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Hillary Clinton is not the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee. Clinton was not the inevitable nominee in 2008, and she is not inevitable in 2016 either. Of course, this really isn't new or surprising, because nothing in politics is ever inevitable, really. Elections are always about as "evitable" as one can imagine.
That sub-headline may take the prize for the most bizarre we've ever offered up, although it'd have to beat the current champion -- which is, of course: "The Corpse-Like Stench Of Washington's Giant Misshapen Penis." That's pretty tough to beat, if truth be told.
After a fairly consistent (if not great) run in the polls for the first ten months of 2015, President Barack Obama finished the year on a decidedly downward slope. While the gains he made at the start of the year haven't completely eroded back to where he spent most of 2014, if Obama doesn't reverse the trend soon he could be looking at similar numbers within the next few months. This trend is clearly visible in the new chart for December.
From the wires today comes a short story about Senator Marco Rubio being asked about his missed votes in the Senate. His answer? Congress can't change much anyway. "We're not going to fix America with senators and congressmen -- presidents set the public policy agenda." This begs another question: Why are taxpayers still paying Rubio to not do his job? If Rubio had the strength of his own convictions, he would quit his Senate seat and concentrate on his bid for the Oval Office. That way he could be replaced by someone who has more interest in actually performing the duties of the office.
Once again, it's been a month since I last took a look at the Republican presidential field as a whole, and in the intervening time two further candidates have dropped out, bringing the total to an almost-manageable 12 candidates (11 if you don't count Jim Gilmore... and at this point, many don't). Even an even dozen, though, is better than trying to keep track of 17 of these folks.
That's a fairly depressing headline to wind up 2015, I fully realize. However, I've been noticing that Democrats -- all the way up to and including Hillary Clinton herself -- seem to be awfully complacent about the possible outcomes of next year's presidential race. This could be dangerous, because nothing in politics is ever written in stone, and this election cycle has been more unpredictable than most already. While most people inside the Beltway are slowly wrapping their minds around the concept that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination, the conventional wisdom is that if the race boils down to Trump versus Clinton, the foregone conclusion will be Hillary handily defeating The Donald in the general election.
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
Today's article has two separate and unrelated parts, I should begin by saying. The first looks at the Republican presidential nomination race, and the second concerns Hillary Clinton and foreign policy. It's impossible to provide any smooth linkage or segue between the two (as the strange headline to this article pretty much proves), so I thought I'd point this out before I begin.
Welcome to our year-end awards columns!
It's that time of year when Congress actually gets things done, so they don't have to work through the holidays. This is always a powerful incentive, and this year is no different. Paul Ryan actually bargained with Democrats instead of following the hotheads in his party into another government shutdown, which bodes well for the future of the House of Representatives (and America at large). But, as with all big omnibus budget bills, this means all kinds of unrelated issues -- from health care for 9/11 first responders to whether we export oil or not -- are tossed into the giant, must-pass bill. And along with the wave of other single-issue items came some good news for marijuana legal reformers.