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Townhall
Obama's
Policies Leave Democrats Weak Candidates in 2016, Except -- Maybe --
Hillary Clinton
Michael Barone
Mar 13, 2015
The controversy over Hillary Clinton's emails and her unconvincing
press conference at the United Nations have gotten many Democrats and
others thinking the unthinkable: Clinton may not be the Democrats' 2016
nominee for president. And it has many asking the question -- scary for
Democrats -- of who else could be.
It's not a strong field. Vice President Joe Biden is 72 and has low
poll ratings. Elizabeth Warren inspires the Democratic left, but says
she's not running -- perhaps for fear of exposure of her dubious claim,
when seeking prestigious law school jobs, of Cherokee ancestry.
Others are even less likely. Bernie Sanders, age 73, is a
self-described socialist. The interesting Jim Webb is out of sync with
an increasingly leftist party. Martin O'Malley couldn't get his
lieutenant governor elected to succeed him in a 62 percent Obama state.
California Gov. Jerry Brown is 76 and turns 78 in 2016. Andrew Cuomo
lives with a woman not his wife -- not a problem in New York, but not
helpful for a national candidate.
Democrats have a weak field in part because of their poor showing in
recent statewide elections. And there's another problem. The
geographically clustered Obama coalition -- blacks, Hispanics (in some
states), gentry liberals -- tends to elect officeholders with little
incentive to compile records that would make them competitive in TARGET
states and capable of winning crossover votes.
That's not just a problem facing contemporary Democrats. It has
historic roots. The Democratic Party has always been a collection of
out-people, who are seen by themselves and others as not typically
American. In the 19th century, that meant white Southerners and
Catholic immigrants. Today, it means the Obama core groups.
When these stick together, they can form powerful national majorities.
When they come into conflict, the party can be a disorderly rabble.
From the Civil War to World War II, it was generally assumed that
neither Southerners nor Catholics were viable presidential candidates.
No Democratic nominee from 1864 to 1944 resided in a state that had
slavery in 1860. The only Catholic nominee, the talented Al Smith, lost
much of the Democratic base. The only Democrats elected president then
were Protestant governors of New York and New Jersey...
Read the rest of the article at Townhall
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