I have a very simple theory, which I will quote here to save time:
Chances are were going to lose. (3+ / 0-)
Even with the bestest most progressivey campaign ever. It is going to be difficult to hold on after two victorious cycles. So my theory of the case says play the strongest card you've got and hope for the best.
The way I see it, the strongest position to be in when running for a third term is to be the sitting vice president. Very rarely does a candidate come out of nowhere and sieze the white house for a third party term.in fact, im willing to say it has never happened, certainly not in the modern TV era. But when it has, it was the sitting VP who won. Nixon failed to do it and so did Gore. Truman did it and so did Bush. But nevet has some Governor or Senator come out of nowhere and siezed a third term for a party. So the idea that O'Malley, who isnt exactly a political dynamo to be charitable, can do it strikes me as foolhardy.
Hillary Clinton, however, being a global icon and huge personality, just might be able to pull it off. Maybe. Like I said, she is a quasi incumbent running for a third party term. Which historically has been the best shot to win three cycles.
Gore, Nixon, Truman, and Bush dispatched their challengers with relative ease. I expect Clinton will as well. But will that change the general election dynamic one way or the other? Nope. She'd be in the same position with no challenge at all... likely to lose.
Yo.
by brooklynbadboy on Thu Apr 02, 2015 at 11:52:08 AM EDT
I did some digging around and found that there was only one case where someone who was not the incumbent Vice President has ever won a third term for the party in power. You literally have to go back to the time of the Founding Fathers to see frequent examples of this. But in the modern era, you've only got Herbert Hoover, who was Secretary of Commerce in the Coolidge Administration. Well, and Taft. And that's it. In the post war era it simply has never happened.
As Adam B has pointed out, recently the closest thing we have had to the current situation is 2000 where Al Gore was a sitting VP running for a third cycle for the Dems. But he had a challenger in the form of Senator Bill Bradley. Bradley was running as the liberal alternative to Gore and was a strong challenger. He had a slew of high profile endorsements, a big campaign warchest, and sufficient name recognition to make a go of it. By October of 1999, Gore and Bradley were in a dead heat in the national polls and Bradley was up slightly in New Hampshire. Looking back at polls I cant link because of pay walls, Bradley had been competitive all year long, never more than 10 points behind Gore. But in the end, Gore routed Bradley in both Iowa and New Hampshire and that was that.
Now I understand there are a lot of folks here who do not like Hillary Clinton. And some who just would like to see some competition in a primary. For you latter folks, I agree with you. Competition is always good. And I'd like the anti Hillary people to have a place to vent. But make no mistake about it: Hillary Clinton is far more dominant than any presidential primary candidate in recent memory who was not a sitting president. She is absolutely far and away ahead of anybody else, by huge huge margins. More dominant than even recent sitting Vice Presidents who ran. It would be a political miracle of the historic kind to see someone come out of nowhere and build the organization and fundraising to defeat her. Even Robert F. Kennedy wasn't this strong in his 1968 bid. Bobby Kennedy! She is about the closest we can possibly get to having an incumbent President seeking another term. The history of that is much better odds.
Now I don't see anybody out there now, or even talked about, who even has Bill Bradley stature at this point in the cycle. But I sure would like to see some names and some good cases. Nothing I've heard so far is even remotely convincing. Until I do, Hillary Clinton is it.