Posted on 06/09/2014 1:48:50 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) wave to the crowd June 27, 2008 in Unity, New Hampshire. Obama and Clinton appeared together in a show of unity for Obama's presidential campaign.
Almost exactly six years ago, when Hillary Clinton finally conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama, she bore the scars of years of partisan warfare that he had soared above. As Clinton unofficially embarks upon her second presidential campaign with the release of her book, the two figures have nearly reversed roles. Now Obama is a figure brought low by accumulated partisan controversy, and Clinton the relatively untainted outsider — and, hence, the vessel for her party’s hopes of renewal.
So completely has the narrative inverted that Clinton’s task is now seen as escaping Obama’s taint. Clinton “could use some separation given his anemic poll numbers,” reports Politico’s Maggie Haberman. In Sunday's New York Times, Ross Douthat argues that Obama’s low approval ratings leave the Party bereft of any competitive basis at all save Clinton’s unique appeal — her “iconic status is, increasingly, the only clear advantage the Democratic Party has,” writes the conservative columnist.
Are Obama’s approval ratings actually likely to drag down Clinton’s prospects of winning in 2016? Not really. Here are four things to keep in mind about the public opinion landscape facing Clinton:
1. Obama’s approval is high enough to win already. Courtesy of HuffPost Pollster, here’s a chart of the president’s approval ratings:
Photo: Huffington Post He’s only at about 45 percent, which is also where Gallup has him. But that’s about the same level at which Obama found himself at the end of 2011. What happened then? Well, we had a campaign, and most voters clearly decided they preferred Obama to the Republican alternative.
2. The Republican Party remains in bad shape. The reason Obama handily won reelection despite middling approval ratings is that America hates the Republican Party. The Democrats have a net favorability rating of minus one, while the GOP’s is minus 24. What’s more, the electorate is deeply polarized, with very few swing voters, and generational replacement is slowly ratcheting up the proportion of Democrats. Whatever it is that’s making Douthat so chill about the GOP’s near-term electoral prospects, it’s not a cold look at public opinion.
3. The economy matters more than anything. It’s obviously a political science cliché, but the state of the economy will have more impact than anything else on the outcome of the next election. Points 1 and 2 above suggest that the Democrats have a strong enough natural majority right now that, if the economy is neither great nor terrible, they’re likely to win. If the economy falls into a second recession within the next two years, Republicans could probably win even if they nominate a Ted Cruz–Sarah Palin ticket.
But even in 2012, the economy had recovered well enough to permit Obama to win reelection. And the labor market continues to recover:
If this trajectory continues, Obama's approval ratings, which have already recovered from their 2013 dip, will likely rise more. If it’s June of 2016 and the recovery has continued for two more years, the Democrats will have an easy case to keep their party in power. If it hasn’t, no nominee is likely to save them.
4. Clinton’s popularity is mostly a function of staying out of politics. Clinton has probably burnished her résumé by serving as secretary of state. But her approval ratings haven’t risen because Americans have intimately followed her diplomatic strategy in Burma and the Middle East. They’ve risen because she’s no longer representing partisan combat. That’s why first ladies are almost always popular (the only recent exception being Clinton herself, a problem she solved by removing herself from the partisan spotlight), and it’s why even hated former presidents like Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush recover their popularity.
But by definition, it’s not a strategy that can survive a presidential campaign. The project of transferring conservative rage back from Obama to Clinton has only just begun. If — or, more accurately, when — Clinton gains her party’s nomination, Republicans will forget all the things they learned to appreciate about her when Obama displaced her as the leader of the Democratic Party a half-dozen years ago. By this time in 2016, it is just as likely that Clinton will need to attach herself to Obama’s popularity as the other way around.
Didn’t work for her diplomats in Libya
The Democrats will need a lot different approach to their electoral strategy if they want to remain a party representing the United States of America on the world stage.
Herself, Madame Benghazi, the Cold & Joyless, is not anything on that path.
Hillary Clinton is all about Hillary Clinton.
Next up will be the Benghazi hearings and this is one reason Hillary is out there promoting herself and her book so energetically. She hopes to boost her popularity so that the left can say it's all a witchhunt.
But she is indeed a witch.
if you make an assumption that voter fraud alone did not cause Obama to defeat Romney (I don’t know if it did or didn’t, just making the assumption for this argument), then I think the only real question is can Hillary turn out minorities, both black and latino, in enough numbers.
certainly, the black vote can’t possibly be as enthusiastic for her as it was for Obama.
They’re gonna pull a rabbit out of their hat just like they did the last time. She’s not stupid. She knows she’ll never get by with the medical stuff. She’s just teasing the party to get even.
Why? The last race shows they pretty much will win any future presidential election.
I don’t think people hated the Republican party so much as they couldn’t find sufficient distinction between Obama and Romney. They were both socialists. Romney was an astonishingly bad candidate. But so was McCain and Dole. Please give us someone worthy of the title “Republican.”
I don't think the elites will allow that.
No. And anyone who thinks they need “saving” is living in a bubble. America is trending Blue pretty quickly. The GOP can only rely upon one quickly diminishing demographic. Minorities WILL be the majority soon enough. People vote Liberal in greater numbers. It is only the peculiarities of America’s particular political system that Conservatives even have much of a say in things. Social issues are trending HARD blue.
Why do I say this aside from the fact that it is true? Because for far too long we follow those engaged in “happy talk”, saying what we want to hear. What happens is we get excited for America finally “waking up”. How many Conservative “pundits” did you see talking that it was almost a forgone conclusion that Obama would lose in 2012? How many posts here cheering “the end of the Obama era”.
And yet, on election day, when it all comes down to it all . . . we lose and we lose big. Will the GOP take back the Senate this year? Probably. But ONLY because the Dims have so many seats in Red States to defend.
This is only the breath before the great shift Left in America. And if we engage in wishful thinking, as we have done for far too long, we will wonder how America was stolen right from under us.
Fickle DemRats were all orgasmic over Hellary in 2008 until they began a new lovefest with charmer Bammy and she became persona non-grate. Stupid, dumb nitwits wanting her as Pres.... the new moron majority.
The American people don’t recognize failure when it is self-evident.
Even Hillary has got to be aware of how totally joyless she is-she is the definition of Debbie Downer. She is probably watching out for unknowns, too-she is ready to go wabbit hunting...
Romney, Dole, McPain, are you implying that it will take a third Bush to reverse course? That may be the “recipe” cooked up by the uninformed Republican primary voters too.
And do you have a plan to circumvent that scenario?
For me, this is sooooooo easy. If I'm wrong, please correct me. It seems to me that modern politics is like completing football teams. Everyone is playing by the same "rules" -- until we learn (oh gosh, oh horror), that the other side doesn't. And like Lucy with the football, enticing Charlie Brown to kick at it one more time before swiping it away, year after year, many are dismayed that they "fell for it" again.
Solution? Do NOT define politics as teams with "rules". Illustrate it as a philosophy. Here's an example. Imagine a 30 second ad: it starts dark. It talks about the "benefits" of liberalism. Minimum wage, yada, yada .. [you can fill in the blanks], and as the ad extols the virtue of liberalism, the image starts to fill in: at first very hazy, then we begin to see run down house after run round house. We are in the streets of modern Detroit. The ad finishes with: "had enough of modern liberalism? Detroit only had it for 50 years." ...
Define the opposition by their failures, and you will always win.
Democrats don’t vote for candidates based on reason or on issues. They don’t even know what’s going on most of the time. Does anyone doubt that if you asked the average Democrat what Benghazi is, they’d say it was an ointment you rub on your back if you sprain it?
Black Democrats only vote in large numbers for black politicians. Hillary will have no more luck sending hordes of black voters to the polls than Al Gore did in 2000 or John Kerry did in 2004 when they lost their presidential bids.
And how many young Democrats will be excited about going to the polls to vote for a woman who reminds them of their 70-year-old grandmothers, many of whom, like Hillary Clinton, are under medication for a tendency to fall down and break parts of their bodies?
The misogynistic men whom feminists believe are everywhere in America ruining their lives won’t vote for a woman for president, and neither will gay men, who by their nature hate women.
So who besides angry feminists are going to vote in any meaningful numbers for the inevitable Hillary?
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