June 18th, 2014
When I talk about Hillary Clinton imploding I am very pointedly not talking about Clinton vis a vis a Republican challenger for 2016, as Allahpundit seems to think. I thought I was pretty clear about that, but maybe I wasn’t clear enough.
What I’m talking about the Democratic field. Nobody was a bigger Hillary booster than I was in 2008, so it’s not that I don’t appreciate her strengths. However, I think her position today in the Democratic primary field is much weaker than it appears. Further, I suspect that her weaknesses will only become more apparent if a quality challenger is lured into the field.
And my point is that when Clinton has weeks like this, it can only embolden both potential Democratic candidates and Democratic voters. As the old saw goes, weakness is a provocation.
I have a larger thesis about the Democratic party heading toward the same kind of split the Republicans now have, with a populist-leaning base divided against a corporatist elite. In that view, Clinton is the obvious candidate of the establishment, but rank-and-file Dems in a post-Obama world may be yearning for something more populist and progressive. But that’s for another day.
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Slow Joe wants to run for the nomination. But who else might be tempted, do you think?
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I don’t buy this breathless Beltway c.w. that the Democrat nominee has to be a woman next. It’s as overdone and counter-realistic as “Nominee has to be Hispanic”
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Tommy Carcetti, er… Martin O’Malley – serious progressive bona fides and the dems love him.
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I guess there’s Liz Warren, but is anyone really taking her seriously?
Nedward June 19, 2014 at 2:53 am
As with your newsletter this week you keep pointing up Warren as a “serious alternative” but why? On the basis of oratory? A soft-sciences academic who won a Massachusetts election; probably the only name in the party with even less skill for retail politics than Hillary has. Were Brian Schweitzer from a state Tom Steyer could find on a map he’d be the contrast candidate except that, barring an upcoming Powerball win, he’s going nowhere