Hillary can only benefit from a primary challenge

[Jim Lane]

26. All recent non-incumbent victors have emerged from contested nomination fights.

I had thought maybe one would have to go back to Eisenhower for a counterexample, but on checking I found that, despite his immense personal popularity, even he faced significant competition for the nomination from Taft.

JFK beat LBJ and others. Nixon beat Rockefeller and Reagan. Carter beat Udall, Jackson, and Brown. Reagan beat Bush, Baker, and Bob Dole. Bush41 beat Dole, Kemp, Haig, and du Pont. Clinton beat Harkin, Tsongas, Brown, and Kerrey. Bush43 beat McCain, Forbes, and Elizabeth Dole. Obama beat Clinton and Edwards. I've named some of the significant opponents to the eventual winner but these were the major ones that popped into my head, and there were others.

The point is that in every election in the modern era (marked by the predominance of primaries and caucuses rather than the roles of party bosses), the Presidency has gone either to the incumbent President or to someone who emerged as the victor from a fierce intra-party struggle. If Gore had become President in 2000, or if you apply the criterion of popular vote rather than being inaugurated, then that election might qualify as a counterexample, because Gore had disposed of Bradley so easily. All the other cases are clear, though, in that the winner faced a tougher nomination fight than did Gore in 2000.

This quadrennial fretting about the supposed ill effects of a nomination fight seems misguided.