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TIME Politics Hillary Clinton Yana Paskova—Getty Images Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks to the media after keynoting a Women's Empowerment Event at the United Nations on March 10, 2015 in New York City.

Hillary Clinton does not face a serious primary challenger for the Democratic nomination in 2016, but that isnt stopping some liberals from putting together the trappings for one.

The handful of Democrats who have expressed interest in challenging Clinton Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Gov. Martin OMalley and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb are all polling double digits behind her and raising minimal funds. None have the kind of name recognition that could seriously threaten her inevitable march to the nomination.

But thats not stopping some on the left from trying their hand at the classic primary squeeze play of raising issues in the primary in an effort to persuade her to adopt them.

Over the weekend, during his first foray into the early caucus state of Iowa, OMalley called for tougher sanctions on Wall Street and too-big-to-fail banks, and for reinstating Glass-Steagall, a law that separated commercial and investment banking which was repealed in 1999. He also called for strongly supporting the long-embattled Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was passed in 2010 response to the financial crisis.

Today, most Republicans in Congress are hell-bent on disassembling the Dodd-Frank Act, OMalleys PAC, OSay Can You See, wrote in a press release Monday, along with a link to a petition. And too many Democrats have been complicit in the backslide toward less regulation.

OMalleys populist swing came the same weekend that the Boston Globe featured a splashy package begging Massachusetts Senator and liberal hero Elizabeth Warren to run for president. Democrats need Elizabeth Warrens Voice in the 2016 presidential race, the editorial board urged. (The idea is not totally out of left field, as it were. Though Warren has said repeatedly that she is not running for president, she has been somewhat cagey about it. She studiously uses the present tense I am not running for president and has yet to endorse a Clinton candidacy.)

This week, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee also re-upped its ongoing effort to motivate liberals to challenge Clintons famously Wall Street-friendly economic positions. Liberals should join New Hampshire and Iowa leaders in urging candidates to campaign on big, bold, economic populist ideas, the PCCC urged. The more momentum we get, the more Hillary Clinton and others will take notice.

So whats all this clamoring, calling-to-arms actually add up to?

Liberal optimists argue that its the only thing that will help scooch Clinton to the left at a time when shes already planning her general election strategy. They believe that Clinton will adopt some of their positions in order to win the full-throated endorsement of key liberals such as Warren who shell need to rally the base in 2016.

See the article here:
Round 1: Hillary Clinton vs. Liberal Ideas