Elizabeth Warren will be a factor in 2016, even if she's not on a ticket. | Detroit News Netroots Nation: What we learned

DETROIT — At a high-profile gathering of progressives this week, Hillary Clinton was tolerated, Barack Obama was pitied, and Elizabeth Warren was treated like a hero.

The annual liberal confab known as Netroots Nation brought together around 3,000 activists converged for several days of campaign training, a protest or two, and speeches from Warren, Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats.


And while the 2014 election is just months away, many in this crowd were far more focused on the 2016 race for president, a contest they hope will allow for a showdown between the pro-business and populist strains of the Democratic Party.

( Also on POLITICO: Warren feels the love at Netroots)

Here are six takeaways from the gathering in the Motor City:

Warren will be a factor, even if she’s not on the ticket.

Elizabeth Warren stole the show this week with her tough messages to Wall Street and Republicans. The Massachusetts senator insists she’s not running in 2016, but the conference made clear that progressives will hold midterm and presidential candidates to the populist standard she has set.

A case in point: the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, an activist group that touts itself as being from the “Warren wing of the Democratic Party,” is seeking to organize in New Hampshire and Iowa,”to make sure every presidential candidate is asked whether they agree with Warren on key economic populist issues like expanding Social Security benefits, taking on Wall Street, and eliminating student loan debt,” spokeswoman Laura Friedenbach said.

Activists here nearly all called Warren a “fighter” — a label she embraced in her speech Friday — and signaled they want other Democrats to get aggressive with banks, corporations and lobbyists to tackle income inequality. Warren has charged that the economic system is “rigged” in favor of the rich and powerful.

Candidates hoping to harness this crowd’s enthusiasm will need to embrace that pugnacious stance toward big business, not just talk about creating more opportunities for the middle class. Attendees here see Wall Street as a deeply damaging force in American politics and they want the kind of retribution Warren promises.

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There is hope for Hillary Clinton …

Netroots attendees hail from the most liberal corners of the Democratic Party. To them Clinton is simply too conservative on fiscal and foreign policy matters. They see the former New York senator as tight with Wall Street, and she doesn’t strike them as willing to fight for working people the way Warren does.

Yet interviews with several attendees suggest it’s not a lost cause for Clinton. If she distances herself from big business, highlights her support for labor — a point that came up several times here, given the big union representation at the conference — and demonstrates she cares about the struggles of ordinary Americans, she could go a long way with this group. What it really comes down to, activists say, is a shift in what Clinton emphasizes.

“She would have to have Elizabeth Warren’s message,” said Cindy Pettibone, an activist from the Washington, D.C ., area. “Against big banks and corporations, for the little guy, restoring the middle class and unions.”

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Clinton, who is touring the country to promote her new memoir about her time as secretary of state, appears to have already started adjusting for this. She told PBS’s Charlie Rose this week that, if she runs, it would be on a “very specific campaign that talks about the changes you want to make in order to tackle growth, which is the handmaiden of inequality.”

Of course, if Clinton goes too far in embracing Warren’s tough-on-Wall Street message, it could hurt her fundraising and dampen her appeal among conservative Democrats.

Another hopeful sign for the likely 2016 Democratic candidate: At a party Friday night hosted by Ready for Hillary — the grassroots-focused organization urging her to run — some people showed up wearing “Elizabeth Warren for President” stickers, to sip drinks, snack on pizza and listen to some Motown music.

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… but there is plenty of space for a 2016 candidate from the left.

Even though grassroots activists acknowledge that Clinton is the most electable Democrat on the radar right now , they don’t want a Clinton coronation.

And if Warren doesn’t run, they are hoping another left-leaning candidate will challenge Clinton so that the party will have to engage in a full-throated debate about where it stands on economic issues. They also believe that regardless of whether other candidates are viable, a contested primary would push Clinton to the left.

Potential alternatives some cited include Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a self-described socialist. There’s also Vice President Joe Biden, whose keynote speech Thursday was well-received. Though some activists said they don’t view Biden much to the left of Clinton, they love that he pushed (if only inadvertently) President Barack Obama to endorse gay marriage in 2012. And they perceive him as slightly less hawkish than the president.

As one national Democrat with close ties to the grassroots put it, activists are “venting” while they can, even if they ultimately rally behind Clinton.

“No one, especially Democrats, no one likes a frontrunner” — at least not at this stage, this person said.

National Democrats’ midterms messaging is on point with the base.

Party leaders have been pushing messages about economic fairness as they look ahead to what will drive midterm turnout — and with this crowd, at least, it’s resonating.

Issues such as raising the minimum wage, ensuring “equal pay” for women and, more broadly, reducing income inequality all played well here.

In an interview, Mary Burke, who is running for governor against Scott Walker in Wisconsin, also pointed to reproductive and voting rights as issues that could drive Democrats to the polls in an off-year. Perhaps the biggest applause line in Warren’s speech came when she melded anti-Wall Street talk with blasting the Supreme Court’s recent decision on the Hobby Lobby case, which will allow some private companies to opt out of covering birth control.

Foreign policy isn’t much of a factor.

Netroots Nation started in 2006 and has deep roots in the anti-war movement: the conference rose to prominence as progressives grew increasingly angry about the war in Iraq. The gathering this year comes amid renewed chaos in Iraq, the downed airliner over the Ukraine that killed nearly 300 people and an Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.

But you’d hardly know that foreign policy issues were dominating national and international news. Many attendees are certainly deeply anti-war; they want to see reduced military spending and are concerned about Clinton’s record of backing a more assertive foreign policy (some also questioned in interviews whether she would be, in their view, too pro-Israel should she run for president). And a handful of panels addressed national security issues.

But in interviews and in speeches, the topic of international affairs rarely came up. Polls indicate that Americans are increasingly looking inward on foreign policy. The low-key reaction to major global events suggests that attitude also applies to the progressive base.

They’re not mad at Obama, just disappointed.

The president has had a tumultuous relationship with the Netroots crowd.

They loved him during his nomination fight ahead of the 2008 election, but many of these activists have grown disillusioned at seeing the White House fail to produce much of the change they felt they’d been promised.

Nonetheless, many said Obama has done what he could given the gridlock in Washington. “He’s doing all right, he could be doing better,” summed up Antonio Leonard, 26. “But with this Congress, you can’t get anything done.”

Pettibone, the activist from Washington, added, “If we don’t get Democrats out and get a better Democratic Congress in Obama’s last two years, he won’t be able to accomplish anything.”