If Clinton were to win the presidency and serve two terms, the next opportunity for a new generation of Democrats to compete nationally would not come until 2024. The Democrats could go 16 years between competitive presidential nomination contests, wiping out opportunities for today’s younger generation to define or redefine the party apart from either the Obama or Clinton eras.But at this point, if Clinton doesn't run, things are even worse, since the ranks are so thin. Not Martin O'Malley, after what just happened in Maryland. Balz assumes Jerry Brown at 76 is too old. (On his most recent HBO show, Bill Maher did a long, unfunny routine about the ageism of saying Jerry Brown is too old. Aren't we just terrible to display skepticism about an 80+-year-old President?)
Here's my observation. If Clinton were to see that she's either going to lose in 2016 or destroy the future development of national-level stars in her party, she could decide against running, release the dammed-up streams of cash to the next wave of Democrats, and allow them to develop their reputations in the 2016 race. Assume the GOP is due for its time in the presidency, and let this next round of campaigning center on rebuilding the front ranks of the party. From that invigorating process, a star could emerge. A star emerged in '08 even with Hillary blocking the way. To hope to win in '16 using the same tired bullyism on the theory that there's no one up and coming seems lame compared to bold moves to repopulate the party.
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122 comments:
Mixing metaphors, but the "star that emerged" in '08 turned out not to have any clothes on.
Under the American system, we have to elect someone in 2016, and it may turn out to be a Democrat, but if so, it will be with the lowest voter turnout ever.
The "star" that emerged in 2008 turned out to be a scratch on the telescope lens. They thought it to be proof of god and they pissed away trillions of dollars trying to confirm it.
Obama is the cold fusion of political stars.
Instead of "a star" how about if the Democrats looked for a candidate that was pro-free enterprise and anti-big government?
I know. It's sort of like asking the Pope to become Lutheran or Unitarian.
Here's your sclerosis right here.
Poor old Hillary has to face another bimbo eruption of younger women candidates. Will she crush them as usual, or will she go home and live happily ever after with Huma Abedin.
Althouse: "Here's my observation. If Clinton were to see that she's either going to lose in 2016 or destroy the future development of national-level stars in her party, she could decide against running, release the dammed-up streams of cash to the next wave of Democrats, and allow them to develop their reputations in the 2016 race. "
Here's my observation. You're delusional.
Re: "If Clinton were to see that she's either going to lose in 2016 or destroy the future development of national-level stars in her party, she could decide against running..."
I cannot see her seriously contemplating the second part of that sentence. "Apres moi le deluge" etc etc...
I've previously been under the assumption that Clinton wouldn't run if the Republicans took the Senate.
Now I'm hoping for a primary knife fight in which Biden emerges victorious.
While sometimes astute in his observations Bill Mahr is rarely funny.
It's so interesting to see the certainty of leftist Democrats (are there any other kind?) that they are the wave of the future when they can't even recruit competent politicians. Look at who they ran. Wendy Davis ? Sandra Fluke ? Braley ?
Both parties tend to run staffers but, aside from them, who did the Democrats recruit ?
After her previous "brain cloud" I would be slightly surprised if Hillary were to make it to the next election without another health crisis of some sort. Probably would be portrayed as her taking time to spend with the grandchild, because THAT is what is important.
Curious George is right, I have to say. It is silly even to suggest that Hillary will consider *anyone* but herself in making a decision about whether to run.
Appoint Hillary to RBG's seat. Hillary gets the Supreme Court, Republicans get her out of the way, no change in SC voting and everybody is happy.
He blames Obama and Hillary.
Shoddy journalism, as usual. It is the Democratic party, stupid. The Democratic party should have had better sense in 2008. The primary was stolen from Hillary and given to Obama and he had to be carried over the finished the line. Imagine if the ticket was Hillary-Obama and the inexperienced Obama had 8 years as VP to learn and ease into the president in 2016, how wonderful it would have been. Any objective observer would agree that Hillary would have been a better president than Obama -- she at least had BC, the politician extraordinaire by her side, unlike Obama who has Valerie Jarrett. The party FUBARed it in 2008. Let them rue in their own juices and die.
But of course we can guess why it was now or never for Obama in 2008 -- if Obama had to stew as a VP for 8 years by Hillary's side (disregarding his ego and narcissism for a minute), he would not have survived a long scrutiny into who he is and what he is to succeed in 2016. I bet that was the fear for the Obama camp in 2008.
This for me captures Hillary perfectly:
“She is smart, tough and savvy and has a capacity to learn from failure and adjust. But . . . people are bored of her and feel like she has been talking at them forever. . . . She is a dull, grating, inauthentic, over-eager, insipid elitist with ideological blinders yet no particular vision and is likely to be reduced to running on a dubious promise of experience and competence while faking idealism and hope — a very common type of presidential contender in both parties, but one that almost always loses.”
-Yuval Levin
If Clinton were to win the presidency and serve two terms, the next opportunity for a new generation of Democrats to compete nationally would not come until 2024. The Democrats could go 16 years between competitive presidential nomination contests,
So he starts with a delusion, then continues the fantasy.
Here's my observation. If Clinton were to see that she's either going to lose in 2016 or destroy the future development of national-level stars in her party, she could decide against running, release the dammed-up streams of cash to the next wave of Democrats, and allow them to develop their reputations in the 2016 race. Assume the GOP is due for its time in the presidency, and let this next round of campaigning center on rebuilding the front ranks of the party. From that invigorating process, a star could emerge. A star emerged in '08 even with Hillary blocking the way.
Your first assumption is that Hillary gives a shit about the party before her personal ambition. The country is a distant third (if that high) behind these two interests.
And "A star emerged in -08"? Turns out it was just a ball of gas, rather than a star.
To become a viable 'star' for the Democrats you need to have no background to evaluate, thus a new one is always around the corner.
Balz to the wall, man
Balz to the wall
You'll get your balz to the wall, man
Balz to the wall, balz to the wall
The most telling thing about this article is how it so very much isn't about President Obama. Obama is Hillary Clinton's 8-year snowboarding vacation, the missing years that no one can explain.
Obama has not developed a single protege or elevated to national recognition a unique talent.
There is no one in the Obama administration that would inspire a "draft Condi" movement. It's only recognizable names are dinosaurs.
" A star emerged in '08 even with Hillary blocking the way."
That star turned out to be a brown dwarf.
Obama has not developed a single protege or elevated to national recognition a unique talent.
The presidency started and ends with Obama, don't you know? He is the be all and end all of it -- which makes it difficult for him to develop a protege. More importantly, the ghost of Primary 2008 is haunting the Democratic party. They know they wronged Hillary, (who could have been their first woman president -- but of course, women come cheap -- they are not as valuable as the black or the hispanic vote and all they need is contraception).
@Original Mike, don't you mean a black hole?
The Albuquerque Journal this morning has a big article about how Steve Pearce's win in southern New Mexico is confounding the (MSM) pundits.
How could a very conservative, baldheaded, not particularly inspiring, Republican rack up his most decisive win ever in an international border district, running against a popular "Latina" politician, and that with an increased share of the "Hispanic" vote?
The Journal also has an article about another border, commemorating the fall of the Berlin wall, with an interview with an ageing "East German" waxing nostalgic for the good old times of shared misery under the communists, and regretting the ideas of private ownership of the land having been restored today.
Original Mike said, "That star turned out to be a brown dwarf."
LOL! I had been thinking along the lines of "red dwarf" (and, no, I don't seriously think Obama is communist), but "brown dwarf" is so much more appropriate.
It is imperative that we have the first woman president. Fast, before we have our first Latino president and our first gay president. On the other hand this "first" business may not be a good idea to the American people who instead might opt for the first competent president in a while.
I'm glad the menace of ebola-infected ISIS terror groups at our border was taken care of when Republicans won the Senate. It all went away overnight.
Somewhere along the line, some news organization or congressional committee is going to stop whining about "what happened that night" in Benghazi and start asking what caused it to happen, and about then Hillary!'s goose will be cooked.
One of the reasons the Democrats don't have much of bench right now is they have largely purged their party of moderates.
You could also say the Pied Piper Obama lead all of the Democrat youth off to another land where they have no direction home.
Al Gore won it all once, or so he says. Maybe he is the answer. Or Blagojevich could get early release by 2016.
Rising star →
Supernova! →
Black hole
A man with no discernable substance makes what is received by his party as a great speech. Four years later, he goes on to be elected President. A man with a great record while governor makes what is received by his party as a bad speech. This kills his presidential prospects. He dutifully makes a plea for Obama's election in 2008 and then retires from politics almost immediately thereafter.
Evan Bayh will only be 60 on election day 2016.
PB Reader: Good one!
I agree with Curious George- you are indeed delusional if you think Hillary cares about anybody but the Clintons.
Hey, y'all, quit disrespecting President Awsome (My new name for Obama)
What Republican could have accomplished what he did in the past 3 elections? We've elected the most liberal Senate and Congress in 100 years. Paul, Cruz, Love, Lee, Gowdy and others are changing the whole discussion.
Scott Walker by facing down the unions and progressives in 2012, how toothless they actually are. They will still bark but, lacking any bite behind it, nobody will pay attention.
Ron Paul was taken seriously as a presidential candidate in 2012 and, to a lesser extent in 2008.
"Libertarian" is no longer an appellation meaning kooky. The ideology gets serious attention. Not everyone likes it but it does get serious attention rather than being ignored as in the past.
Would the Tea Party movement exist but for Obama?
We would never have gotten this far under a Clinton or a Demmie lite like McCain or Romney.
President Obama, has caused a massive reaction to the 75+ years of progressivism. That reaction is leading to a slow but steady reversal. It will take a long time to actually turn the US around but I do see a lot of glimmerings of hope. For the first time in 50 years I feel hopeful about government.
Thank you President Barrack Awesome Obama.
NOTE: I don't know whether he is some sort of genius stealth liberal or just incredibly boneheaded. I don't know whether he is doing this on purpose or incompetence. I don't care either. It's his actions, rather than his motives, that I am thrilled about.
To quote that old murderer Lenin: "Worse is better".
John Henry
For those who don't recall history, the Lenin quote was in the context of needing to overthrow the Tsar.
The worse the Tsar acted, the more people would get upset and the more likely Lenin's revolution to occur.
I have no desire for violent revolution in the US. I don't see the need.
We need a revolution at the ballot box. Obama has demonstrated in 3 elections that he is bringing it.
John Henry
John Henry: You made a lot of good points. If McCain or Romney had won, we'd have gotten things like amnesty, bigger Education Dept, continued open borders and probably a bunch of new wars with McCain and we'd als0 have about ten million more Hispanic librul voters and possible permanent Dem majority. So, maybe, conservatives should send Obama a thank you note - I will.
Democrats have been gaslighting America for a long time.
The only thing that will force the Dems to not run ideologues and political phonies and empty suits, like Obama and Hillary, is if the press actually does it's job and vets them, like they do the GOP candidates, rather than propping up their favorites with Hero Worship puff pieces and unearned praise and flattery.
Re Biden as a candidate:
As long as I can remember, back to the 1960 election, I have been hearing a meme that the vice presidency is the logical place from which to launch a presidential bid.
I've never understood that. It seems like the worst possible place. Look at the examples we have had in the past 120 years:
Gore
Bush
Mondale
Humphry
Ford
Nixon
Johnson
Truman
Coolidge
Roosevelt
Of the ones who actually made it to the presidency, only one, Coolidge, can really be considered to have had a successful presidency. (Perhaps Roosevelt but opinion is mixed)
None of them was able to get re-elected to a second term (Not counting their partial term) Nixon is the except to that but he didn't finish his 2nd term.
Seems to me that, based on experience, serving as VP should be viewed as a disqualification for running for prez. The very qualifications that lead to someone being selected as a VP seem to be the opposite of those required in a president.
I would like to see Biden run just for the entertainment value. He has no qualifications to be prez, though.
John Henry
You reap what you sow when you oppose term limits. You wanted a dinosaur oligarchy, you got it.
Stepping aside is not in HC's DNA. She sometimes makes Adolph H look weak. Although she's not a gifted speaker. But in terms of backroom ballbusting she's #1 in the USA
Is Hillary also a lead from behind dictator like Obama?
Does't matter who the 'face' is, Liberal/Progressive policies suck big time.
That one fact makes all other aspects of their machinations, irrelevant.
To quote an exasperated Jack Nicholson from the terrific movie As Good As It Gets:
"I'm drownin' here, and you're describing the water!"
garage mahal: "I'm glad the menace of ebola-infected ISIS terror groups at our border was taken care of when Republicans won the Senate. It all went away overnight."
Wow.
Garage really doesn't want to discuss this topic.
I wonder why?
PuertoRicoSpaceport: "I've never understood that. It seems like the worst possible place. Look at the examples we have had in the past 120 years:
Gore"
Gore was his own worst enemy and his mistakes led to the failure to capture what should have been a relatively easy victory. I would consider him an outlier.
More on topic, I think obama as a VP for 8 years would have done quite well. It would be useless to argue his infinite "lightness of being" would have been a handicap since 8 years of being the veep would have delivered to him the necessary apparent "gravitas" to run for President. The media would have ensured that.
Is it just me, or is garage more incoherent than usual?
Poor old Hillary has to face another bimbo eruption of younger women candidates. Will she crush them as usual, or will she go home and live happily ever after with Huma Abedin.
11/9/14, 8:28 AM
Problem With that is that she's of no use to Abedin unless she's got her disgusting claws in our federal government if you know what I mean.
I'm glad the menace of ebola-infected ISIS terror groups at our border was taken care of when Republicans won the Senate. It all went away overnight.
Wishful, unrealistic thinking about old news. Let's hope the comment represents liberal strategy. The border will come into the political picture again with a bang as soon as Obama, as promised, gives amnesty to millions of illegals through an executive order.
Here's what I've observed about the issue over the years:
The pro-immigration elements seem to have the initiative as long as immigration is merely talked about by hopeful liberal pundits and journalists. But as soon as it has any chance actually being voted on in Congress and the issue is debated openly without the usual MSM filters the liberal office-holders are at a disadvantage. Why? Because a pro-amnesty vote could hurt their chances to continue in elective office.
Look at the results in this most recent election: Every Democrat candidate that voted for amnesty with the "Gang of 8 bill" is gone – which is why Obama must go around Congress instead of trying to get Congress to make it a law.
http://tinyurl.com/m4mgpu3
So far I have not seen any major Democrat who realizes what happened in this last election. According to them it was sort of like bad luck or inclement weather – a "bad night" for Democrats. For them it had nothing to do with the issues and was all about 'faulty messaging.' Reality can bite them on the ass over and over again but they will continue in their comforting fantasies – so much the better for the GOP.
Re "gaslighting"
I don't recall ever hearing the term before a year or two ago, now I hear it all the time.
I finally went and downloaded the movie from YouTube and watched it on a recent plane ride to take my mind off all the CO2 deaths I was causing.
It is a pretty good movie. The full thing is available on YouTube.
John Henry
". . . or destroy the future development of national-level stars in her party, she could decide against running."
Sorry to be piling on, but: no. No way.
There were more competent youngsters like Mike Warner of VA, Evan Bayh and others in 2008. But Obama sucked all the energy with his skin color. And, where is John Edwards now?
No um, pillow talk if you know what mean.
Garage is grieving, in typical incontinent liberal fashion. I intend to respect his feelings and give him the space he needs to mutter and slobber incoherently, until he feels better or slips into total, irretrievable insanity. Hopefully the former but probably the latter. Keep your chin up, garage. I'm pulling for you.
It's amazing how Democrat unity and consistent messaging was such a good thing 4 years ago. Now they are ossified and lack a stable of up-and-coming candidates. They did it to themselves.
This is another indication that the Republicans really are the much more tolerant party, as there have been a lot of intra-party squabbles since 2008. And look how it's turned out: a much more diverse party, one that's more suited to governing responsibly, with a lot of good potential candidates.
Turns out that having the media give you tongue-baths all the time doesn't prepare you well in the long-term for campaigning and actually governing.
Althouse: "Here's my observation. If Clinton were to see that she's either going to lose in 2016 or destroy the future development of national-level stars in her party, she could decide against running, release the dammed-up streams of cash to the next wave of Democrats, and allow them to develop their reputations in the 2016 race. "
Not a chance. Clinton thinks only of herself. She might spend a few seconds thinking about Bill, but she could care less about the party.
"Garage is grieving, in typical incontinent liberal fashion."
For each $100 donation, the DNC is offering a coupon for a free package of Depends.
Democrat ladies, be careful: Biden is a 'back-door man' if you know what I mean. All Democrat Vice-Presidents are back-door men, it's like it is a requirement or something.
Hamburger is $5/lb?
John Henry @ 9:10,
That may be true. In the meantime, my health insurance premium will be going up 40% in January. Our economy remains weak 6 years after the end of the "great recession." The dollar is shaky. The stock market is buoyed by a zero percent interest rate and new money invested because a 3% return elsewhere is considered high yield. Inflation is low, but only because inflating items have been removed from the definition. Five dollars a pound for "on sale" 85% ground beef. Unemployment is falling, but only because people have given up working and part time positions have replaced what were once full time.
This opportunity for political realignment has been expensive indeed. Was it worth it? Hell no!
Any Democrat with any brains (yeah, I know, but bear with me) will skip the 2016 election. The electorate is going to go for someone to fix the mess that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi have made, and no candidate can get out of the Democrat primaries if they give a hint that there's anything needs adult attention.
2020 will be another story. Fixing things in 2017-2020 will piss off some people somewhere, and those people might be disinclined to vote Republican in November 2020.
Original Mike, yep last two times I bought it. Of course, I don't know whether you think that's high or low.
Sounds very high to me (I haven't done the grocery shopping in awhile).
That Dan Balz essay reads like a really, really, really hopeful explanation that Democrats can still win.
Pretty talk and incompetent administration dealt the D's quite a blow. There's a lesson here for R's.
A female president is inevitable. I would prefer someone who has served in the military. Someone like Joni Ernst.
A few Democrats I can stand are Jim Webb and Evan Bayh.
President in Waiting Hillary is spoiled by her lifetime of Secret Service Protection. I doubt that she even has a driver's license anymore. It would be cruel of us to cast her out into the real world with nothing but her stolen millions of dollars.
Have you no decency!
Back to my initial reaction and what should have been my first comment:
Where does Dan Balz blame this situation on Obama and Hillary?
I went back and read the article again, and I still don't see it.
What he does say is that the Democratic Party now is like Oakland; there is no there there anymore, regardless of Obama and Hillary!.
And that is from Dan Balz of the Wahington Post.
" Any objective observer would agree that Hillary would have been a better president than Obama --"
Talk about low expectations !
I have seen at least one comment somewhere that the big winner among Democrats is Jim Webb. I think he is too angry to be a good candidate but he would be an interesting one.
Yesterday's progressive is today's conservative. Now what? Rinse and repeat.
As long as John Maynard Keynes informs the Democratic Party, it will always be old and empty. And crammed into fewer and fewer House Districts.
"I would like to see Biden run just for the entertainment value. He has no qualifications to be prez, though."
But Joe does have a new, much younger looking face:
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/04/do-we-need-to-talk-about-joe-bidens-new-forehead/
Jerry Brown isn't too old for the presidency, at least in terms of years. But he is too old for the office in terms that really count -- ideas. The man hasn't had a new thought in 60 years.
Contrast Ronald Reagan, a man often attacked for being too old. Reagan started his political life as a New Deal Democrat, may even have supported Alai Stevenson in 1952, but he matured into a visionary conservative with the eloquence and passion to accomplish a game-changer presidency.
Any objective observer would agree that Hillary would have been a better president than Obama...
I like and respect you, pm317, but that sentence does violence to objectivity.
Hillary would sell Chelsea to a Serb human trafficker for the White House; the future candidates of the Democratic Party mean even less to her.
I would like to see Biden run just for the entertainment value. He has no qualifications to be prez, though.
On paper, Biden is more qualified than the current office holder.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present Julian Castro. Former Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, current new HUD guy, and a key speaker at the Democrat 2012 convention. Smarmy and dishonest, he is the perfect Democratic candidate (he and his twin brother, Joaquinn, played a switcheroo for a public appearance like they were Patty and Kathy Duke)---and he is Latino !!! Forget that his mother is big in La Raza--nothing to see there, move along, folks.
"Hillary would sell Chelsea to a Serb human trafficker for the White House; the future candidates of the Democratic Party mean even less to her."
Seriously, do you really think that Serb human traffickers have such poor judgment? They work in a free(ish) market, FFS....they cannot afford to be peddling inferior merchandise.
Seriously though, the ONLY thing that will prevent Hillary! from running in 2016 is if she is convinced that she will not win. She cares nothing for family, party, or nation (in that order), all she cares about at this point is her Ahab-like pursuit of the office. Another failed candidacy, however, would destroy her public reputation forever, and THAT she does care about, so if the job doesn't look winnable, she will stay away. Might even be fun to stay away and watch the replacement candidate lose...then she and her horde of post-menopausal syncophants in the press will forever be able to chant, 'if only...'
I have thought for quite awhile now that the Dems have a big problem ahead of them in 2016 in terms of the Presidency. Hillary!, Warren, and Biden are really almost pre-Baby Boomers. Simplistically, the Baby Boom is everyone born in the 20 years after WWII, but maybe more accurately, there was a small blip around the war after the war, and that is when the younger of these were born, and then a couple years later, the English colonies (US, Canada, Australia, and NZ) had a second second, sustained bump that was much larger, and is the real pig in a python. When they went to college, college was still mostly the clean cut, somewhat conservative, place that it was throughout the 1950s and most of the 1960s. They discovered pot (etc.) mostly in graduate school, while we did so as undergraduates, and my younger brothers' contemporaries in high school. Hillary! was a Goldwater girl - but by the time I was in college, that would have been social suicide. I dated some women Hillary!s age, and in the 4 or so years between us, there was a major social gulf, that I didn't see with the Boomers 4 or even 8 years younger. And, of course, Obama is young enough that he barely qualifies as a Baby Boomer on the other end.
The problem is that the Dems just don't have any really promising younger leaders sitting in the wings. The Republicans do. In match up after match up this last week, the Democrat is the one most likely to have gray hair, and the younger, more vigorous, Republican was the winner. The Reps have a deep bench of strong candidates in their late 40s through 50s. The Dems have almost no one electable nationally of any prominence in that age bracket.
Why is this important? For one thing, the youth vote that put Obama over the top. Obama was the hip youngster, while McCain was born before WWII, and Romney is a contemporary of Hillary! and Warren (with Biden even older). Of these, only Obama is on the same side of the Baby Boom as Gen X, Y, and the Millennials. Most of the Republican bench though is also essentially post-Baby Boom. So, with any of those Dem candidates, the age demographics are going to be reversed in 2016.
I should add that part of why the Dem bench is so weak is that a lot of Dem politicians treat political office as a career, and not a stop in the road. The result is that their Congressional leadership is ancient compared to that of the Republicans. In the House, the Republicans are helped by term limits - I believe it is 6 years or so in a leadership position, including committee chairmanships. So, it is not uncommon to find a Republican chair in his 50s, and the Democratic ranking member in his 70s.
The other part of this is the higher acceptance by the Dem politicians of quid pro quod politics, where the most venal and corrupt tend to rise to the top, esp. in Congress. Fine for holding a seat in Congress, but not very good when going national. Except for Obama, of course, where his corruption was effectively hidden from the electorate by his enablers, including much of the MSM.
I can't think of a single democrat critical of obamacare or bombing Syria or the endless fundraising and cronyism. How will any "star in the making" without a spine survive even the most watered down scrutiny of the media?
"The other part of this is the higher acceptance by the Dem politicians of quid pro quod politics,"
A lot become lobbyists, as do Republicans, but it is harder to get back into office with that baggage. An example was the Democrat running for Governor in Arizona. Fred DuVall who had a career as a lobbyist. The AZ Republic, which leans far left, tried to rehabilitate him but without success.
He worked with two lobbying firms between 1988 and 1993, and then started working with the international public-relations firm Hill + Knowlton after leaving the Clinton administration in 2000. DuVal ran his own consulting firm, DuVal and Associates, from 2002 to 2012.
The firm's activities included lobbying, but also other work. For example, the firm worked with Texas businessman T. Boone Pickens. The Pickens Plan, developed by DuVal and Associates, aims to use natural gas and renewable energy to wean America off OPEC oil.
Oh, wean off oil so it's OK.
garage mahal said...
"I'm glad the menace of ebola-infected ISIS terror groups at our border was taken care of when Republicans won the Senate. It all went away overnight."
Yeah, but I think the seas started rising again.
Jerry Brown is not too old.
But then again neither was Bob Dole.
My guess is that Brown will get a better press though.
(D. California)
Is the Democrats' lack of a "bench" due to the Clinton-Obama ascendancy? Or perhaps other factors?
Stale ideas.
Overdependence on tiresome ethnic and gender appeals.
Gerrymandering, which gives safe districts where any idiot can be elected and reelected.
Uncritical press does not sharpen survival skills or critical thinking.
Failed policies not replaced with anything new.
Wacko left has done more damage than wacko right (because in power.)
I could argue that Dan Balz is hiding the emptiness and oldness of the Democratic Party.
Gotta agree with Curious George that the notion that Hillary will decline to run to "save the party" is delusional. Bad health or fear of losing might stop her but altruism will not. She does not do altruism.
Jerry Brown is not too old.
But, I would suggest that he is damaged goods. He still lives up to his old title of "Governor Moonbeam". California really hasn't improved under his watch, and keeps losing its middle class, being replaced by minorities, and esp. illegals who use up a lot of social services and the like.
Bill Clinton only became President because so many of the heavy-hitter Dems (Andrew Cuomo being the biggest) decided early that Bush Sr. was too strong to beat. Billy ran a good campaign, the economy tanked, and that was all she wrote.
It's really early to be looking past 2016.
"Don't get cocky, kid!"
Two years is an eternity for the MSM with a 6 week max. attention span.
The policies and leadership of the current Democratic Party are very different from what they have been at various times in the past, and I think that unless Hillary! indeed goes all in by the spring equinox at the latest - and still looks unbeatable - there will be all kinds of Democrats sprouting up around the country professing to re-claim the ideals of Jefferson, Jackson, and Roosevelt in whatever ways looks promising to maybe get them elected, regardless of what those gentlemen are known to actually have said or done in their lifetimes.
Original Mike said...
" A star emerged in '08 even with Hillary blocking the way."
That star turned out to be a brown dwarf.
11/9/14, 8:46 AM
That could be labeled as racist in the progs' mindset. It is also an insult to people with dwarfism.
@Quaestor said..
I like and respect you, pm317,
Thanks! I will ignore the but.. :)
How about a re-emergence of the Democratic-Republican Party?
Ladies and gentlemen, I present Julian Castro. Former Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, current new HUD guy, and a key speaker at the Democrat 2012 convention.
Poor Julian. He's about a decade late. The Obama phenomenon has already happened and run its course. It's hard when coattails disappear. Being elected Mayor of a city is a lot easier than winning a Presidential election. Appointment to an office doesn't prepare for competitive campaigning. The next President will send him home and put their own in his present position.
Babaluigi: Julian has the distinction and the classic Democratic credential of being under investigation for stealing money from HUD at the same time the GOP was voting with the Dems to confirm him as head of HUD...
John Henry,
Oh good grief!
Bush the Elder presided over the collapse of the Soviet Empire with nary a shot fired in its death throes. Surely that counts as some success?
Don't worry, Hillary will be a shoo-in flop.
Old, mean, tired, and not very smart.
"But Joe does have a new, much younger looking face"
The Avuncular Ken look.
Clintons are incapable of thinking of anyone besides themselves. But let's assume for health reasons she bows out, and the Dems have to open things up. I'd predict Warren would take the mantle of the populist Left, Cuomo would represent the moderate wing of the party, and Biden would try and straddle the two as the establishment choice. Maybe some dark horse would emerge too, but mainly they'd have a real contest to shape the direction of their party.
Sticking with Clinton does the Democrats no favors, and gives the GOP an opportunity if they know how to use it.
maybe obama is clearing the path for michelle to run
maybe obama is clearing the path for michelle to run
All that's left are hard core lefties. How does a party fly with only one wing?
I love this perfectly accurate comment from Richard McEnroe "Hillary would sell Chelsea to a Serb human trafficker for the White House; the future candidates of the Democratic Party mean even less to her." If only it were hyperbole and not truth!
Dan Balz fails to mention that Reid and Pelosi are 74 years old. Time to move on, but it looks like they are going to take the Robert Byrd road.
I will, once again create my off-the-cuff list of Republican women recently in the headlines: Joni Ernst, Kelly Ayotte, Shelley Capito, Nikki Haley, Mia Love, Susana Martinez. Any one of them is a more appealing candidate than Hillary and a couple are clearly more qualified.
Kirk Parker:
Bush the elder did preside over the fall of the USSR, true. Not that he caused it or had much to do with it. All that was foreordained by Reagan's policies. Bush may have been involved, as VP, in helping that.
And there are some that think that Nixon, Truman and Johnson were good presidents. Not enough to get them re-elected. Not even enough that they thought it worthwhile trying. Nixon got re-elected but we saw what happened to him.
The "goodness" of various presidents will always be a matter of opinion but looking at what happened electorally is certainly a good measure of how they were perceived.
So I stand by my list. More importantly, I stand by my contention that historically VPs have not made very good presidents or candidates.
Unless you count Joe B's potential comedic value as making him a good candidate or prez, he doesn't seem to bring much to the table. "Better than Obama" someone said. Well, yeah, but that is a terribly low bar to clear.
Unless you attribute the liberal revolution to Obama. In that case, Joe B would be a much worse president that President Awesome.
John Henry
John Henry,
I think we're quibbling about the difference between the risk of something happening, and the cost of it. (The two traditional insurance parameters.)
GHWB was in office at a time when the cost might well have gone down, but the risk of something happening as the Soviet bloc slowly disassembled itself was unquestionably far higher. Phillip Bobbitt in Shield of Achilles totally transformed my thinking about this, fwiw--I used to totally abominate James Baker et al, based on his later performance w/r/t the Balkans and the Middle East... but I can't arguen with the claim that his performance in 1991 was stellar.
I wonder why Phil Bredesen's name never comes up in discussions about viable Demoocratic presidential candidates.
Democratic House Leadership is exceedingly old, yes.
Whip: 75
Leader: 74
Asst Leader: 74
The Caucus Chairs are relatively spry: 52 and 56.
In the Senate, the youngest leader is Schumer -- 63.
I appreciate that these dinosaurs are not drawing their ill-gotten pensions. But that is to the detriment of the Country.
"Bill Clinton only became President because so many of the heavy-hitter Dems (Andrew Cuomo being the biggest) decided early that Bush Sr. was too strong to beat. Billy ran a good campaign, the economy tanked, and that was all she wrote."
The reason why Clinton won is two words; Ross Perot. I was thinking of voting for him when he went nuts. Clinton did not have a majority and Perot took a large segment of independents and LIVs.
Hillary Clinton is not to be confused with Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton is a very talented politician, Hillary Clinton is something else again. She might be able to defeat Romney or Jeb Bush, but that assumes she will be healthy enough to run for President. Balz is wrong about the importance of Hillary, the fate of the Democratic Party is still in Obama's hands, she cannot escape it.
The reason why Clinton won is two words; Ross Perot.
That is true for both of his elections...he never did receive a majority of the votes.
Let's boil this down to reality.
The Democratic Party is empty, old, tired and socialist. Period. Stop. No more to be said.
Doesn't matter who represents them unless they change their tune.
Just watch the MSM attempt to plug the thin-bench dike by desperately ginning up some new young Democrat super-heroes - the opposite of their demonizing of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.
Said MSM is a major player on the Democrat side, and buys ink by the tanker-loadk
Aren't we just terrible to display skepticism about an 80+-year-old President?
Only when the candidate is a Democrat.
"A star emerged in '08"
A few more 'stars' such as that and the Dem Party will look like "Ishtar".
Here's my problem with Ann Althouse. She's not learned the lessons of 2008 and 2012.
First, a candidate WHO IS BLACK can mobilize Democratic voters in places where Blacks are the majority of Democrats to win the states in primaries. This would include most states in the South, New York (adding in Hispanics), Missouri, and Michigan and Ohio.
Second, the same Black candidate can easily take the voters in nearly all-White states in Dem Primaries: Iowa, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, etc. because they are nearly all White and as hard-left as Pacifica Radio and encased in a non-Vibrancy bubble, where attitudes are derived from movies featuring Morgan Freeman. Not actual real life Black people and NEVER the Black underclass. [Living in New Orleans among them cured me of my bubble syndrome and I know what of I speak.]
Thus shortly after Super Tuesday a candidate like Cory Booker or Deval Patrick or even Al Sharpton can sweep up the nomination.
Democrats are the party of Blacks and Hispanics, with a thin veneer of Trader Joes (I shop there, I know) uber-liberal Whites. The old JFK strategy of Black mass votes in exchange for minor patronage is dead.
Black politicians now want to be President. There is no room for old White ladies like Hillary, ask Father Pflegler about that one.
Second, the lessons of the GENERAL elections in 2008 and 2012 are pretty clear.
Black voters are willing to vote early and often to "protect" their own. Illegals vote early and often as well, and by law they cannot be challenged. Because that would be Bull Connor, or something, and the DOJ will charge you with Civil Rights (i.e. being "an uppity White guy") violation.
This is particularly true when Obama legalizes by Executive Order 34 million "instant Dem Voters" via mass Amnesty, and each pulls in over years about ten family members.
Obama's legacy is to simply drown White America in a sea of Mass Third World Immigration. It doesn't matter if it reduces Black people to utter poverty; its the Wrath of Khan, Ricardo Montalban strategy. And ensures a steady stream of "Big Man" Black guys along the lines of Idiocracy's Hector Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho as President.
My money is on Patrick. He's a two-term Governor, is pals with the President, who will use his enemies list and IRS to "get" both primary and General Election opponents to his proxy. He could sweep in and be the next President with only about 30% of White votes. Al Sharpton could realistically get the nomination if he wanted it (its not clear he does) via the Black/Hispanic vote in the primaries, and win the General Election (through fraud, illegals voting, single women etc.) with only 20% at best of the White vote.
Draw your own conclusions about a national government with the support of 20-30% of Whites. But that's the Dem vibrancy, PC, mass immigration, Civil Rights legacy. The Dem Party is for non-Whites, and kicking and screaming (because the Republicans are useless at fighting being Country Club Chamber of Commerce go-alongs not hard, tough men) the Republicans are by sheer default the party of Whites.
As a White guy I look forward to another non-White President the way a Jew might look forward to Stalin being succeeded by Beria in the old USSR.
There is no "next wave of Democrats," Althouse. Haven't you been paying attention to state and local elections for the past 15 years? Didn't you see the map of elections by counties that was nearly solid red? Didn't you notice the House -- the most geographically and demographically broad part of government -- reaching historic lows of D seats? Or the lack of young Democratic governors...?
The Democrats have been neglecting their farm team for decades, perhaps because they keep being highly competitive in the one national election we have -- for President -- with their massive numbers in concentrated urban enclaves. They elected people -- Clinton, Obama -- who used their younger political comrades, not nurtured them. Who among Democratic governors or Senators or anyone down to local dogcatcher can honestly say I owe my career to Bill Clinton/Barack Obama?
They poured their money into national-level elections and issues, and neglected the local stuff except for GOTV operations (in service to the Presidential candidate, natch) and tokenism.
It's too late now to change these facts. The time for Hillary Clinton to take some thought for the future of her party was about eight years ago: after she lost in 2008 she should've said -- as, you know, that rat bastard Romney said -- that's it, I had my chance, it's time for me to turn my energies to helping younger people in my party grow so that they can give it a shot while I dote on my grandkids.
Unfortunately balz describes the GOP also. McCain, Roberts, McConnell, Cochran, etc are a dam to the pent up new leadership that needs to be developed and mentored. But no. The fata conceit of these politicians of both stripes is that they do not accept their own mortality and that the Republic needs to survive them.
Seriously?? "If Clinton were to see that she's either going to lose in 2016 or destroy the future development of national-level stars in her party, she could decide against running, release the dammed-up streams of cash to the next wave of Democrats, and allow them to develop their reputations in the 2016 race."
You expect her to give up the cash considering she damn near carried off anything but the kitchen sink when they left the WH under Bill. She would have taken the sink too but it was bolted down. This is NOT a woman who shares.
Keep in mind that in contemporary politics, someone who's been President doesn't run for or accept an appointment to any other political office. That means that, other than playing a senior statesman role, there's not reason for them to draw attention to themselves.
Republican ex-presidents understand that. Ford and Reagan withdrew from public life, as did both Bushes.
Not so the Democrats. LBJ was the last president to retire from public life and he left office in disgrace. In contrast, Carter and Clinton do their best to hog the limelight, with seemingly insatiable urges for attention.
One result is that former Democratic presidents (and Hillary) draw to themselves all the attention the media is eager to give to Democrats. There's little to none left for any young and upcoming members of the party. The result is a party that appears to be aging and stuck in the past.
And given that party leaders agree with that policy, the Democratic party is aging and stuck in the past.
Benghazi. Drops mike.
Hillary step aside for the good of the party? Surely, you jest.
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