Casting the Ideal Challenger to Hillary Clinton [View all]

[Capt. Obvious]

Jim Webb, the former Democratic senator from Virginia, stirred the political pot this past week, saying he was considering a presidential run in 2016. Webb was a moderate when he was in the Senate, and he strikes a different ideological chord than other potential contenders that have been put forward as alternatives to Hillary Clinton, such as liberal stalwarts Howard Dean and Elizabeth Warren.

Political analysts seem to be using a 2008 template. That year, then-Sen. Barack Obama upset Clinton from the ideological left, going after her, for instance, on her Iraq War vote. But early polling suggests that a candidate fitting Webb’s profile may be more likely to give Clinton (should she run) the stronger challenge in the 2016 Democratic primary.

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Put it all together, and you start to get a picture of what a Clinton challenger might look like: probably male, moderate and anti-establishment.

Who matches that profile?

Webb, for one. He has been both a Democrat and Republican. Maybe Brian Schweitzer, the former Montana governor who mixes liberal and conservative positions and is not a fan of the Washington, D.C., establishment. A candidate like Joe Biden, who has been in Washington for over 40 years – probably not.

Meanwhile, more liberal candidates like Dean, Warren and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont match the anti-establishment part of the equation. They may, however, be too liberal to take advantage of Clinton’s “weakness” among moderate and conservative voters.

538

A hell of lot more number crunching and polls at link that an excerpt does not do justice to.