draft Warren' effort isn't giving up anytime soon, 2) Warren was drafted to run for Senate, it wasn't something she was convinced into doing by herself, 3) Clinton needs a strong primary challenger to help prepare her for the general after nearly 7 years of no campaigning, and 4) Warren does not strive to keep a low profile as a senator.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Like I said before, Warren should do what Christie did in 2011 to get the media to finally believe that he wasn't running: After months of denials of interest, flip-flop and say "OK, I'll think about it.  I'll give you an answer next week."  Then the following week, make the announcement: "OK, I thought about it.  And I'm not running."  That was what got everyone to finally believe that he wasn't running, and caused his share price in the betting markets to crash to [near] zero.

The thing with Christie though, was that he literally considered it. He didn't just walk into his mansion, play video games (or something), and keep a low profile for a week before saying "NO!", he actually became genuinely undecided after being disappointed with the republican field and only stayed out because he didn't think he could beat Obama. If he had a reason to think he could beat Obama, he would have run in 2012.

Warren, on the other hand, has not indicated any problem she has with a nominee Clinton, has pretty much come as close as you can to making a Sherman statement ("I will resign immediately if elected") without making one, and has said "No" from the very first time she was asked about it (without ever saying something less certain, or even using the traditional "never say never, but probably no", nope, just plain old "No.").