Look who’s in the catbird seat
Frank Bruni wrote in the New York Times on “the beginning of the end” of Hillary Clinton’s “inevitability.” He offers a litany of reasons why “she has serious problems as a potential 2016 presidential contender.”
I’m sure she does. Running for president is an insanely difficult proposition, and it seems to get harder every four years. And, as Bruni notes, voters are deeply angry at the political class right now, and no one is more rooted in, or emblematic of, the political establishment than the former first lady/senator/secretary of state. Still. Presuming her health is solid, there is no one better positioned to be the next president. Here are five reasons why Clinton will have a much easier run at the White House, should she make one, in 2016 than she had in 2008:
1. Barack Obama isn’t running. Sure, his approval ratings are in the tank today, but mixedrace first-term senators with politically ridiculous names don’t become president without staggering political talent. There are very few Obamas in a political lifetime. There won’t be one in 2016.
2. Barack Obama isn’t running. Liberals will accept Clinton as an encore. They will even decide they like her. Still patting themselves on the back for having elected the first black man to the presidency, they will embrace the historic task of electing the first woman. Wouldn’t they prefer Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren? Possibly. But they don’t need her. And if Clinton runs, Warren has said she won’t.
3. Barack Obama isn’t running. Soon after the 2014 election, Obama will become ancient history. The conservative crazy machine will gradually forget the tyranny of his reign and focus on . . . why, Clinton, of course.
4. Barack Obama isn’t running. Clinton is crushing potential Democratic opponents in (too early) polls, including Vice President Joe Biden. And just as there is no Obama on the Democratic side, there is none on the Republican side. Even if the Republican field promises to be a quantum improvement over the last one.
5. Barack Obama isn’t running. But his winning coalition doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. What part of Obama’s coalition lacks a natural affinity for Clinton? In addition to claiming support from black voters, Hispanics and college-educated women, she can make far greater inroads with non-college-educated white women than Obama ever did while surpassing him in the Appalachian stretches of the American mindscape, where resistance to Obama’s, um, policies was intense.
Can Clinton lose? Sure. U.S. political parties hardly ever hold the White House three terms in a row. But Clinton has extraordinary fundraising capacity and is taking up all the oxygen on the Democratic side, while Republicans not named Christie are still staring into a demographic abyss.