Obama may be backing Elizabeth Warren for president in 2016

Is there really that much hostility between the Clintons and the Obamas? That depends on who you ask. However, some unnamed sources are indicating that President Obama has quietly offered his support to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren if she chooses to run for the presidency in 2016. Obviously this would be a slight to Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden.

Report from the UK Daily Mail:

President Barack Obama is said to have begun quietly backing Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as a potential successor in what would be a snub to his one-time rival and later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The president has remained publicly mum about who he would back in the 2016 race for the White House, but reportedly he has expressed concern that Ms Clinton – who has long been the unofficial frontrunner for the Democratic nomination – would undo many of his policies.

Senator Warren, a former Harvard law professor and administration aide, could energize the left wing of the Democrat Party more than the centrist Ms Clinton would, in the same way President Obama did in 2008, Edward Klein argues in the New York Post. Warren also helped set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011.

Klein, who is the author of author of Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas, wrote that sources told him President Obama has quietly promised Senator Warren his support if she runs and has authorized his chief political adviser, Valerie Jarrett, to convince her to join the race.

Ms Jarrett has held a series of secret meetings with Senator Warren in recent weeks, arguing that she be more likely to carry on President Obama’s legacy after he departs the White House.

‘Barack, Michelle and Valerie have been talking about Elizabeth Warren for quite some time,’ an Obama administration source told Klein. ‘Valerie has told Warren that Obama is prepared to throw a great deal of money and organizational support behind her.

It is no secret that there is some bitterness between the Obama and Clinton circles which has sometimes spilled over into sniping back and forth in the media. Elizabeth Warren is much more in line with the President’s progressive views and would be running to the left of Hillary Clinton. It doesn’t seem that implausible to me.