It is either Hillary Clinton or a Republican as the next POTUS & this is why [View all]

[QuestionAlways]

First we must look at the numbers that describe the general political environment, which within elections are held, according to the Gallup polls: Source: Gallup.com

According to Gallup an average 43% of Americans identified politically as independents in 2014, Democrats hold a modest edge over Republicans in Party identification, 30% to 26%. When pressed, most independents will say they lean to one of the two major parties. For example, an average of 17% of Americans who initially identified as independents subsequently said they "leaned" Republican, 15% were independents who leaned Democratic, with the remaining 11% not expressing a leaning to either party. Since partisan leaners often share similar attitudes to those who identify with a party outright, the relative proportions of identifiers plus leaners gives a sense of the relative electoral strength of the two political parties. In 2014, an average 45% of Americans identified as Democrats or said they were Democratic-leaning independents, while 42% identified as Republicans or were Republican-leaning independents. With 13% being true independents who by their choices between parties determine who win elections. These voters, on the whole, do not follow politics closely and do not have a strong ideological foundation, so they tend to vote against something, as much as for something.

This would seem to bode well for any Democrat, but party identification does not tell the whole story , after all there are Liberal, Moderate, and Conservative Democrats. Where a voter falls on the political ideology spectrum is just as important, if not more so, in determining a person's vote.

Americans are more likely to identify as conservatives (38%) than as liberals (23%). But the conservative advantage is down to 15 percentage points as liberal identification has edged up. When Gallup began asking about ideological identification in 1992, an average 17% of Americans said they were liberal.

The rise in liberal identification has been accompanied by a decline in moderate identification. At 34% in 2013, it is the lowest Gallup has measured, and down nine points since 1992. Since 2009, conservatives have consistently been the largest U.S. ideological group. The percentage of conservatives has always far exceeded the percentage of liberals, by as much as 22 points in 1996.

Democrats are increasingly likely to Identify as Liberal. Currently, 43% of Democrats say they are liberal, a nearly 50% increase from 29% in 2000. Over the same period, the percentage of Democrats identifying as moderate is down to 36% from 44%, and conservative Democrat identification is down to 19% from 25%. These changes are a telling indicator of the shift in the Democratic Party, from a party that was more ideologically diverse to one that is increasingly dominated by those from the left end of the ideological spectrum.

In fact, the rise in liberal identification among all Americans is due exclusively to the changes among Democrats. Independents are no more likely now than in the past to describe their political views as liberal. The main change in independents' views is that they increasingly call themselves conservative. That could be related to recent developments in party identification, with fewer Americans now identifying as Republicans and more as independents. Thus, the change in independents' ideological preferences may be attributable to former Republicans, who are more likely to be politically conservative, now residing in the independent category.

Americans' political views are undergoing unmistakable change, contributing to greater political polarization in the country. Now, the plurality of Democrats consider themselves to be politically liberal, whereas a decade ago, Democrats were most likely to say they were moderate.

Meanwhile, Republicans, who have always been overwhelmingly conservative, have become increasingly so. One manifestation of that may have been a series of primary election challenges for long-serving GOP members of Congress by candidates aligned with the Tea Party movement.

These data confirm the tendency for Americans who identify with the two major parties to be more ideologically homogeneous than was the case in the past, a tendency that appears to be matched by the increasing polarization between Democratic and Republican members of Congress.

According to CNN in 2008, the last presidential election without an incumbent, 70.4 million women cast ballots versus 60.7 million men.

Having set the stage, let us now look at the possible Democratic candidates:

Elizabeth Warren is not running. According to a friend who would know, she hates political campaigns and running for office. Each day that passes with no action on her part proves him right.

Bernie Sanders is a self-described Socialist, low information voters think of Russia

Joe Biden is described by the Media as having foot-in-mouth disease and would be effected by third term voter fatigue

Martin O'Malley's "rain tax" caused his hand-picked successor's surprise loss to a Republican. Will be called just another Tax and spend Democrat.

Jim Webb is very conservative on climate change and he also said Democrats could "Do a better job with white people." He has declared several months ago, but is having trouble rising money.

Andrew Cuomo has been buffeted by the recent corruption arrest of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and criticism from his controversial decision to scrap the panel investigating public corruption

Jerry Brown, I was on his staff for his first presidential campaign in 1976 against Carter, he recently had surgery for cancer and is not interested in running

Hillary Clinton is not perfect, but her views on economic and social issues are closer to the average Democrat, then are the views of any Republican. She will be attacked from the right for being weak on national defense, but the policies she recommended as SoS argue against that, and she has more foreign policy experience then any Republican. In the era of Citizen United, she can raise as much money as the Republicans and she will appoint center-left judges to the Supreme Court, rather then far right judges; so maybe Citizen United will be reversed. She will be the first woman POTUS, and this will attract female voters who may not be Democrats.

She will be a winner, and our next President