Hillary Clinton is still being dogged by questions about the Clinton Foundation and her private e-mail server. (Stories about both are easily found, and the point of this thread isn’t to debate them.) Let’s say, hypothetically, that over the next few months stories continue to emerge, with the Clinton Foundation looking increasingly shady, and Hillary increasingly like she has something to hide. By the end of the summer, even some Democrats are starting to support the idea of an independent investigation.
How would this shape the 2016 election? If Hillary’s ship sinks, who would rise to the top of heap, and who would get dragged down by the undertow?
The union would be dissolved and governance handed over to the unicorn overlords. Seriously, these manufacuversies have no chance of being real issues to anyone except the Fox News crowd.
Far more likely is that a health issue would sink her – she’s getting up in age, and a serious or even fatal health condition before the election is hardly unthinkable. In that event, I suspect the Democratic nomination would go to someone not in the field yet–possibly Sanders, but more likely someone like Al Gore (especially if it happened very late in the election cycle), whoever she picks as VP, or any of a number of senior senators or governors. The race would likely be a little closer.
If any indication that this is a real scandal and not just typical right-wing Clinton-hate-fantasy stuff, then other Democrats (O’Malley, Webb, and others) will quickly offer themselves as alternatives, and one of them would win the nomination if Hillary stumbled or withdrew.
Nothing political will do it - if there were anything that would stick, the Republicans would have thrown it against the wall sometime over the last couple of decades - but yes, a health problem could drive her out. If it were to come after she chooses her running mate (either before or after the convention), then that person would likely be the nominee. If before, you’d see a mad scramble and, well, by then we’re too deep into hypotheticals to make a worthwhile prediction.
Gore is an interesting thought, but his time may be past.
If Biden wanted it, I think there would have been some hint of that already. I’ll say nobody older than Hillary would be plausible. Even Elizabeth Warren is not that much younger.
Heh. I didn’t mean to imply that she was too old, just that her hypothetical death might be a setback to her campaign. Old folks running for President is practically a constitutional requirement.
If Hillary Clinton’s campaign is torpedoed by the end of this summer (as in your hypothetical), I think we see everybody and their brother jump into the race. Obviously, they’d all be scrambling to pick up Clinton’s support, but there’s no heir apparent, and I don’t see anyone gaining or losing in this scenario.
If the right wing media manages to take down Clinton, they’ll just move on to the next Democrat to emerge. It’s not like there’s a Democrat out there that they actually want to see get elected. The only time the right wingers pretend to like a Democrat is when they’re dead or retired.
I’ve been saying that one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest strengths is that the right wing media has been attacking her for twenty years. It means they’ve used up all their good material. Twenty years ago, they were accusing her of being a serial killer. Now the best they can come up with is to accuse her of mismanaging her email account.
Jim Webb
Martin O’Malley
Mark Warner
Julian Castro
Elizabeth Warren
Joe Biden
Sherrod Brown
Tim Kaine
Andrew Cuomo
That’s about the bench of serious players. Of those I’d put O’Malley, Warren and Warner at the top of the short list but it’s 6-5 and pick 'em. We’d be where the Republicans are now. A free for all and no clear and obvious choice.
