Speculation about the Democratic nominating contest for 2016 is equally boring. Yes, it would be kind of interesting if Russ Feingold came out of retirement to vie for the nomination, but is there even a hint of evidence that he is contemplating such a move, much less that he might be successful? Bernie Sanders has made rumblings, but just his age alone precludes him from being a strong challenger. Al Gore is the only Democrat with the stature, donor base, and experience to really challenge Hillary Clinton, and that wouldn’t necessarily be a challenge from her left. Consider who Gore chose as his running mate. A Clinton/Gore matchup would have a lot of family feuding drama, but it wouldn’t automatically be an ideological war.
But Gore isn’t running. Biden doesn’t have a chance. Martin O’Malley is running out of time to catch fire with the grassroots base and build an organization. Elizabeth Warren has officially “encouraged” Hillary to run.
Is the left even in the mood to have an ideological battle in 2016? Perhaps there is some appetite for it, but I haven’t seen it reflected in our elected leaders. The Republicans are acting so badly that the left has united in response and reaction.
Personally, I’d be up for an ideological battle, but I am not going to lie to you and say that I see many people by my side.
The story of the Democratic nominating contest for 2016 remains that Hillary Clinton is still a juggernaut. And that’s just not a very interesting story.
True. Heck, the Democratic side is even more boring than the Republican side. At least on the Republican side people can speculate about things like those you mentioned in your previous post, Booman—will Huckabee get enough traction to harm Cruz’ chances? which of the ethically challenged governors can rise to top 3 list of contenders?
What’s more interesting on the Democratic side—as you’ve written about previously, and as Tarheel Dem and others have commented on—is the opportunity to organize a powerful enough progressive agenda and to elect a progressive enough Democratic Congress that President Clinton (or any other Democratic potential nominee) has a steady stream of progressive legislation coming across her desk to sign—not unlike, say, Gov. Hickenlooper in Colorado. Hickenlooper got elected as a “moderate Democrat” and now is seen as a “liberal” because of the laws passed by a Democratic legislature that he’s signed into law.
I agree with the above, and would add what I say to people who pine for a Elizabeth Warren challenge to HRC: she’s got vastly more potential as a leader in the Senate for the next 6-12-18+ years than the next 4-8 in the Oval Office. Keep in mind that she could very likely spend her entire presidency without an Elizabeth Warren-type figure pushing the Elizabeth Warren issues to the forefront. Or, more the much more likely scenario, ‘forcing Hilary to the left’ only for Clinton to win the primaries, only to savvily ‘tack to the center’ for the general.
Hillary for president in the middle of Cold War 2.0: A nightmare scenario
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/06/hillary-for-president-in-middle-of-cold.html
“Is the left even in the mood to have an ideological battle in 2016? Perhaps there is some appetite for it, but I haven’t seen it reflected in our elected leaders.”
Why would there be? Very few of our elected leaders have an appetite for ideological battles unless their campaign funding depends on it. Most Dem politicians get sufficient support from “realistic” Dems and from corporate interests who wouldn’t want ideological challanges from the left.
to catch the attention of the Dem base. He hasn’t even started campaigning yet. He’s gotten great responses in IA and NH early states and has also gotten great responses from MS to NE to CA to TX when he has done events with the base there as well.
Dean didn’t catch fire until March 2003 which gives O’Malley plenty of time to light up the grassroots.
Obama’s campaign didn’t really take off in Iowa until the J-J dinner in 2004.
Running out of time. UHUH.
Check back in fall 2015.
This is just silly:
I have been part of two campaigns that caught fire late: Edwards in ’04 (in Iowa) and Hart in ’84 (in NH). A month out neither campaign had a pulse. Now it IS true that Hart had an experienced leadership that understood the primary process. But we were nowhere for months. Edwards in Iowa was the same way: NO ONE saw Edwards getting over 30 in Iowa even a month out.
The biggest problem for O’Malley, and for everyone else, is that there is no sign of weakness in Hillary’s Iowa numbers – and there was in 2007.
But when people tell me how it is already over, I remind them:
9 days later Hart lead Mondale nationally by 8.
I was on the ground in Iowa wearing an orange hat about 2 weeks before the caucuses and I could tell Dean was in trouble and that Edwards was going to do well.
But, you are right that it’s way too early to know anything yet especially about Iowa.
O’Malley worked on Hart’s NH campaign and he has a lot of connections with that network. Curious if it will help him in Iowa or not.
Technically, Dean was in trouble two months before the caucuses. His retail ground game was much too slow to organize the large number of enthusiastic supporters willing to pound the pavement, and he had no skilled eyes on the ground monitoring what the local Party powers were doing. Then there was the distraction of the Clinton stalking horse. Edwards had kneecapped the one-time Gephardt support contingency, but that one was difficult to see from afar and Dean fell into the trap of seeing Gephardt as his major competition and got into a pissing contest with him. And at the eleventh hour all the DEM heavy hitters swooped into the state to push the local power players into Kerry’s camp who also ran the “latte drinking, …” TV ad.
is leading a group of Hart veterans for O’Malley. The biggest name from the effort, and in my view the person who understands the Democratic Party primary process better then anyone, and the Co-chair for Hart in NH, Jeannie Shaheen, is likely going to be Clinton’s national co-chair.
I don’t think anyone knew in the end that Iowa would turn out to be a fight between Edwards and Kerry.
as he did, but I knew Dean was in trouble. When most of the volunteers are from out-of-state that is a problem.
The question becomes is there enough top Dem campaign staff talent that don’t end up with Hillary that are willing to risk their career with O’Malley. The Clintons are vindictive and will punish Dems who don’t support Hillary.
people who will take the risk as long as the leadership understands the game, and their are enough from Hart in 84 to do that.
Remember, you only need to organize two states. National polls are irrelevant until after NH.
The problem is that the rank and file like Hillary, and feel like she has earned the nomination by playing nice with Obama in ’08.
I do not believe a left organization really exists at the rank and file level apart from Obama and Clinton. To most they define the meaning of liberalism.
And his general election campaign was as scintillating and dynamic as his primary campaign. The opposition to Kerry was grounded in appreciating that with his IWR vote, he couldn’t beat GWB. Hell, he couldn’t even take advantage of the Abu Ghraib scandal that broke in the middle of the election.
Did Gary Hart or John Edwards win the Democratic Party nomination?
to pull out of NH in 2003 and bet everything on Iowa was as smart a decision as I have ever seen in Presidential Primary politics.
Kerry lost by a nose to an incumbent who was fighting a war with all of the rally around the flag support that it comes with. His primary campaign had less money than Dean, and he still destroyed him halfway through the primary season.
Dean in part self-destructed. He did so in part because his campaign chairman, Joe Trippi, is the dumbest person in American Politics. He badly misjudged the electorate in Iowa in 2004 and blew an enormous financial advantage.
When did Kerry pull out of NH in 2003? — officially very active
It was more complicated than you’ve suggested and not gusty on the part of Kerry. It was a question of money and primary federal matching funds that not only limited aggregate spending but spending in each state as well. Kerry had consistently been running behind Dean in NH polls which led to big donors not writing checks. Then
A late infusion of significant additional monies in Iowa and NH and DEM big hitters showing up in Iowa for some arm twisting got him the win in Iowa and that gave him the bounce he needed in NH.
Don’t discount the appearance of the sleazy 527 anti-Dean ads. The corrupt Toricelli was instrumental in that. And wouldn’t be surprised if one of the same players behind those ads wasn’t also behind the Club for Growth “latte drinking, Volvo driving …” anti-Dean ads in Iowa before the primary. (When, other than this time, has the opposing party run TV ads against a primary candidate?)
It appeared to me that Trippi was poor at organizing the nuts and bolts of primary contests. Appeared to think that a good enough candidate could win the nomination with a national retail campaign. Team Hillary made half the same mistake in 2008 as well. While theoretically possible, both Trippi and Hillary’s guy way underestimated how much that costs and how easily a relatively small number of people in Iowa can derail such a game plan. To be fair to Dean and all candidates with little to no name recognition, it costs campaign money to introduce themselves to voters. Candidates can soldier on after losing Iowa, NH, and SC, but it’s probably futile. In 2008 Obama took Iowa by ten points, lost NH by three points and left Clinton and Edwards in the dust with 55% of the vote in SC. (McCain won NH and SC.)
As interesting as all that is, it’s also disgusting that we allow a small number of people in Iowa and NH, and to a lesser extent SC, (and surprisingly ill-informed if the interviews I’ve seen of those voters are representative) to dictate who will be the nominees. Iowa and NH were long considered to be irrelevant straw polls. Now they’re a significant state revenue generation source (business) and they aren’t about to give that up.
in ’03 was made by Jeannie Shaheen. She realized the NH polling was really irrelevant until Iowa was done. She took the limited funds and invested it there. Kerry was almost broke.
If Jeannie Shaheen was a male DC consultant, she would be a legend. Her resume:
NH ’76 – Carter NH Chair, campaign manager
NH ’80 – Carter NH Chair
NH ’84 – Hart co-chair
NH ’00 – Gore NH Chair
National, NH ’04 – Kerry National Chair, Kerry NH Chair
NH ’08, NH Campaign Manager – Clinton
I do not know who she supported in ’88 and ’92. I was active in ’92 in NH and I don’t remember her running any of the campaigns. Jeannie has run 6 New Hampshire Primary campaigns.
SHE HAS NEVER LOST – despite in many of these cases trailing badly at the start of the year.
She is one of about 100 or so people who have been both a Senator and a Governor. And yet her role on campaigns dwarfs either in importance. You can write a history of the Democratic Party based on her.
And yet even on blogs like this I find people really don’t get what she has done. They barely know who she is.
She did lose her first Senate election in 2002, but I don’t want to dismiss her electoral successes as either a manager or candidate. (An in-law of mine was a senior member of the Hugh Gallen gubernatorial campaigns; so, I heard mention of Sheheen in the 1970s.)
Don’t doubt that Sheheen recognized the Kerry’s poll numbers in NH hadn’t budged for a long time. Or that money alone, had there been more to access and state primary spending limits weren’t a constraint, wouldn’t improve if Dean won Iowa or significantly outperformed Kerry in Iowa. Not rocket science. Everybody knew that federal primary matching funds had handicapped Gore when his campaign had to go dark after securing the nomination while GWB could merrily spend primary monies until the GOP convention, but in 2004 Democratic candidates were reluctant to pass on that funding both for PR purposes and the difficulty of having to raise even more campaign funds.
That’s what Dean’s team and donors were thinking of when they chose to pass on the matching funds. Would have been an issue for Kerry as a nominee as well, but before Iowa his problem was state primary spending limits. He needed more for both Iowa and NH and that required him to pass on matching funds and in the short-term self finance his campaign. We can only speculate as to what would have happened if Dean hadn’t rejected federal matching funds and left Kerry with the choice between being strapped in Iowa and NH or rejecting the funds and have it more obviously known that he was self-financing because his campaign was broke. (The question for Hillary was simpler by the time she ran out of money because she had earlier rejected federal funds.)
So much for the primary electoral reforms after Chicago 1968. Of course, technically they were killed in 1972 by DEM Party elites defecting to Richard Nixon when McGovern (the most qualified Presidential nominee in the past sixty odd years) secured the nomination and to guarantee that he would be crushed in the general election. DFH punching is an old sport for the political money/power set. Democracy resides in the smokeless back rooms not in the hands of the people.
Horse races are exciting because even a long-shot can and does on occasion win and they last for a minute or so, maybe an hour when betting and collecting on winners is included. Had I known in 1992 that Democrats would anoint the Clintons as the party royalty for decades to come into the future, I would have considered voting for GHWB. That might also have put the kibosh on NAFTA, capital gains take reduction, Newt’s “revolution,” and a Baby Bush Presidency. (I could also have done without Bill’s sexcapades.)
“Consider who Gore chose as his running mate”
I think that Gore was trying to distance himself from President Clinton. I believe that he thought that the Lewinsky thing was very unpopular to the electorate.
Joe Lieberman was the first Democratic Senator to come out for censuring President Clinton (NY Times 9/3/98). I think Gore thought that adding Lieberman to the ticket would help him show the electorate that he did not approve of President Clinton’s behavior.
William F. Buckley supported Lieberman for Senate against Lowell Weicker, the liberal Republican Connecticut senator. (NY Times 8/16/88). Weicker made some very prescient comments in the article which I will leave for your Google skills.