probably thinking about raiding our 401K s.
Posted on 11/06/2014 11:43:58 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Sure, it’s Paul Begala, but he’s not wrong — at least, not here. Even more amazing, Van Jones isn’t wrong either in saying that Democrats may need to look harder for anyone else who might still be on the bench. This is what three cycles of decline have produced for Democrats in the Barack Obama era (via Daniel Halper):
“If Hillary Clinton doesn’t run,” [CNN's Jake Tapper] asked, “who’s on the bench then?”
“No one,” said Begala. “No one. My party–it’s not fair, there are impressive people, that I think could be good presidents, but don’t have I think the electoral prospects that Hillary does.”
Begala once wrote a book, Third Term, arguing that John McCain’s presidential run was doomed from the start because of the hangover of George W. Bush’s unpopularity. Begala goes on in this clip to argue that Hillary Clinton’s candidacy would be different because Obama won’t be as unpopular as Bush was at the end of his term, based on … nothing at all, actually. Obama is on the same arc as Bush, but lacks any of Bush’s political skills except during campaigns. Obama’s entire presidency can be charted as declines in voter approval with a single, sustained spike during the re-election bid. With Republicans in control of Capitol Hill and a war going much worse for Obama than it was for Bush, good luck with that assumption.
Van Jones throws even more cold water on Begala’s premise by noting that Hillary will actually excite the base even less than Obama did in this cycle. She’s too close to Obama — McCain, at least, hadn’t served on Bush’s Cabinet — and isn’t any better at retail politicking than McCain either. Jones suggests that Elizabeth Warren is the one bench candidate who can do the job, but that’s a measure of how cocooned progressive analysts have become. Voters just swept Democrats out of office in favor of Republicans, and the answer is someone even more radically to the Left than Obama? If anything, it just demonstrates how few options Democrats have in 2016.
Begala and Jones aren’t the only ones noticing the failure, either. Two wipeouts in four years have left Democrats with lmost no farm team with which to work, Politico points out:
After the Republican waves of 2010 and 2014, the party is depleted not just in its major-league talent, but also in its triple-A recruitment prospects. It amounts to a setback, Democrats say, that will almost certainly require more than one election cycle to repair.
At the start of the 2014 campaign, Democrats envisioned an election that would produce new national stars for the party in at least a few tough states – Georgia Sen. Michelle Nunn or Kentucky Sen. Alison Lundergan Grimes, for instance, or maybe even Texas Gov. Wendy Davis. Even if the party fell short in those “reach” states, Democrats hoped to produce new heavyweight blue-state Democrats – Maryland Gov. Anthony Brown, the country’s only black state executive; or Maine Gov. Mike Michaud, who would have been the first openly gay candidate elected governor.
Any of them could have landed on a vice presidential short list in 2016.
Instead, all of them lost.
Joining them were numerous down-ballot Democrats widely viewed as future contenders for high office: attorney general candidates in Nevada and Arizona who looked like future governors; aspiring state treasurers in Ohio and Colorado who could have gone on to bigger things; prized secretary of state candidates in Iowa and Kansas as well as countless congressional hopefuls around the country.
I made the same point yesterday, arguing that the gubernatorial and state dynamics of the Republican wave had enormous consequences for Democrats:
While the Democrats’ bench largely consists of Beltway figures and retreads like Hillary Clinton, Republicans are grooming talent in the states. Their performance in state legislatures make it clear that their advantage in the “farm system” will continue, too …
This is a recipe for a long-term arc that returns the GOP to dominance. Especially in a populist environment where connections to Washington are considered baggage rather than assets, the GOP has greater opportunities to outpace Democrats on development of presidential contenders through the ranks of the governors for the next generation.
Republicans may surf this wave for a long time to come.
In the meantime, this may be the Democrats’ only argument in the primaries for 2016:
geesh....they thought he would FAIL and when he got so strong, they couldn’t do him in because he’s BLACK and the blacks would never forgive them if the Clintons exposed that he was NOT BORN in the US!!! They KNOW where he’s born, that’s why Hillary got to be SofS.
As bad as Hillary looks as a candidate, I have a great fear about the women voters in this country. She is, of course, the smartest person on this planet.
probably thinking about raiding our 401K s.
Not bad.
Begala is 100% pure scum.
Paul Begala suffers not only because he lacks critical thinking, he lacks much of any thinking at all.
Maybe Herself, Madame Benghazi, the Cold & Joyless is the only one upon all the vast landscape of the Left that Begala can see. But that does not mean that Herself would not be shouldered aside again in 2016 just like what happened in 2008, when a bright new hot meteor appeared in the sky and completely swamped the formerly bright star.
That star is still tarnished. Herself did not help prospects by being probably one of the least effective persons to have ever served as Secretary of State. Herself remained adamantly (and probably willfully) blind to the growth of dangerous trends, and initiated some poorly considered initiatives in the Middle East, almost all of which have come back to bite the territory once known as “the United States of America” squarely in the gluteus maximus.
There is still time to rebuild that abstraction that is the embodiment of “the American ideal”. But Herself is clearly not anybody who should be on that committee.
I can’t help but wonder if Hilary is more of a media created icon rather than anything with much of a real following.
She was supposed to be the inevitable candidate in 2008, and her own party immediately abandoned her for a newcomer.
Now, in 2016, it’ll be nearly 16 years since the Clinton Presidency. Not many millennials are going to remember her.
She was already getting aged and frumpy back in 2008, now add on 8 more years.
She’s not warm like her husband or GW Bush. She’s not good at reading a teleprompter.
I bet if some other woman like that fake Indian from MA ran, the democrats would dump her again.
They don’t have a deep bench.
Hillary is shrill and vapid - no one likes her and she has no political star power.
All the candidates she campaigned for and endorsed lost Tuesday night. That is telling.
If she’s the best the Democrats have on offer for 2016, they are in deep trouble.
may she have a stroke
I think Leon Panetta will make a run and would be a semi-reasonable candidate for them. His remarks about ISIS and the wars have been sensible and he has distanced himself from zero with his book. He’s had many different positions within the top levels of government and seems much less of an ideology than hildebeast.
I enthusiastically support Paul Begala in his assertion. Go hillary!
Oh, my goodness! Another fabulous candidate! How did I forget about Joseph Robinette Biden?
I think it will be Fauxahontas. The dems will react to this the way all communists do when there is external defeat and internal disarray:
It’s time for a Purge! Only the “true communists” will remain. And Fauxahontas has the pedigree.
All of the “old guard” will be swept away, and that includes Hillary. She’s too old and worn out. The real handlers of hte democrat party, won’t back her. Kerry ran once and lost, so he’s out. All the others are nobodies at this point. Fauxahontas is not well known, but she’s the type they will push.
Is it my imagination or aren’t the names “Hot Air” and “Paul Begala” synonymous?
Biden?
Fauxcohantus?
Shoot, they might even float Mark Warner.
The Dems have telegraphed that they will run a woman in 2016. They began by fielding high profile candidates in key Senate and Governor races: Davis, Grimes, Coakley, Nunn. The End.
I’ve noticed that my Dem friends are quick to defend Warren from any criticism. They even deny that she is wealthy.
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