New York Times (Upshot)
By Nate Cohn
April 13, 2015
Hillary
Rodham Clinton has a better chance of winning her party’s nomination
without a serious contest than any nonincumbent in the modern era. If
that happens, she will
be lucky to avoid the fight. Most of the concerns about an unopposed
Clinton candidacy are overstated, and there are big reasons she will
benefit from running unopposed in the presidential primary.
Vigorous
primary campaigns do tend to make fundamentally sound candidates
stronger. They provide an opportunity for candidates to refine their
messages, raise money, register
voters, build organizations and gain additional valuable experience.
Barack Obama, who had few weaknesses but little experience, was served
exceptionally well by the 2008 Democratic primaries.
But
primary campaigns tend to expose the flaws of fundamentally weak
candidates. Take Mitt Romney, who was tarred as a flip-flopper in 2012
and forced to move to the right
on immigration and other issues. Establishment Republicans blamed the
primary debates and have since moved to reassert control over the
process. But the debates weren’t the problem; Mitt Romney was. He had
changed his positions on a number of crucial issues,
and when he was governor of Massachusetts, he had overseen the creation
of a health care plan similar to the Affordable Care Act. All this was
bound to be examined in a competitive primary campaign, regardless of
how many debates were sanctioned by the Republican
National Committee.
The
primary had an obvious and negative effect on public views of Mr.
Romney. His unfavorable ratings surged to around 50 percent and never
recovered. His favorable ratings
ultimately rose to meet his unfavorable ratings, mainly because
Republicans ultimately rallied behind him, but I’m nonetheless skeptical
of the position of my colleague Brendan Nyhan, who doesn’t think it
made much difference. At the very least, I’m sure the
Romney campaign would have preferred to start the general election with
an even favorability rating rather than one with a minus 10.
For
a candidate as strong as Mrs. Clinton, there are a lot of reasons many
liberal Democrats — and voters more generally — could have reservations
about her candidacy.
As ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis put it, “There is a sort of collective
amnesia” about Mrs. Clinton among Democrats, and particularly among
former Obama supporters, regarding their old “estimation of Mrs.
Clinton.” The concerns include foreign policy, ties to
Wall Street and the various reservations about her personal dealings,
revived by news about foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation and
her use of a personal email account and server while secretary of state.
Mr.
MacGillis argues that it would be better for Democrats to reckon with
their true feelings about Mrs. Clinton in the primary rather than in the
general election. That
may be true on matters of style — on the “hyper-cautious answers” or
“disingenuous” efforts to align herself with the moods of the moment
that Mr. MacGillis cites. But on the more substantive matters, a
credible and vigorous primary challenger would be the
single likeliest thing to increase Democratic dissatisfaction with her
candidacy. It would involve a full year of a liberal Democrat and allies
reminding liberal Democrats of all of the reasons they thought Mrs.
Clinton was a problematic candidate in the first
place.
Mrs.
Clinton has a good chance of fending off these charges with a unified
Democratic Party. Republicans won’t attack her for being overly hawkish
on national security,
and Democrats won’t countenance a Republican like Jeb Bush or Scott
Walker attacking Mrs. Clinton on her ties to Wall Street. Controversies
about the Clintons — like over the Clinton Foundation or her email
account — are far less likely to take hold if Democrats
defend her.
But
without a unified party, she could face recurring and resonant attacks
on all of those issues. Though it probably wouldn’t be as bad as what
Mr. Romney faced, it could
also be worse. After a year of being characterized as a Wall Street
hack, or a warmonger with low-grade corruption issues, Mrs. Clinton
could face a Ralph Nader-like third-party challenge, which generally
becomes likelier after a party has held the White House
for consecutive terms.
And
Mrs. Clinton is not the type of candidate who benefits most from a
primary campaign. She is not an inexperienced candidate who needs to be
vetted or to prove her ability
to handle a presidential campaign. The 2008 Democratic primary was as
intense and as long as most general election campaigns. Her experience
as first lady and secretary of state gives her additional national and
international political experience.
Her
total political experience entering the 2016 contest is probably more
akin to that of an incumbent president than anything else. Did
Presidents Obama or Bush or Clinton
struggle in the general elections in 2012, 2004 and 1996 because they
weren’t tested in the primaries? It may have hurt them a little bit in
the first debate. But incumbent presidents tend to fare pretty well in
presidential elections, and I don’t remember
too much talk about the trouble they faced getting back into playing
shape.
Perhaps
she’s rustier than most — it has been seven years since she last ran —
but it’s not as if Mrs. Clinton will be on the sidelines for the next
year. She’ll probably
engage and respond to her Republican opponents, she’ll hold events in
the early primary states, and she can debate the likes of Jim Webb and
Lincoln Chafee if her campaign thinks it’s useful practice for her. Back
in 2008, she was generally thought to be a
better debater than Mr. Obama, and she’ll have plenty of opportunities
over the next year and half to get back up to speed.
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