Jay Mallin/ZUMA
It’s been a busy first year in the Senate for Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Since she entered the Congress in January 2013, she’s become a liberal hero, a frequent YouTube star who turns dull congressional hearings into viral hits. She’s pushed the government to lower interest rates on student loans. Protected vets from financial scams. Introduced legislation to protect poor people searching for a job. Called on banks to reveal their donations to think tanks.
Somehow she’s also found time to write a 384-page book. Next month Warren will release A Fighting Chance, which, according to the AP, will tell her whole life story, dating back to her early life in Oklahoma to her time setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and her first year in the Senate. Warren will embark on a brief book tour in Massachusetts after the book’s publication on April 22.
Warren is already a prolific author, having published eight books before she ever ran for office. But those other writing ventures were an outgrowth of her academic career. Her new book appears purely political, the sort of hagiographic biography politicians pen to position themselves for a future run at higher office. Barack Obama published The Audacity of Hope, at around the same point of his career in the Senate. Mitt Romney wrote No Apology: The Case for American Greatness in 2010 to gear up for his 2012 campaign. Hillary Clinton is set to release a book in June.
Warren has said, time and again, that she has no intention of moving into the White House. “I’m not running for president and I plan to serve out my term,” she said at a December press conference. But politicians have a long history of ignoring their previous denials when circumstances change. Barack Obama frequently dismissed the notion that he’d seek the presidency so early in his career, only to ditch those denials and announce a campaign in 2007. It’s unlikely that Warren would challenge Clinton should Clinton, as expected, run in 2016. The Massachusetts politician joined her fellow female senators in signing a letter urging Clinton to run for president again. But, should she pass on another bid, Warren could always change her tune.
