I think Larry Sabato’s 2016 presidential analysis is pretty solid. But it’s a little thin on detail. For example, he fails to mention that Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Chris Christie of New Jersey, John Kasich of Ohio first have to win reelection before they can make a strong case to be the Republican nominee. At least in the case of Walker and Kasich, reelection is far from a sure thing. Sabato also spends too little time exploring the earthquake that would result if Rick Santorum or Rand Paul or Ted Cruz were actually to win the nomination. In any of those cases, the Republican Party would be fractured beyond recognition.
On the Democratic side, we’re stuck having a bifurcated debate with Hillary in the race and without Hillary in the race. He’s probably right that Elizabeth Warren is the only possible candidate with the potential to beat back a Clinton nomination. I just doubt that she’d make the effort. I also think potential is not the same thing as likely. A Warren vs. Clinton fight would badly split the party, and Clinton would probably prevail in a weakened state. However, if Clinton doesn’t enter the race, it will be truly wide open and almost impossible to predict.
Imo – strangely, though it doesn’t appear at all likely, Christie may actually BENEFIT from losing the Governor’s race.
If NJ, a pretty solidly Blue State, were to reject him, that would give him some more bona fides with the Conservative’s very base, base.
I don’t know if that’ll help make up for not spitting in President Obama’s eye, and hugging instead, and putting a Muslim judge on the NJ court, but, as we say in NY, “It wouldn’t hoit!”
Must be bored and/or have little to no news if we keep talking about 2016. Why are we contributing to the endless media spectacle of this over three years away? And it is endless.
…the earthquake that would result if Rick Santorum or Rand Paul or Ted Cruz were actually to win the nomination
If all three of them dive in, I don’t like any of their chances. What happens then, you get a replay of 2012, where each of the crazies takes their turn in the spotlight and they divvy up the wingnut vote between them, after which the candidate most palatable to the money takes the lead for good.
If we actually had, in one of the three, a candidate of batshit unity fairly early in the game, they could do some real damage. But given that Paul, Cruz, and Santorum are all strictly in it for themselves, I can’t see any of them bowing out while there’s still money and free private jet rides on the table.
I’m more interested and worried about 2014 right now but then campaign season already started for me and the situation here in Maine is challenging.
But here is the thing about Clinton that is constantly underplayed. It has become conventional wisdom that it was her advisers who are to blame for her failure to fulfill her inevitability in 2007-08 as if she was completely helpless to choose and manage her advisers. If you go back and watch or listen to her appearances in the 2007-08 campaign, she was pretty terrible. Setting aside her record on Iraq and Iran and her weird statements about lobbyists being people, too, her racist comments, and her bizarre tales of sniper fire–she was not authentic. Her voice, mannerisms, way of speaking, even her eye color changed during the campaign. I think it may have been Daniel Pinkwater who did an interesting piece on NPR where he just played audio of both Clinton and Obama at various times during the campaign and you could hear so clearly how consistent Obama was as opposed to Clinton who was all over the place. It sounded like someone trying on personas to see which one people liked. Voters are repelled by this at a subconscious level. It creates uneasiness and explains many US elections.
As liberals we tend to focus on policy positions and forget the psychology of elections.
And as a last plug for more focus on 2014, I don’t think any Democratic nominee will do well in 2016 if we don’t do well in 2014. After 3 more years of inaction we are likely to get an electorate who want drastic change even if that change is dangerous.
She got pretty good by the end. She kicked Obama’s butt in the debates.
As for her advisors, I cut her some slack on that. In hindsight, letting Mark Penn run the show was a major blunder, but in 2007, she was using the team that got Bill elected and then reelected, and that put her in the Senate, and that made her a prohibitive favorite. Why wouldn’t she stick with the legacy team she’d inherited under those circumstances?
No she didn’t. Obama dominated the room every time post-Iowa. He even invented or unveiled significant new wrinkles of his campaign rhetoric in that setting, beyond his preferred rally mode.
It’s just hard to remember because they turned into such hissing cats towards each other, as Bill became as much a prominent debate point as Bush (which was his own damn fault).
I don’t think she got that good at the end. She started wearing even bluer contacts and playing the racial divisions in PA and Indiana with her Obama is not a Muslim “as far as I know” and her ability to win “hard working Americans, white Americans” while Bill was blowing the dog whistle hard in NC and other places.
Dems don’t like to acknowledge it but Sarah Palin was riffing off of memes that the Clinton campaign started.
I encourage you to go back and watch those debates again. I was an Obama supporter but had bought into the Clinton dominating the debates spin until I watched them again. I’ll tell you who lost those debates – the media personalities. I was shocked by how bad Russert was.
You and I might not have liked her tactics, but they worked. She clawed her way back when it looked like he was pulling away. If it wasn’t for his campaign’s very effective handling of the delegate system, she might well have come back and won.
You sure are right about the debate moderators, though. Except for Gwen Ifill in that general election debate, is was a FAIL parade. Russert? Wolf Blitzer and Campbell Brown made him look like Walter Cronkite.
She clawed her way back by being racist and still never had a chance at the nomination because of that thing her husband likes so much “arithmetic”. I just don’t see that strategy working for her if she wants to hold the Obama coalition together.
I also think it is foolish to think that the opposition will not bring out all the dirt and rumor on the Clintons as they are absolutely a two-fer for better or worse.
I just don’t see that strategy working for her if she wants to hold the Obama coalition together.
BooMan talks about this a lot: there are pools of voters that Hillary would do better with than Obama did.
The Obama coalition is not the only way to win a primary, or a general election, for a Democrat. For instance, Hillary would have a much better chance in Missouri.
“You’re likable enough, Hillary.”
This is one of two central flaws at the heart of the Clinton gambit. At the end of the day, you just kinda don’t want to see her win. The other, obviously, is the old question of what happens when Bill is on one side of a strategic question and Hillary is on the other, who wins? In a real time decision making crisis, does any staffer sneak over to Bill’s office or make a call?
She’s still going to beat whatever Obama champion runs against her. It’ll be one group of royalists vs. the old group of royalists, and the party will be divided going into 2016 as the old fractures reemerge.
And by simple game theory calculations, the Clinton supporters have minimal cause to seek a Democratic House win in 2014. They don’t want a united legislature until 2017, when they, not Obama, can profit from it. Watch Hillary stick to statewide candidates next fall, mostly women (to deflect hostility).
in the Iowa and NH polling. She hovered around 30 in Iowa and around 35 in NH – both worry some numbers for a front runner. In Iowa (where I worked) the AUMF vote hurt her – I think it was why there was resistance to her.
She has no such weakness this time – but really what would her winning mean? More half measures. More free trade agreements.
She is miles better than a republican – but neither her nor Obama seem to understand globalization, and each is to afraid to make the case for single payer (and single payer is a fiscal necessity).
I want another choice. None of the ones listed by Sabato do it for me.
I think it’s just as important to get more progressive Democrats elected to the House and Senate. They can drive positive change. Clinton will be tacking to the left quite a bit in order to ward off a strong challenger.
Agree with you on just about all counts. Here’s hoping if Hillary runs, she takes more than a few pointers from Obama. Hillary strikes me as a policy first/ people person second type politician. Which is ok on policy grounds but off key to making connection with folks and can lead to bad personell choices. It is true that seldom does one party hold the Presidency for more than two terms, so Dems need a strong game in ’16. Elizabeth Warren is the one candidate I could be truly excited about, but she shows no interest in it.
That’s funny, because Obama strikes me as much more of a policy first/people second type pol, then and now, than Hillary. Didn’t seem to hurt O.
As for personnel, some of her top campaign staff positions were hired for reasons already covered in these threads. Plus she strikes me as someone wanting to reward personal loyalty — having gone thru the Monica Madness crisis in the WH as she watched enough faint-hearted Dems dither about backing Bill over impeachment, this is not surprising.
As for Warren, I like her a great deal too, but forget about her running in ’16 if Hillary runs. If not, she still strikes me as less likely to run than, say, women like Klobuchar or Gillibrand, but of these 3 she would by far get more party/rank-and-file pressure to do so. I just don’t see her as the type of pol hungry for the next step up and all the grief that would entail in a grueling 18 month campaign.
Just goes to show ya… Well, if she does run, I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.
I highly doubt Warren has any interest in running for president. If Hillary doesn’t run, you’re going to have a massive free-for-all on the Democratic side.
Sabato lists this as a disadvantage for Christie: Superstorm Sandy fallout
Lord, is it depressing that he’s right. Chris Christie’s performance in the Sandy aftermath – that is, taking care of his people in their time of dire need, and doing so effectively – is a strike against him in a Republican primary.
Do you think there is any chance that Christie will become an Independent? I don’t see him getting through a Republican primary process given that the Republican base has become so ideologically driven and less pragmatic. I definitely think he aspires to the office and is sort of perfectly positioned for a third party run.
I have no more insight into what goes on in Republicans’ heads than in the heads of monitor lizards.
He’s not like us, Jim! He’s got green blood!
HA!!
He’s probably right that Elizabeth Warren is the only possible candidate with the potential to beat back a Clinton nomination.
Sure, but let’s keep in mind: we’re talking about a Democratic presidential primary. The word “probably” needs to be significantly discounted in that context.
If you have any support for this I’d sure be willing to take a grain of optimism where I can find it. As far as I can tell (and I live in Wisconsin) re-election of Walker might as well be taken for granted. The Democrats have no candidate, no money, no platform, and no organization. They are literally a shell of an organization. It will be several years before any other force is strong enough to supplant them.
Obama just carried the state by 213,000 votes.
And he carried PA by how much? Yet One-term Tom got elected.
In 2010, with the playing field tilted in favor of the Republicans more than in any year since 1994.
That’s true. In November of 2012 OFA had a candidate, more than enough money, a platform and a hell of an organization. Tammy Baldwin won her election the same way — she brought in a campaign in a box from the outside, sucked up whatever in-state activists she could, and worked around the Wis. Democratic Party.
In June of 2012 Walker won re-election by a 1% greater margin (on a much larger turnout) than he had had won his first election in 2010.
That’s the Wisconsin D.P for you. A candidate who brings in their own machine (like Obama and Baldwin did) might stand a chance IF they can persuade enough local troops to get involved. Hatred of and disillusionment with the Dems runs deep though and it will not be easy.
Actually Jack Kemp did run for prez, in 1988, but got not traction and dropped out. Another difference betw him and Ryan is the ugly rumor mill — that Kemp was gay, a rumor that started up as far back as the late 1960s when he worked for Gov Reagan and that stayed with him for years despite its falsity. Ryan has no such handicap, to my knowledge. I think he’ll run.
Agree on Christie — after a solid reelect he’ll be well positioned for a go at it and, morbid obesity or no, he won’t pass up the opportunity. If he can get past the primaries and emerge the nominee, he’d also be best positioned to give Hillary a run for her money. I doubt he’d win, but of all the GOp potentials, he’s the one most likely to score best in the general.
As for Rand Paul, the GOP might well nominate an extremist wacko, but if so it’s likely to be Theodore Cruz — he’s a whole lot smarter than Paul. So is Christie, and both will have ample opportunity to make Paul look stupid in the debates.
is pretty instructive of the way most GOP primary races have gone. Kemp was in decent shape heading in NH before Iowa gave Robertson a boost. Essentially the GOP right (Kemp, Robertson, Dupont) split the vote on the right in New Hampshire. As a result Kemp finished a poor third to Dole and Bush.
The same dynamic has repeated itself often in HOP races with the result usually being that an establishment candidate wins.
If no Hilary, look for Rahm Emanuel.
Ok,
this just makes me laugh
He has the ego.
He has to get re-elected as Mayor first.