FOR those trying to predict who will run for US president in 2016, scrutinizing grammar has become something of a fixation. They'll argue that verb tense matters. Until it doesn't matter at all. Nobody has formally announced a White House bid. But plenty of the country's top politicians are obviously jockeying for position — all the while performing semantic gymnastics when directly asked The Question: Will you run for president? Fortune magazine made a splash Tuesday when it published an interview with Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a liberal favorite who has said repeatedly she is “not running for president.” That's present tense, which grammatically means the Massachusetts senator is not currently in the act of running for president. That answer would seem to keep her options open, some have said, stoking the hopes of some liberals who are eager to see Warren get into the race and challenge Hillary Rodham Clinton, the leading Democratic contender should she run for a second time. Yet in the Fortune interview, when Warren was asked by Sheila Bair, the former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, “Are you going to run for president?” Warren had a simple reply: “No.” Future tense. Done deal, right? Well, not by the standard set this past week by former presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Asked by a New York Times reporter in January 2014 whether he would seek the Republican nomination for a third time, Romney seemed to offer a definitive answer. “Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no,” Romney told the newspaper. “People are always gracious and say, ‘Oh, you should run again.' “I'm not running again.” Except that on Friday, Romney, who lost to President Barack Obama in 2012, sent the political world into a tizzy when he told donors at a private New York meeting that he was, in fact, now considering another run for president. That's despite his using the word “no” 11 times in that single answer, which he capped with a statement — but in present tense! — summing up his intent not to run. Perhaps no one has been asked the question more than Clinton. Trying to figure out her intentions is a natural for those who see politics as comedy. During her recent book tour, late-night host Jon Stewart teased the former secretary of state with questions about her home office preferences, alluding to the White House's Oval Office. “Would you like that office ... to have corners? Or would you like it not to have corners?” Stewart asked. Clinton quipped, “The fewer corners that you can have, the better.” Dealing with how politicians answer The Question has long been a part of the campaign for the White House. Journalists often seek a Shermanesque statement of certitude, derived from the pledge made by Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, a potential Republican candidate in the 1884 election, who said: “If drafted, I will not run. If nominated, I will not accept. If elected, I will not serve.” Some prospective candidates have had fun when badgered to give such an answer. After struggling in his 1976 campaign, Democratic Rep. Mo Udall of Arizona shut the door to a 1980 challenge to President Jimmy Carter with this: “If nominated, I will run — for the Mexican border. If elected, I will fight extradition.” — AP
