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The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

The Student Newspaper of DePaul University

The DePaulia

Run, Warren, Run: Why Elizabeth Warren should run for president in 2016

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. speaks to a staff member on Capitol Hill in Washington Feb. 25 as Democrats and Republicans headed to their party caucus meetings to discuss the homeland security funding.  (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. speaks to a staff member on Capitol Hill in Washington Feb. 25 as Democrats and Republicans headed to their party caucus meetings to discuss the homeland security funding. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is not likely running for president in 2016 — unless, of course, you ask her supporters.

According to The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, NPR and DePaul political science professor Catherine May, Elizabeth Warren is not running for president in 2016.

Yet, people are continually pushing for her to run.

According to the Huffington Post, groups such as the New York Working Families Party, MoveOn.org and Democracy for America are calling upon Warren to run.

But, why is this?

The answer is rather simple, actually: It’s because Warren would make a fantastic president.

Warren was elected in 2012 as a senator from Massachusetts. She is a fearless leader in the Democratic Party, and would make a terrific candidate to challenge Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primary.

I see four reasons as to why you should want Elizabeth Warren to run in 2016. First of all, she fights for college students. Rolling Stone Magazine reported Warren stating, “Rising student-loan debt is an economic emergency. Forty million people are dealing with $1.2 trillion in outstanding student debt. It’s stopping young people from buying homes, from buying cars and from starting small businesses. We need to take action.”

Secondly, she knows how to put down those ridiculous Republicans. According to the Washington Post, during a senate hearing about the safety of vaccines, Warren, in one corner, questioned Anne Schuchat, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. In the other corner was Republican Rand Paul from Kentucky — there in spirit rather than physical presence. Warren quoted Rand Paul by asking if there is “any scientific evidence that vaccines cause ‘profound mental disorders.’” Schuchat replied, “No, but some of the diseases we vaccinate against can.” Warren used Paul’s own words to prove a point.

Additionally, she’s an inspiration to middle and working class Americans. During a speech in January at the AFL-CIO’s “Raising Wages” Summit, she talked about “how the rich are getting richer and how ‘the game is rigged.’”

“I remember the day my mother, scared to death and crying the whole time, pulled her best dress out of the closet, put on her high heels and walked to the Sears to get a minimum-wage job. Unlike today, a minimum-wage job back then paid enough to support a family of three,” Warren said. “That minimum-wage job saved our home — and saved our family. My daddy ended up as a maintenance man, and my mom kept working at Sears. I made it through a commuter college that cost $50 a semester and I ended up in the United States Senate.”

Lastly, she’s fresh. The political royal families — i.e. the Clintons and the Bushs — have had their turn. Isn’t it time for some fresh blood in the White House? Warren is a progressive, feisty woman from Massachusetts with roots firmly planted in middle class America. She is someone who America needs to lead our country.

Warren would be an incredible presidential candidate in 2016. She would fight for college students and for those whom are often forgotten in politics: the middle and working classes.

Now is the time for a truly progressive candidate, a candidate who would not surrender under the pressure of the wealthiest 1 percent of the country. Now is the time for Warren. Let’s just hope she decides to run after all.

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