There are a few factors that will make the 2016 election problematic for Democrats:
Hillary may not run. The OP mentioned Warren, but let’s be serious. She’s too liberal for the country. Aside from Warren, the Democrats have no big names. That doesn’t mean they don’t still have solid candidates, but the Democratic nominee won’t be able to coast on name and star power.
If Hillary does run, she’ll have the Obama administration’s unpopularity hung around her neck.
If Hillary does run, she’ll be old and the GOP candidate will likely be young. The voters still want change. Who will better be able to portray themselves as the candidate of change? Of course, the Republicans could do HIllary a big favor and nominate Jeb.
History. It has historically been very hard for a party to hold the White House for 12 straight years. The only times it’s been done were when the President of that party left office with a 60+% approval rating. Unless Obama turns his administration around, Hillary will be fighting a massive headwind that better candidates have not been able to overcome.
Don’t be fooled by the early polls. That’s all name recognition. Pay more attention to the polls that HIllary Clinton is not in, like the Biden trial heat polls. That’s a truer picture of where the Democrats stand vs. the Republican Presidential candidates. Because even Hillary will come back to Earth once she starts with her stale, artificial campaign style.
demographics alone mean it should lean to the left. The tea party/fox news group is dying of old age and the US is becoming more of a millennial/non-white nation. However are people going to elect more of the same in a bland, corporate democrat who won’t do anything meaningful to truly take on the reform this country needs? I don’t see Hillary exciting much of anyone. The 2010 landslide was because liberals stayed home, not because the country moved to the right (10 million McCain voters stayed home, 30 million Obama voters stayed home giving a 10 million net to the GOP). All it takes for the GOP to win is for liberals and disadvantaged democrats to stay home.
This will be a third democrat in a row, I’m assuming it is fairly rare for one party to stay in charge with a different person nowadays (at least the last 60 years, Bush sr seems like the only candidate to hold the presidency for one party for 12 years). Obama is ok, but he isn’t Bill Clinton. He isn’t leaving a legacy of great economic growth and peace for his predecessor to run on.
Demographics aren’t destiny unless we assume things will stay the same. They won’t. It is not possible to predict how demographic change will change both parties, especially since we don’t really know how millenials will vote. They certainly came out as Democrats in 2008 and 2012, but 3 million fewer of them even voted in 2012, and in 2013 we saw Ken Cuccinelli do shockingly well among the newest voters, those in the 18-24 range.
I’ll be watching the exit polls for 2014 with great interest to see how young people vote.
Too early to tell. The best guess at this point is that she’ll win simply because the GOP hasn’t improved its clown-college bench since the last election cycle.
That’s a widely held fantasy among liberals. The Republicans have a ton of governors and young appealing outsider candidates who will be far more able to make a case for change than your elderly establishment front runner. And if you think that in 2016 the public actually wants OBama’s third term without Obama, that’s an even bigger fantasy.
I do not trust your ability to tell fantasy from reality.
I can’t wait to see these white men + Jindal try!
Considering what the alternative will probably be, you’re probably going to end up disappointed (and perhaps, like 2012, absent from the board for a period of time) again.
Makes no difference. The candidates are mostly governors who got elected more than once, often in swing states. That proves political viability even if you hate them. Hillary Clinton has never, EVER won a competitive race. Her opponents have.
The idea that the GOP candidate field is poor is not based on any realistic measure.
Youth+ outsider always beats old and insider. And their race has absolutely no bearing on this particular issue. You act like white candidates are now a problem or something, which is another liberal fantasy.
Now here you have a good point. It is quite possible that the Republican nominee will be successfully painted as too radical, or the behavior of Congressional Republicans will torpedo his candidacy, as we’re seeing with Thom Tillis in North Carolina. I would never declare an election to be a sure thing this far out. Again, that’s a Democratic fantasy, that Clinton is going to just be coronated in 2016 easily. They should know from experience that this is not so. She might not even win the Democratic nomination.
Cite. You just made a factual claim, and used the word “always”. Now go research every election in American history in which a young outsider faced an old insider.
Hint – your factual claim is incorrect. You continue to fail to learn anything at all.
The Republicans’ problem with non-white voters is not a fantasy, and has something to do with their candidates and office-holders.
True, but if you think that problem can be solved by running Ben Carson or something, then you’re engaging in the same fantastical thinking that many Republicans are. The problem is the party, not it’s whiteness.
No, it’s definitely not a problem that can be solved by running Ben Carson. The fact that some Republicans see that as a possible solution shows how big the problem is.
The Republicans’ problem on race and gender can not be solved by having a token representative join the party. The Republicans need to start welcoming in black people by the thousands not one by one. And to do that, they’ve got to start meeting black voters on their own terms not on terms set by the current party leadership. If the Republicans want a share of black votes they need to give up control of a share of the party. And the same is true for Hispanic votes and women’s votes and every other group that’s gone over to the Democrats.
My prediction is that Mitt Romney Version 2 (or is it Vers. 4 by now?) will be sitting in the Oval Office 2017. What odds am I offered?
(This prediction is by elimination. Once dolts, criminals and lunatics are eliminated, only Jeb Bush is left. What’s his campaign slogan going to be? “Not as dumb as my older brother”?)
