With Quinnipiac
the latest to show Hillary Clinton romping toward the White House, it's becoming increasingly clear that she would face an easier path to the White House than anyone since Eisenhower, and maybe even since Thomas Jefferson.
As I note in greater detail below the fold, there is little room for an insurgent primary candidate (and the rest of the shaping field lacks any heft), while her general election numbers are downright gaudy. The big question is less about whether she can win, and more about whether she wants to pull the trigger and make history.
If she does, Dems are virtually guaranteed the White House for another eight years, and with that, at least one Supreme Court seat (Scalia would be 88 by the end of her second term). How could she refuse that? So meet me below the fold to see how she gets there.
1. History calls
By one measure, Gallup's annual survey of most admired women, Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman since polling began—winning the top slot for 17 years. Eleanor Roosevelt lags in second with 13 wins. And even today, she remains the nation's most popular politician.
Now, she can decide to retire now and go out on top. But that wouldn't be the top. Getting elected president twice would be the real pinacle, and would lock in her status as the greatest woman in this nation's history. The lure of that, particularly given the (relatively) minimal effort required to get there, has to be difficult to resist. So even if she wanted to retire, the pressure for her to cap her career in the White House will be brutal.
2. Getting past the primary
The first step toward the presidency is obviously garnering the party nomination. In Eisenhower's time, that was done via party conventions, where Ike had to navigate challenges from both his left and right, and only won his first ballot by 95 votes out of 1,207 delegates. It's hard to see Clinton facing much in the way of primary opposition. Andrew Cuomo is hell-bent on running as a socially-liberal Wall Street Democrat. Good for him, but it's hard to see much of a constituency for that sort of thing in a primary. Joe Biden similarly lacks a natural constituency, with Clinton firmly occupying the "establishment" slot.
But if you have an establishment candidate, you must also have an insurgent. It's like a law somewhere. In 2000 it was Bill Bradley, in 2004 Howard Dean and Wesley Clark battled for that role. In 2008 it was Barack Obama. So who could fill that slot in 2016?
To be a successful insurgent, you need to fill a political vacuum. In 2000, Democrats were restive over Bill Clinton's "third way" b.s., and were looking for that metaphorical candidate from the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party. 2004 and 2008 were all about the Iraq War, and indeed, Hillary was felled predominantly because of her vote for the Iraq War.
But that vote was over a decade ago, and will be close to a generation old when 2016 rolls around. And with the wars winding down (particularly in Iraq), the importance of the issue has faded. Furthermore, Clinton's post-primary actions have defused much of the hostility she had engendered (including from me). Despite opportunities to indulge the idiot PUMAs and undermine Obama, she was a solid team player through the 2008 general election. She was fantastic at the Democratic convention, and skillfully rebutted GOP efforts to use her to chip into the woman vote (efforts that ultimately led to the Sarah Palin pick for VP).
That spirit of cooperation extended into the Obama Administration as she became a key figure in his cabinet, and by all accounts her tenure at State was a success (no matter how much the wingnuts scream about Benghazi).
Women, who dominate the Democratic Party electorate, are rightfully ready for their turn with history. She should be the only woman of stature in the field, as Kirsten Gillibrand, the ambitious senator from New York, has announced she wants to be Clinton's campaign chairwoman, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren isn't running for president anytime soon.
Latinos, who were strong for Hillary in 2008, should continue to be there for her. And there will be even more of them in 3-4 years. She'll continue to do well with working-class whites in southern states. And African Americans, who defected to Obama in 2008, have always been strong Clinton supporters; there is no apparent lingering hostility. Obama's other key primary demographic—youth voters, don't have an obvious outlet. Sure, it's early, but by 2004 I was already writing about a potential exciting Obama candidacy. Looking at the pantheon of possible Democratic contenders, none seem particularly suited to energizing young voters. Heck, Hillary appears to be the best bet, if only for the chance to make history once again.
So what's left? I see one glaring black mark on Clinton's resume—her continued support for the surveillance state. Her positions on civil liberties appear to line up with those of Obama, so there isn't much daylight between her and mainstream Democrats. But that's an electoral problem only insofar as there's a natural constituency opposed to those positions. And there isn't. Harsh, but true—the number of base Democrats who care about issues of civil liberties, from wiretapping to drone strikes, is minute. An insurgent candidate running on those issues would be hard-pressed to garner more than 5-10 percentage points, and will be unable to raise significant money on the issue.
So there's little oxygen from base Democrats for a competitive insurgent, and few compelling issues to fuel such an insurgency. Hillary could fire up opposition by reverting to a DLC-style campaign with the likes of Mark Penn at the helm. But the America of the 90s, and that of today is far different, and I assume she's smart enough to realize that the best path to victory in the 10s is by being a solid Democrat. Remember—if our voters turn out, there's no way Republicans can win.
Will there be a primary? Yes. Even Clinton won't clear the field. But it should feature very little drama.
3. General Election
If the primary seems surprisingly easy, the general election could feature a Reagan-esque landslide: Clinton leads in polling in Texas, in Georgia, in Kentucky, in Louisiana and in Alaska. A national poll by PPP in January found that Clinton would beat Jeb Bush 51-37, Marco Rubio 51-37, and Paul Ryan 53-39. The latest Q-poll finds Hillary leading Christie 45-37, Rubio 50-34, and Ryan 50-38.
So yeah, Republicans remained mired in the mid-30s, which won't look much better after four more years of demographic changes. Remember that Obama's 3.9-point victory in 2012, all things remaining equal, would be a 5.2-point victory in 2016. The current polling can't and doesn't reflect that.
Much of Hillary's popularity can be attributed to idiot Republicans themselves. Until Benghazi hit, GOPers spent four years building up Clinton. You had people like Dick Cheney say stuff like, "I have the sense that she’s one of the more competent members of the current administration, and it would be interesting to speculate about how she might perform were she to be president." Of course such comments were insincere and cynical, designed to wound the president, but to casual observers, what people were hearing was how wonderful Clinton was. Republicans can't erase all that built-up praise with a single manufactured outrage. And Hillary can boast about her bipartisan praise all the way through 2016.
Of course, people love to point out how Clinton led in the early 2008-cycle polling. but it was a different world, a different primary electorate, and the country had a different demographic profile. There is no one of Obama's stature sitting on the sidelines with the rationale for a successful primary insurgency, and the Democratic Party is more unified than it has been ... ever?
This is about as easy a path to the White House as anyone can ever have. It's now up to Clinton to decide whether she's really finished with public life, or whether she'll cap her storied career with one more dramatic bang.