A short two-mile drive northwest from the White House — encircled by the embassies of the United Kingdom, Bolivia, Brazil, Italy, Denmark, and New Zealand — Hillary Clinton invited Senator Elizabeth Warren to her home for a private, one-on-one meeting in December, reported the New York Times on Tuesday.

Clinton, who has all but announced her 2016 presidential candidacy, met with the Massachusetts senator at her brick, colonial-style home in Washington in an effort to “cultivate the increasingly influential senator and leader of the party’s economic populist movement,’’ according to the Times.

Clinton did not ask for an endorsement from Warren, but instead “solicited policy ideas and suggestions.’’ Though the two met without aides, the Times reported a Democrat briefed on the meeting called it “cordial and productive.’’


Though the former secretary of state, U.S senator and First Lady is the current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president, many progressives have clamored for Warren to throw her hat in the 2016 ring, viewing Clinton as too hawkish on foreign policy and cosy with Wall Street.

Warren, however, has repeatedly insisted that she is not running and her meeting with Clinton signals the building of a relationship, said the Times, as Clinton works on her economic platform.

During the 2014 elections, Warren campaigned for Democratic candidates in six states, touting her liberal brand of economic populism. Liberal movements, such as Ready for Warren and MoveOn.org’s Run Warren Run, have sprouted up across the country, opening offices in Iowa and New Hampshire. According to Real Clear Politics’s most recent polling data, about 11 percent of Democrats support Warren for president in 2016. Clinton garners 60 percent support.

If anything, besides Clinton’s need to appease the more liberal members of the Democratic party, their December meeting likely consolidates the fact Warren won’t run against Clinton in 2016, and that another liberal alternative will. The self-described “independent socialist’’ U.S. Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, has very publicly considered running for the Democratic nomination if there is no other liberal alternative.


Meanwhile, Warren will use her new leadership position as strategic policy advisor for the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee to exact her influence. And the road from Clinton’s northwest Washington home to the White House appears to be clear of at least one liberal challenger.