The speculation over Hillary Clinton's entry in the 2016 presidential race continues to escalate. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
You have to wonder if there's already a committee planning
Hillary Clinton's presidential inauguration festivities for 20 January 2017. According to the political rumor mill, she's not only running, she's unbeatable.
In the past month alone, a "grassroots" movement
readyforhillary.com has started a natianal finance council and selling T-shirts and other campaign basics. Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri has
formally endorsed Clinton, calling her the "best to lead this country forward". And House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California all but endorsed Clinton for president in
an interview with USA Today last week, saying she would definitely win if she ran. Nevermind that the election is over three years away.
When Clinton
joined Twitter in mid-June, she might as well have made her candidacy official. BuzzFeed Politics called it a
clear move to appeal to young voters, her biggest weakness from her last campaign. She already has over 578,000 followers. That may seem small for a celebrity, but keep in mind that she's only made seven tweets thus far.
As fun as the Hillary speculation is, it comes with a myriad of problems. First and foremost, any political frontrunner gets pummeled. For all the supporters she's getting, there are also
websites in place such as StopHillary2016.org. Attacks will mount. And certainly Hillary herself has reason to dislike being the clear favorite considering the last time this happened in 2008, a relative newcomer to the national stage,
Barack Obama, beat her to win the democratic nod.
Speaking of Obama, an even bigger issue for the Democratic party is that Obama is still president. It's as if people are already writing him off as he struggles with scandals and to get anything accomplished. Instead of dealing with the problems that confront the nation today, including a huge debate over
security versus personal liberties, it's easier to play fantasy president 2016.
It's almost like the fantasy baseball or football teams people put together where they mix and match their favorite players from different teams. In politics, it seems, you take Hillary, add in the best of her husband's presidential term (especially the economic surge and balanced budgets), and a bit more of what you think a good Democrat today needs (be more progressive, more pro-gay, more pro-women, better international figure) and then throw in a dash of your favorite leaders of all time (Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, etc) and voilà, you have Hillary 2016.
The problem is the reality check will inevitably come. Just ask Obama.
While it's difficult to believe right now as president
struggles to get his approval rating back to 50%, when he took office in January 2009, his approval rating was nearly 70%. Who can forget the
words of the Obama's first social secretary Desiree Rogers:
"We have the best brand on Earth: the Obama brand. Our possibilities are endless"
Yet only a few months later, "Obama mania" was already fading. An
Economist column about the "Obama cult" in 2009 reminded giddy Americans that what goes up most come down:
"All presidential candidates promise more than they can possibly deliver. This sets them up for failure. But because the Obama cult has stoked expectations among its devotees to such unprecedented heights, he is especially likely to disappoint."
The mania was not going to last.
The same will be true for Hillary Clinton if she is elected president (or simply gets the Democratic nomination). She will not be able to be all things to all people. The fantasy that some are building her up to be will not hold, similar to what has happened to Obama. And yes, there will be extra scrutiny on her and an extra burden if she's the first female president, much like there has been added expectation of the role of the first black president.
If America's learned anything since 2008, it appears to be that a few more people wish they had voted for Hillary Clinton and her experience instead of Obama in the primaries. But a far better lesson would be 1) not to build candidates up so much that they become caricatures and 2) for each party's best and brightest to focus more on governing than election engineering.
What a shame that the serious policy debates facing America intrigue the nation less than the "reality show" of the campaign trail (or, better said, the pre-campaign trail).
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