Hillary Clinton 2016: why Jeb Bush, Rand Paul can’t stop her
Hillary Clinton hasn’t even admitted she’s running in 2016, yet she’s already the de facto front runner from either party. The republicans are scrambling to find a candidate who can split the difference between their traditional conservative base and their tea party conservative flank, and have thus far come up with the likes of Jeb Bush and Rand Paul. None of them will be able to stop her. In fact there’s only one thing that can prevent a Hillary Clinton Presidency, and that’s Hillary herself.
If the race does end up being Hillary Clinton vs Jeb Bush in 2016, there are those who will sit out the race under the guise that it’s just the same old politics from previous decades. But among those who actually bother to show up, Hillary benefits from the fact that her husband Bill is increasingly regarded as having been one of the better Presidents of his era, while Jeb suffers from the fact that his brother George W has a record which continues to look worse in hindsight.
This was most readily apparently this week when Jeb Bush was asked about the two wars his brother started in Afghanistan and Iraq, and refused to discuss either. Even though he’d be inheriting the remaining remnants of both battles, he’s afraid to take any position on them. Mainstream American voters know by now that both wars were badly botched by George. But Jeb can’t so much as speak about them without either publicly blaming his brother, which would be bad form, or standing up for his brother’s mistakes, which would play even worse for him. It won’t be the first time Jeb has to dodge an answer when asked about his brother’s failings and it’ll keep him from resonating with either the mainstream who wants to see evidence that he’s not George, or with the tea party who wishes he were George.
Rand Paul is in an even bigger bind: he’s a darling of the tea party, and can’t get anywhere without their continued support. But if he publicly aligns himself with tea party positions on the issues, he’ll have no chance of getting the mainstream vote. It’s why he continues to take no positions on key issues at all when asked directly. That might be enough to get him the republican nomination, but gives him no chance in the general election against a mainstream-centri candidate like Hillary Clinton. Yet she can still lose.
Hillary Clinton appeared to have the 2016 democratic nomination all but locked up when she made a series of strategic mistakes which allowed Barack Obama to gradually erode her lead and ultimately steal the nomination. While there are no obvious candidates on the democratic side (other than Elizabeth Warren, who swears she isn’t running), Hillary could ultimately slip up and hand the Presidency to another democratic upstart. For her sake, she has to hope she’s learned from her 2008 mistakes sufficiently such that she doesn’t give away another rubber-stamped trip to the White House in 2016.
@stableytimes