Hillary Clinton may be the runaway favorite in most polls for the Democratic Presidential nomination for 2016, but we have never seen a non-incumbent to compete without an opponent in their party’s battle for the Presidential nomination.
So we are starting to feel, see, and sense that there will be challengers to Hillary, and the speculation has become wide and deep that any or some of the following will, indeed, challenge the former Secretary of State, Senator, and First Lady:
Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont
Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia
Governor Jerry Brown of California
Former Governor Howard Dean of Vermont
Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri (totally new to any speculation)
Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado
There is discontent with Hillary Clinton’s ties to Wall Street; her gaining as much as $275,000 a speech before wealthy donors and groups; and the image of her as a “hawk” in foreign policy. She is seen as part of the “Establishment”, and as not sufficiently understanding of the plight of the middle class and the poor. Her husband worked against the left, sticking to a centrist viewpoint in his years in the White House, and while there are salutes for him as a former President, the Left is looking for someone more in the line of doing more for the poor and middle class, and staying out of foreign wars, and regulating Wall Street.
So that is the appeal of Warren, Sanders and O’Malley in particular, but the idea of Brown coming back, mentioned in an earlier blog entry, is fascinating, and Dean trying again after 12 years is also intriguing! And imagine a “Nixon”, not related to the former President, running from the “heartland”, the state of Missouri, which was always on the winning side of every election from 1900 to the present, except 1956, 2008, and 2012, but close in the first two years!
And of course, Hillary could decide, ultimately, NOT to run, and then it is a true donnybrook in the making for the Democrats in 2016!
Could there be a surprise in the Democratic Presidential sweepstakes? After 2008, who can say?
Now compare your list of possible Democratic candidates with the possible list of Republican candidates. Very scary indeed.
Hello Professor,
I know this is off topic but I have to pass thus on with the current phenomenon that Charter Schools are the answer to the National Educational system’s perceived crisis. A Blow Hard Republican mantle currently being propagated. Bottom line it’s about Teacher’s Union Busting.
There is a revelation exposure that most of the Charter Schools here in Ohio are failing miserable. Far below the public schools.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/07/15/19-charter-schools-to-be-investigated.html
Recent complaints have also surfaced of blatantly setting up black children for failure. Their silent means to purge this demographic segment from their schools.
This plus the direction of discouraging girls in subjects not traditionally associated with their gender.
The summation being is the total lack of professionalism from the staff of these Charter Schools are now being brought into question.
With this I becane a big Elizabeth Warren Fan!! What she is saying rings true to me.
Elizabeth Warren speaks Friday at Netroots Nation’s annual gathering.
By BETH REINHARD
DETROIT—At Netroots Nation, the country’s largest gathering of liberal activists, people like to say they belong to the “Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party.”
The Massachusetts senator received a rock-star reception here Friday, a sign of her power to rally the party’s left flank at a time when Democrats are starting to look toward the post-Obama era.
“The game is rigged, and the rich and the powerful have lobbyists and lawyers and plenty of friends in Congress. Everybody else, not so much,” Ms. Warren told a roaring crowd of hundreds of people. “We can whine about it. We can whimper about it. Or, we can fight back. I’m fighting.”
While Ms. Warren says she isn’t running for president, many who are energized by her populist message on financial regulation, entitlement programs and other issues believe she can help push whomever is the party’s nominee—presumed right now to be Hillary Clinton—to the left.
Many at Netroots Nation criticize Mrs. Clinton, the former secretary of state, for being too close to Wall Street and too distant from the Democrats’ liberal base. Adam Green, the founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has raised $1 million for liberal candidates in 2014, said his group will be pressuring Democrats running for president to adopt Ms. Warren’s agenda.
Mrs. Clinton’s allies say they are confident progressive activists will rally around the candidate they view as their best hope for holding the White House for a third consecutive term.
“The No. 1 thing that could happen that would be helpful is for Democrats to be united and focus on our message on helping the middle class, and I think Hillary would be great at doing it,” said New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who addressed the Netroots conference Thursday.
With Mrs. Clinton’s intentions still undeclared, a new group called “Ready for Warren” is trying to build momentum for a Warren presidential campaign. Its members were handing out bumper stickers, placards and faux straw hats before her speech Friday.
Should Ms. Warren run for higher office, her organizational muscle and fundraising prowess would still be hard-pressed to compete with the Clinton machine. Alicia Barnes, a Democratic activist from Maine attending the conference, was eager to hear Ms. Warren’s speech but added that as far as 2016, “It’s Hillary’s time.”
For Ms. Warren, a bespectacled 65-year-old in sensible shoes, her influence comes in part from taking her message beyond liberal enclaves of her party. She has become one of the hottest tickets on the Democratic campaign circuit, drawing crowds even in Republican-leaning Kentucky and West Virginia, where she has stumped in recent weeks for Democratic Senate candidates who are keeping their distance from President Barack Obama, whose popularity has declined in polls. Overall, Ms. Warren has pulled in more than $2.6 million so far in this election cycle for congressional and gubernatorial candidates.
A sign of her rising influence: Republicans are increasingly mounting the kind of attacks on her typically reserved for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Democrats’ House and Senate leaders. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican Senate candidate in West Virginia, put out a statement this past week in which South Dakota John Thune called Ms. Warren “a champion of President Obama’s extreme liberal agenda.”
On Friday, the Republican super PAC America Rising was promoting an online petition, saying “America can’t afford Elizabeth Warren in the White House.”
Within the Democratic Party, liberals are looking to Ms. Warren for direction. Though Ms. Warren is liberal on social issues and supports the Affordable Care Act, she’s also a critic of government, railing that student-loan recipients have been gouged and that Wall Street abuses have gone unpunished.
“She’s fulfilling the role of the moral conscience of the party,” said Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau. “If I was the Democratic nominee in 2016, it would be foolish not to find a way to use her.”
Indeed, some in the party are eager for Ms. Warren to help their campaigns. A self-described daughter of a janitor who put herself through school and made it to the U.S. Senate, Ms. Warren has appeared with Democratic Senate candidates in economically struggling Republican-leaning states, among them Natalie Tennant in West Virginia and Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky.
“There’s a lot of ordinary people in these states who feel like they’ve been screwed, and she’s willing to take on issues even some Democrats won’t,” said former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, whose 2004 campaign centered on his opposition to the war in Iraq.
Engineer, you have “jumped the gun” LOL on two issues that I will write about soon! LOL
The privatization of schools is not the answer, as it is not with prisons either.
Elizabeth Warren at NetRoots is dynamic and exciting!
Fred, you are absolutely correct that when one compares the GOP to the Democrats, it is literally terrifying what the Republicans have to offer!
Excellent post about why we need to every election, not just every 4 years: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/apathy-well-lose-2014-midterm-election/