Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren wave to the crowd before a campaign rally on June 27 in Cincinnati, Ohio. | AP Photo Simon Says Call me what you want, just as long as it's 'Madame President'

Elizabeth Warren has blown it. In just one speech this week, she may have ended any chance she had to become Hillary Clinton’s running mate.

When the two took the stage at Cincinnati’s Union Terminal on Monday, they looked like a dynamic duo. Warren is 67, Hillary is 68, and while that used to be on the verge of old age for presidential politics, it has become the new “seasoned.” (Barack Obama was 47 when he was elected, George W. Bush was 54 and Bill Clinton was 46.)


Both Warren and Hillary Clinton wore shades of blue — certainly no accident. They are such a pair they even dress alike! Both have short blond hair. Both look energetic, vigorous and enthusiastic.

Then they started speaking. And it was all over.

Warren was just too darn good. She went after Donald Trump like a hobo on a ham sandwich. She delivered a barnburner, a blockbuster, a foot-stomper of a speech.

If one purpose of a political speech is to define your opponent, she had that down pat.

Donald Trump, she said, is a “small, insecure money-grubber who fights for nobody but himself.”

Donald Trump “will crush you into the dirt to get whatever he wants.”

“Donald Trump says he’ll make America great again. It’s stamped right there on the front of his goofy hat. You wanna see goofy? Look at him in that hat!”

The audience roared and clapped and held its sides. Oh, that hat! That baseball cap that seems like it is stapled to Trump’s skull. (He wears it to keep his hair from getting mussed. You do not want to be around Trump when his hair gets mussed.)

And that “Make America Great Again” slogan? When did America stop being great? When it started making guys like Trump presumptive nominees for president?

Who is Donald Trump anyway? How much do you really know about him except that he actually managed to lose money on a gambling casino? Which takes a special kind of skill.

The Clinton campaign strategy regarding Trump is to continue to get under his skin, continue to poke him with a stick because when he gets angry, which is pretty much all the time, he loses control of his mouth.

He talks about thousands of imaginary Muslim-Americans dancing in the streets after 9/11. He talks about how Mexican immigrants are rapists. And he says of John McCain: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

Trump also likes people who got out of the draft because of bone spurs. People like him.

Warren, the senior Democratic senator from Massachusetts, has been designated an official stick-poker.

Warren summed it all up in a video released last week: “I have to be honest: It’s hard to talk about Donald Trump. Between his ignorance, racism, sexism, lies — it’s hard to know where to start.”

Boom! Drop the mic.

But that is the problem. If you want to become the vice presidential nominee you do not want to outshine the presidential nominee.

True, Hillary seemed to be wowed by Warren’s speech on Monday, too.

“You just saw why she is so terrific, so formidable. Because she tells it like it is,” Clinton said. “I have to say, I do just love how she gets under Donald Trump’s skin.”

And it would be nice for Hillary to be able to sit back and talk about foreign policy and fiscal policy and all the other policies that Trump knows nothing about and let her running mate do the nasty stuff.

The trouble is, however, voters rarely cast ballots because of who is running for vice president. Hillary has to thread the needle and pick a running mate who can shine, but not outshine.

And nastiness runs both ways. “Crooked Hillary is wheeling out one of the least productive senators in the U.S. Senate, goofy Elizabeth Warren,” Trump tweeted on Monday.

On Tuesday, Warren said: “What this is really about is can they bully me into shutting up? Can they be nasty enough and ugly enough and throw enough stuff in my direction that I will say, oh, and go back in the shadows? And the answer is, nope, not happening.”

The same is true for Hillary. Last Wednesday, Trump called her “the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.”

“Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft,” Trump said. “She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund, doing favors for oppressive regimes, and many others … in exchange for cash, pure and simple. Pure and simple.”

And that wasn’t all. “Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched,” Trump said.

But isn’t this all just name calling, just another part of the national entertainment, the national pastime that we call a presidential campaign?

Hillary doesn’t care. This time next year they can call her whatever they want. Just as long as it’s “Madame President.”

Roger Simon is POLITICO's chief political columnist.

