Whether or not Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee and whether or not she will run for the nomination at all are two very different questions. But arguing, as Charlie Cook does, that Clinton only has a 25%-30% chance of running at all is very bold and based on magical thinking.
There’s something vaguely gross about comparing Hillary to a new car smell, and it makes me uncomfortable. I’d like to ask a different question.
I think we political junkies operate with certain assumptions that we internalize after a while. We’ve had it in the back of our minds for years now that Clinton will run, will likely win the nomination, and should be heavily favored to win the presidency. We have good reasons for making these assumptions, but having internalized them long ago takes the novelty and excitement of having a female president out of the picture. Far from feeling like some path-breaking moment in American history, it seems more like a very boring and predictable outcome.
The midterms reiterated for us the importance of excitement and interest in the elections to driving Democratic turnout. Barack Obama was able to provide that in a way that Al Gore and John Kerry simply were not. Hillary seems like she is somewhere in between. She isn’t as charismatic as Obama or her husband, but she isn’t crushingly dull, either. Her fan base does include some very strong enthusiasts which we simply didn’t see with Gore and Kerry. She’s somewhat better at riling up the base.
And, when the time comes and the opportunity is finally at hand to make a women the most powerful political leader on the planet, there will be a real sense of novelty and possibility and potential for progress. I just don’t know how strong it will be. The public at large is not at all like political junkies, so they won’t be nearly so fatigued by the idea of Clinton becoming president as most of us are. Yet, this whole idea of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton-Bush is getting pretty old even for the politically disengaged.
A woman president is definitely a new car, in other words, but it seems in this case to be a car we’ve been test driving for years and years.
So, will a Clinton candidacy really bring the excitement we need and, if so, will it be an excitement that comes from a new base of voters?
I’m going to throw a complete curveball here by suggesting that she could provide plenty of excitement by sounding 80% like Elizabeth Warren on the stump. I’ve never believed that either of the Clintons has any real political convictions beyond the greater glory of the Clintons, so I believe she absolutely would run a strong populist campaign IF she were convinced that it was her surest ticket to the White House. The trouble of course is that she is unlikely to employ the kinds of advisors who would recommend such a strategy. But you never know.
So, she could provide plenty of excitement by sounding 80% like Elizabeth Warren on the stump., you’re recommending a slicker, inauthentic marketing campaign for Clinton? Or better lies to cover up her true colors? Because the liberal/progressive social democrat wing of the Democratic Party is as stupid, ignorant and/or naive as the mushy, swingy middle?
How about just like John McCain only younger and without a dumbshit running mate?
Expecting pols to be authentic is a bit much- only a handful of them are. Most of the time we have to content ourselves if we can get them to advocate for the right policies out of expediency.
She could score points with me by using that remaining 20%, the FP part, to boldly suggest that the US, always and too often the leader in bringing military force to bear on a problem spot in the world, instead lead the way to putting together a true international military force to meet the ever-growing ISIS threat. I mean calling for Russia and China, India, Turkey and other major countries to equally share in the burden with a combined force in the hundreds of thousands.
Put that front and center of her FP stance, and ease off the Cold War 2 rhetoric against Russia over Ukraine.
She’ll be able to look tough and smart, at a time where indecision and half-measures (drone attacks) are predominate.
So she should run on the Bush doctrine?
A true representative int’l force, not the phony Bush coalition of the willing. And it would be to contain and destroy a true threat to the region and the world, not for some bogus, false claims about wmd’s.
Democrats will have a real problem winning the presidency in 2016 if their leading contender needs to sound like someone else. What does it mean to sound like Hillary Clinton?
Why does she want to be president? What would she hope to accomplish? Despite the fact that she ran for, and nearly won the nomination in 2008, can anyone answer those questions?
The real problem with the Clinton candidacy is that she has effectively cleared the field despite not actually committing to run yet. Democrats should have a half-dozen strong contenders ready to go at this point. Just as they did 8 years ago.
And who would the other 5 be? I love Warren and my excellent Senator Brown but I don’t think either has the stomach or in Brown’s case at least, even the chops for a presidential campaign. And even if we look beyond our progressive heroes, who is out there? Thanks in large part to the sad state of too many state parties, the bench seems very thin indeed. I just don’t feel good about 2016- I don’t feel good about Clinton if she runs, and I don’t feel good about what will happen if she doesn’t.
That’s the point. They don’t exist. Democrats have not built a deep field of candidates.
My guess is that it’s because most of the power players have decided it’s Clinton’s turn and effectively shut out all contenders this round.
Yeah ‘new car smell’ frame is disgusting and sexist. Blech.
But let me ask this: why does HRC need to appeal to ” a new base of voters?” Isn’t the Democratic coalition that carried Obama to victory good enough?
And why wouldn’t the first woman President ever be an incredibly strong cultural moment? The score stands at 44-0.
Dope-drones-and-domestic surveillance is what all the kids are worried about. They’re all going to vote for Rand Paul. Nominating someone so old is just putting a kick-me sign on our backs. Never mind Sen. Clinton’s association with everything that’s gone wrong from 1993 onwards…
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Bank on it.
Rand Paul won’t be on the ballot in November 2016 outside of Kentucky.
Bank on it.
Agreed. Among other things, Kentucky law specifically forbids anyone from running for two offices at once. Even in the primaries.
But any woman can fill that role. Sarah Palin could have, Michelle Bachmann could have. There are about 20 women who’ve actually been on the ballot in the last 20 years, none of whom we remember. She needs to make more of a case for herself than that she’d be the first woman president.
Wow that’s low – comparing HRC and her career to Palin and Bachmann. Just very low thing to do.
Still, they are women. So if the best argument is that she’s “a” woman . . . I think that wad the point.
Yes, this touches on something that I’ve been wondering about. Where’s Barack Obama going to be in 2016? I never see him discussed much in these kinds of prognostications, but it’s not a minor question. I personally don’t expect him to ride off into the sunset, so then you start getting into questions about who he’s going to support as his successor, and how hard he’s going to work for them. I’m not saying I know, but I don’t see how this isn’t a factor.
I also think that in all these discussions, we also need to keep in mind that who wins Congress in 2016 is going to be at least as important as who gets elected President. This should be quite a bit more obvious two years from now, after we’ve endured (and hopefully survived) Obamageddon–AKA the 114th Congress.
So it can’t just be about Hillary Clinton.
His connections to the party apparatus seem pretty strained- which, I hasten to add, reflects at least as much on the party as on him. I wonder how much influence he’ll really have.
Sexist AND racist, to no one’s surprise.
I thought you people fought a revolution to get away from dynasties and such? The Rodham family, the “R” in “HRC”, is every bit the dynastic, old school robber baron money as the Bush, Kennedy and Koch. Running Hillary is no different than running Jeb. As to Warren, a distant cousin, she is at the same point as Obama when he took his run at it. Look at how that turned out.
No fear. Contempt, but no fear.
“… will a Clinton candidacy really bring the excitement we need …”
Need for what? To get elected, or to fix some of the country’s problems?
As if we imagined all Clinton moves since 1999 focused getting another stint as the “First Family.” To be honest, I did dismiss initial reports of that being on the Clinton agenda in the 1999-2001 period. Mostly because it seemed a ludicrous bridge too far. They’re have been a few potential roadblocks or obstacles in the way. The one “black swan” they couldn’t get around was Obama. But now they’ve figured out how to do that in 2016 — just run away from Obama like numerous 2014 state and federal politicians did.
In point of fact, HRC has been far more loyal to President Obama than most ex-Administration officials…and Sens. Schumer and Warren, btw.
Some other reasons for the lack of excitement:
Lots of people want very badly to be President – not just Hillary. They’ll be studying her sniper fire adventures, her ways of answering (or not) questions she doesn’t like, wondering whether she is willing to be sleep-deprived again, etc., etc.
She could be a formidable candidate if she were to run. Of she may fall on her face (it will be 8 years later, after all). I still think she might not run, though. I think she knows she could do a lot of good continuing advocating for women and girls here and around the world (which she has said is her passion).
The Democrats’ bench didn’t seem terribly deep in 2007, either. Let’s not assume it’s Hillary or doom. It might turn out that she is the best candidate, and if she gets the nomination I’ll support her. But I’m not willing to be part of a coronation – especially since she hasn’t even declared yet. I haven’t, and won’t, give anything to “Ready for Hillary” because I think it is counter-productive. Even if it weren’t, I don’t think giving to a kind-of perpetual campaign to support a huge-overhead operation is a good investment.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
MARTIN O’Malley. Walter owned the Dodgers.
Hillary and her Corporate Congressional Caucus will lose if she is nominated. She stands for nothing that will address the problem of runaway corporate and police power. So she’s a woman and not as bad as whomever the Republicans will nominate. That will do nothing to excite the Obama coalition. She cannot hide that she is a hawk and former Wal-Mart board member. Maybe this will be a long overdue lesson for the Democratic wing of the Corporate Congressional Caucus.
Something like a Martha Coakley on the national level?
sad, but accurate
outside of IT’S MY TURN
what is her reason for being President?
“outside of IT’S MY TURN
what is her reason for being President?”
ummmm….A lot of people like her? She is the only candidate that can beat any republican currently alive (and yes, I actually believe that statement)? She is infinitely better than any Republican I can think of? She would (more or less) continue the policies of Obama? She can be reasoned with on Wall St, Russia, and the environment? She will not appoint religious freaks to the Supreme Court? She can actually help Congressional/Senatorial candidates? She can raise the $$$ necessary to fend of the Koch Brothers?
Do you need more?
If you made a list of people you would think would be good presidents, would any of them have a snowballs chance in hell of getting elected (I include Warren in that statement)? Do you REALLY want to run Sherrod Brown, Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders or Patrick running in Colorado or Iowa with Ginsberg dancing on banana peels and Kennedy as old as dirt?
I’ll grant you, she is not progressive and not really left of center. But in reality, this describes about 70% of the voting population. We don’t have the courts, the Senate, or the House. Without the Presidency the clock turns back to 1900.
Beliefs aren’t exactly the most objective criteria to use in political prognostications. Almost two years out from the next election, they are even worse.
One of the toughest hurdles for either political party is controlling the WH for more than eight years. Only happened once since 1952. And that only because Democrats didn’t have a halfway decent candidate to nominate. That exception was also booted out of office four years later. And not because Clinton was so great (a continuing delusion among most Democrats), but because GHWB was so awful. In the first rematch (yes, 2000 was a Bush v. Clinton contest), the even more awful Bush managed a tie against the Clinton associate who if nothing else was personally more decent.
I struggle to see how the “better” Bush does no better than the lesser Bush and how a “fourth Clinton” runs stronger than Bill and Al.
A Clinton candidacy will not make me crack open my wallet and donate or lead me to advocate for her the way I did with President Obama. The whole tenor of politics has changed since 2008. The meanness in this country has turned me off and Clinton won’t change it. Nothing will. And so… while I will certainly vote in the next election, it won’t be anything worth getting riled up about.
What is that enthusiasm for her anyway? She’s another modestly conservative foreign policy hawk with very little to suggest she will challenge the financial interests on behalf of anyone.
Why people are continually surprised that there’s no real social-democratic candidate in a country where there are very, very few actual social democrats defeats me.
Given her status as a long time insider, she is more like a dealer demo with some mileage already in place rather than a completely new car. That new car smell is at least partly gone.
I don’t have any particular animus towards the Clintons, but they sure keep terrible company. I’ll feel a lot better if Mark Penn and Lanny Davis are nowhere in the vicinity of Hillary’s campaign, but I expect to be disappointed. Besides, if not them, someone else will fill that role.
The Obama team is pretty clearly getting ready to manage the 2016 HRC campaign – if she runs.
your evidence for this ?
People like Mitch Stewart (Director of OFA) and Jeremy Bird (OFA natl. GOTV director) are already literally Ready for HillaryTM…
Yep and John Podesta will literally move from West Wing to HRC 2016.
Well if she’s stupid enough to bring back the loser Mark Penn or Mr Instant Controversy Lanny Davis, then it’s all over before it starts.
Frankly, I doubt she’ll be that stubbornly stupid.
Meanwhile I prefer some of the old Clinton crowd like Mandy Grunwald, Corporal Cueball, and Harold Ickes. Toss in a few from the winning Obama campaigns and add some young fresh blood from somewhere.
Will there be a dog or two in that mix? Almost certainly. Goes with the territory.
I’ll throw this out, not because I have any strong confidence in my prognosticating skills, but because it’s a scenario that seems plausible and hasn’t been mentioned yet in this thread:
This seems very reasonable to me.
I’ll add one factor that all the “analysts” miss – Ready for Hillary is dominated by young people, primarily young women and it’s already built a list of 3 million.
3 to 4% real growth Obama will be a 50%+ president in job approval.
But the other question must be asked: what if growth is under 2?
If it is I don’t think it matters who we nominate: we lose.
Older female voters already vote. I thought the key to the future was “changing demographics”. To youth and minority voters, Hillary may be no more motivating than Martha Coakley.
You guys would be a lot happier if you would just go all in with the Draft Deval movement and get it over with already. You know you want to.
In fact, I look forward to rolling boomlets of Draft Deval all the way up to September 2016.
For a long time the word in Massachusetts political circles is that Gov. Patrick is looking to make money, not run for higher office…at least for the next few years.
I agree with massappeal. The people in politics in central Mass are saying the same thing.
In Worcester, arms are being twisted to keep Patrick’s name AND Warren’s name out of the rumour mills. And its coming from their supporters.
That we don’t? Also:
Anyone who thinks Hillary will definitely win and Rand Paul or Ted Cruz can’t possibly win their respective primaries seems to be leaning pretty heavily on conventional wisdom in their analysis. I say all bets are off on both counts.
Sigh.
Will we make it to 2016?
All right. Laugh at me if you wish … but: MY MOTHER has said she’ll campaign, knock on doors, like stamps and kick my brother’s ass for Hillary. My mother hasn’t been excited about politics since 1968.
I think all the punditocracy and political groupies (including me) are severly underestimating Hillary’s appeal. A lot of that comes from the punditocracy and and the leftwing equivalent of PUMA. But the great unwashed appears to be ready for another round of the Big Dawg … or in this case, maybe the Big Bitch???
I think HRC can win against just about any Republican. Not that I want to vote for her, or that I think she’s going to improve anything for people I personally know.
Republicans will either run a clown or a SeriousPersonTM, with the clown making Democratic win almost a guarantee. HRC may not be in her 40s, or 50s (and barely her 60s) but she is a woman, and because we don’t vote on issues but on personalities, I think being a woman and “doing something different” will be enough for her.
Everything is basically a spectacle. Reality takes a backseat to ideas, concepts, and identification, so that we’re basically voting for the person who will theoretically suck less.
But as Empire, this is how things work. Very few Empires throughout history have been liberal economically or in foreign policy, almost by default. HRC is one way in which Americans can pretend to be doing something different (electing a woman) without the reasoning being rooted in reality.
Does anyone think HRC is a progressive economically? Or that she isn’t a hawk? And yet you can be sure the Republicans will criticize her as “weak”, because for Republicans, Democrats are weak, and this one is female and doesn’t smell fresh, whatever that means.
The only thing I’ll really look forward to is the sheer amount of abject misogyny that will be vomited out of the conservative bubble. While disgusting, daylight in these matters is important.
The Republican party is still just a few Pyrrhic victories away being a nationalist white male party. The sooner their hatred of just about everyone who isn’t a white male is made apparent, the sooner progressives will be able to win small offices – which is the real way this country will be turned around.
If only the Democratic party turned out for more than the Presidential election every 4 years…