Tag: 2016

What if the 2014 electorate *doesn’t* reset in time for 2016?

Here’s the Democrats central problem in 2016:

Seniors, who frequently voted Democratic over pocketbook issues like Social Security and Medicare, have migrated into the Republican column. White blue-collar voters, once a staple of Democratic coalitions past, have become estranged from their old political home over cultural issues. In their place are what my colleague Ron Brownstein labels “the coalition of the ascendant”—single women, minorities, and millennial voters. Voters within these groups turned out at high levels in the last two presidential elections to offset Democratic losses elsewhere.

The challenge for Democrats in this year’s midterms is getting these “ascendant” voters enthusiastic about showing up to the polls when Obama isn’t on the ballot—something that Democratic turnout specialists are working overtime to achieve. Even if they don’t show up and Republicans retake the Senate in 2014, the assumption is they’re bound to return at similar levels for the next presidential election. That’s not necessarily the case.

Continue reading What if the 2014 electorate *doesn’t* reset in time for 2016?

:snort: Joe Biden’s candidacy ‘in danger’ of being ridiculous.

Submitted without comment. With snickering, maybe, but without comment.

Joe Biden’s prospective presidential candidacy is in danger of becoming a joke.

Peter Beinart, of course. Trust a member of the antiwar movement to write something like that… OK, so there was one comment. Continue reading :snort: Joe Biden’s candidacy ‘in danger’ of being ridiculous.

Joe Biden is running for President, bless his heart.

And he thinks that he can do it via populism, bless his heart again: “Vice President Joe Biden appeared at a closed-door fundraiser in South Carolina Friday and delivered what one attendee called “an Elizabeth Warren-type speech” about the struggles of America’s middle class, remarks that were well-received by a room full of influential primary state Democrats.” Fun fact: Joe Biden has been a member of the political class longer than I have been alive, and a Senator since before my wife’s birth. I would pay good money to see him try to run an actual retail establishment for a month…

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Moe Lane

PS: Elizabeth Warren has even less idea about what motivates blue-collar and middle class people than Joe Biden does.  She’s also about one-third as personable as her admirers think she is.  As I said on Twitter: I salivate at the thought of a Biden/Warren ticket in 2016: out-of-touch, oblivious, and old (Warren will be 67 in 2016, and the Republican candidates will not).

This is defeat, Democrats: you probably should have avoided it.

This fascinates me: “For the third election cycle, Democrats are still debating their options for handling the political fall-out from passage of the Affordable Care Act: fight, flight or finesse.” And it fascinates me because there are no options. The Democrats made a big bet in 2009 that they could ram the law through first, then justify it later. They lost that bet; and now come the consequences.

Can individual Democrats survive? Sure… in the House, and in the safer parts of the Senate.  But the most viable position – I screwed up, and if you re-elect me, I will vote with the Republicans to repeal Obamacare – is also absolutely anathema to the Democratic establishment.  To be fair, there’s a reason for that.  The Democratic party has gone all-in on this issue; and if the national cadre can just hold on then eventually the Democratic party will recover, once all the old bodies are removed and a new crop of politicians from the state party apparatuses are brought in. As institutions, both the Democrats and the Republicans profit mightily from inertia*; the Democratic establishment is kind of counting on that right now. Continue reading This is defeat, Democrats: you probably should have avoided it.

Health whispers about Hillary Clinton.

Always hard to tell how much of this is true, how much of this is BS, and how much is BS that also happens to be true, but for completely unrelated reasons.

If you listen to the chattering class in Washington, D.C., Hillary Clinton is a virtual certainty for the 2016 Democratic nomination, and the front runner in the next presidential race.

But in private, rumors persist that the former Secretary of State may not even be capable of making it to Iowa and New Hampshire. Clinton, these skeptics often say, will not run for president again because of health concerns.

Continue reading Health whispers about Hillary Clinton.

Joe Biden is so totally running in 2016. And that’s a problem for the Democrats.

Fascinating Politico article here about Joe Biden and his desire to run in 2016.  Here is the basic problem, in a nutshell: Hillary Clinton is more or less qualified to be President* – or, at least, the Democratic nominee for President – but she is a horrible campaigner and nobody likes her.  People like Joe Biden, and he is better at the entire campaigning thing.  However: by the time 2016 rolls around “close to the Obama administration” is not going to be a selling point in the general election… and while both Clinton and Biden severely suffer from that problem, Biden suffers from it a heck of a lot more. Continue reading Joe Biden is so totally running in 2016. And that’s a problem for the Democrats.

My answer to “Is Hillary too old to run?”

Like Allahpundit and Charlie Cook I agree that Hillary Clinton is likely but not guaranteed to run; unlike either I am not convinced that she’s necessarily the front-runner. Typically people who are called the front-runner in these things are not… as Hillary Clinton herself might have ruefully told people in 2008. She actually has three things working against her:

  • Her health is indeed an issue.  A big one; and it will only become more of one as Hillary Clinton gets older*.
  • She is in fact inextricably linked to the Obama administration.  This will be neutralized in the primary to a large degree if Joe Biden also runs – he’d be even more linked to the Obama administration** – but if Obama’s numbers continue on the same trajectory that they’re on now then by fall of 2016 ‘part of Barack Obama’s Cabinet’ is not going to be a resume enhancer. Continue reading My answer to “Is Hillary too old to run?”

#Obamacare reminder: what goes around, comes around. Like, in 2017.

Put another way: while this is obnoxious…

By now ObamaCare’s proliferating delays, exemptions and administrative retrofits are too numerous to count, most of them of dubious legality. The text of the Affordable Care Act specifically says when the mandate must take effect—”after December 31, 2013″—and does not give the White House the authority to change the terms.

Changing an unambiguous statutory mandate requires the approval of Congress, but then this President has often decided the law is whatever he says it is.

Continue reading #Obamacare reminder: what goes around, comes around. Like, in 2017.

The Bloom is off the Unicorn: party donors starting to look ahead past @barackobama.

I imagine these last two paragraphs probably burns the administration.  It burns them like hygiene*:

Still, party fundraisers said that it has been hard to get major contributors jazzed about writing checks to the DNC. They are more intrigued with 2016 and whether Hillary Rodham Clinton will make another White House run.

“I get dozens of inquiries from donors who say, ‘I want to get in early with Hillary,’ ” said a prominent party fundraiser. “A lot of the donors are starting to look past this administration to the next one.”

Continue reading The Bloom is off the Unicorn: party donors starting to look ahead past @barackobama.