The Media’s 2016 Presidential Fantasies

[arely staircase]

Political journalists are dreaming of a contest that’s just not there.

The professional left doesn’t know how to win. Scheiber quotes the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, who says Clinton’s support from the financial industry could hurt her and “there’s very much a wait-and-see approach to Hillary among progressives.” And the PCCC should know, having co-branded itself with Warren with all the subtlety of a NASCAR driver showing off a new endorsement badge. The PCCC regularly asks supporters to stand with Warren on her new bank regulations; it sent members the senator’s response to the last State of the Union under the headline “Elizabeth Warren SOTU Awesomeness.”


The PCCC also endorses progressives against Democratic establishment candidates—and here, it doesn’t do so well. In the 2012 House race cycle, the PCCC endorsed against California’s Scott Peters, Connecticut’s Elizabeth Esty, and Illinois’ Brad Schneider. All of those Democrats won their primaries. This year the PCCC tried and failed to draft Montana’s former Gov. Brian Schweitzer into a Senate race, then endorsed a candidate for an open seat in Warren’s own Massachusetts. The PCCC’s candidate came in third place. The winner, Katherine Clark, was endorsed by the pro-female PAC Emily’s List.* And Emily’s List is now holding events in primary states, letting reporters know that it will repeat its 2008 endorsement if Hillary Clinton runs.


The point isn’t just that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic front-runner. No one doubts that; everyone’s a little bored by that. The point is that it’s risky, weak strategy to make a presidential primary the test kitchen for policy change. Conservatives learned this brutally in 1972 when they urged Ohio Rep. John Ashbrook to run against Richard Nixon. “What I fear is a dissipation of our strength,” wrote William F. Buckley to a friend. He was perceptive: Ashbrook won a wan 9.7 percent of the New Hampshire vote, and Nixon was emboldened to ignore the right.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/11/elizabeth_warren_hillary_clinton_and_2016_speculation_media_is_applying.html