She’s said many times that she has no intention of running, going so far as to co-sign a letter beseeching Her Majesty, Queen Hillary, to take her rightful place upon the throne in 2016. But would-be candidates say lots of things early in the cycle. Remember when Obama said, a few months after being elected to the Senate, that he wouldn’t run for president in 2008 because he was a big believer in knowing what you’re doing when you apply for a job? Two years later, he decided he knew what he was doing after all. And that’s how we ended up with a government that swaps terrorists for accused deserters.

HuffPo’s promoting this clip heavily, even though it may just be that Warren’s tired of answering the question. This part does sound campaign-y, though:

“I do believe in us,” said Warren. “And I believe in us on days like this, on a morning where a whole lot of people come together to talk about ideas, to talk about two books. Because what we’re talking about in here is we’re talking about economics, we’re talking about power, but we’re also talking about values. This is a moment in time for our country and, I believe, for our world, a moment in time where we decide who we are as a people and what kind of a future we’re going to build. As your [Thomas Piketty’s] book shows, it’s tough, it is an uphill climb. It will not happen naturally that the world will even back out. But what it also shows is that these are not natural forces that make it happen, it’s a set of rules by which we govern ourselves, and here in America we the people get to decide what the rules are. So I get how hard this is. This is about concentrated money and power on one side, but it’s about our values, our voices and our votes on our side. I believe we can fight back. I believe we can win.”

What she’s really doing here, I think, is preserving a little strategic ambiguity to keep the pressure on Hillary to pander to the left. She’s not going to run and she wouldn’t win if she did, but if she starts speaking campaign-ese, she can make sure that Hillary invests in plenty of income inequality rhetoric next year that the left can hold her to later. It’s already begun, in fact. Warren is a useful threat for progressives even if she’s not much of a threat at all.

Let’s face it: Warren vs. Cruz is the election partisans want, Clinton vs. Bush is the election partisans will get. Alas.