Populist Reform of the Democratic Party

Sagner is a former board member of the influential Democracy Alliance club of wealthy liberals. Its membership — which skews anti-war, anti-money in politics and economically populist — largely turned away from Clinton and toward Obama in 2008. Sources say the club’s current donor pool again includes an ardent anybody-but-Hillary wing. This time around, its underdog rival of choice is Warren, who demurred when she was urged to run after speaking to the club’s annual winter meeting late last year.

Warren’s lawyer has even gone so far as to disavow Ready for Warren. But it’s proceeding anyway, with the two-pronged goal of demonstrating to Warren that there would be sufficient financial support for her campaign and also building political infrastructure around the country that could be tapped by any such campaign. It’s a model similar to — but on a much smaller scale — than the one that Ready for Hillary pioneered early last year.