The 2016 presidential marathon began this week with Hillary Clinton having a highly evident and heavily promoted lunch at the White House with President Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dealing a political blow to one of his potential rivals for the Republican nomination.
If there was any doubt about whether the former secretary of state planned to run for president, it was put to rest on Monday when Hillary and Obama had lunch on the patio outside the Oval Office.
White House photographer Chuck Kennedy took tete-a-tete photos that immediately spread around the world, sending a clear signal that the Clintons were preparing to reclaim the presidency. And maybe Obama was willing to lend a hand them with that.
Some of the president’s senior campaign advisers already worked for the former New York senator’s super PAC, Ready for Hillary. Mitch Stewart and Jeremy Bird, who managed Obama’s field operations in 2008 and 2012, have joined her PAC team.
The national news media also prepared to promote her candidacy well before the 2015–2016 presidential election cycle. Over the weekend, NBC announced that its entertainment division was working on a miniseries about her political and personal life.
CNN – long known as the Clinton News Network – announced that it has hired a top documentary director to produce a feature-length film about Clinton’s political career. Talk about friends in high places.
The White House described the lunch as “mostly social” and consisting only of two friends “to have a chance to catch up.” But it was much more than that. Has Obama sent an early signal that he intends to support Clinton in three and a half years?
There were signs that he had done so. The biggest development came earlier this month when Obama’s chief campaign strategist and closest political adviser, David Axelrod, appeared to support her nomination during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“I think Hillary Clinton will probably be the nominee,” Axelrod said.
Vice President Joe Biden is said to be considering a run for the top job himself. However, there seemed to be relatively little support within the party hierarchy for the former senator from Delaware (known for putting his foot in his mouth), whose 2008 presidential bid failed, was relatively low.
Clinton and Biden also quietly met this week at the vice president’s official residence for breakfast. Had she told him about her plans to escape? Probably.
Clinton has made many speeches around the country and talked coyly about her future plans, but the real political question about her candidacy is where will she run?
She was appointed Secretary of State without any solemn foreign policy qualifications and achieved no diplomatic successes throughout her four-year term. When she left office, the Middle East was a war zone and problems with Russia, China and Iran were greater than ever. The administration’s relationship with Israel has been frosty at best.
And what does it say about the last six years of a faint, jobless economy? She was part of the Obama clique that defended her or looked the other way.
Insiders say she has her own views on economic policy but has so far been unwilling to address the biggest failure of Obama’s presidency.
Meanwhile, there is a enormous and growing group of potential Republican Party candidates who believe that most voters will be fed up with this administration and big-spending Democrats in 2016.
This looks set to be the strongest GOP group in years, including top governors and former governors from key electoral states, as well as several freshman senators who already enjoy significant party support.
Governor Christie, a tough-talking political heavyweight who is heading for re-election in November in heavily Democratic New Jersey, dealt the first blow to the GOP lottery this week.
Concerned by the enormous number of House Republicans – 40 percent of GOP conference attendees – who voted to limit the way the National Security Agency tracks phone records to combat terror plots against the US, Christie lashed out at libertarians. He didn’t mention any names, but Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the president’s potential rival, is one of the NSA’s harshest critics.
Speaking as a “former prosecutor appointed by President George W. Bush” on the eve of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Christie said: “I just want us to be really careful because this brand of libertarianism that’s coming through I think finding making headlines is a very perilous thought.”
Christie’s remark was not aimed directly at Paul, but was also intended to highlight his already early position as a forceful defense hawk in the vein of Ronald Reagan in an era of growing terrorist threats to the American homeland.
Christie’s rising star in the Republican Party comes at a time when the party is looking for a fearless, no-nonsense leader who won’t attack. His popularity cuts across party lines, yet he is one of the most sought-after speakers in the Republican Party. And he is clearly starting in 2016.
Other GOP governors are weighing their chances at a time when Americans may be eager to replace Obama with someone who isn’t a gigantic spender for Washington.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has slashed the state’s budget and healed the economy, is currently ranking high in the polls. If he wins re-election in 2014, he will be a forceful candidate in a key state that Republicans must win if they want to regain the White House.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker became a conservative hero by fighting the state’s powerful public employee unions, overcoming an election recall and limiting the size and costs of government. If he wins re-election next year, which now seems likely, he has bigger ambitions.
Several freshman senators also top the presidential ticket, including Marco Rubio of Florida, another battleground state, Rand Paul, who appeals to a enormous bloc of libertarian voters who have given the GOP a much-needed dose of novel energy, and Ted Cruz of Texas , who earned rave reviews for his speaking tour of Iowa two weeks ago.
But 2016 may turn out to be the year of the outsider. Of the last 10 presidential elections, seven winners have become governors.
When America gets into trouble, voters start looking for a proven CEO who doesn’t need any job training.
