Warren takes steps toward possible Senate run in Massachusetts

Elizabeth Warren is taking steps toward a possible Senate bid, and is looking to make a decision after Labor Day on whether to challenge Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) in 2012.

Warren is spending the next few weeks considering running, according to a Massachusetts Democrat assisting her possible campaign. She posted an item to Blue Mass Group, an influential liberal blog for Bay Staters, to make it clear that she’s at least considering running.

“In the weeks ahead, I want to hear from you about the challenges we face and how we get our economy growing again,” she said. “I also want to hear your ideas about how we can fix what all of us — regardless of party — know is a badly broken political system.”

Warren has tapped two veterans of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s (D) political operation to assist her: Doug Rubin, who ran Patrick’s two campaigns, and Kyle Sullivan, a former spokesman for the governor.

She stepped down recently as an adviser to the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, created by President Obama’s financial regulatory reform law, after Senate Republicans had bristled at her possible appointment as the agency’s first chief.

She ostensibly left Washington to rejoin the faculty at Harvard University, but her move back to Massachusetts raises the possibility that she might enter the race to challenge Brown as a Democrat next year.

Her blog post came on the same day Harvard announced that she was slated to teach this fall at Harvard Law School, which she had left to take her position in the administration.

Liberal activists have been clamoring for Warren to enter the race, especially against a candidate like Brown, who’s built a relatively formidable advantage for himself in typically Democratic Massachusetts. He took his seat in a special election following the 2009 death of longtime Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy.

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