Year: 2015

A new Bloomberg National poll finds that 72% of Democrats and independents said it would be a good thing for the Democratic Party if Hillary Clinton were to face a “serious” challenger for the presidential nomination. Well, it seems that she will have at least three challengers. Whether they are serious depends on three things: 1) Hillary's performance; 2) the voters; and 3) the challengers themselves. Remember, Hillary is riding high in the polls not because of some accident. The Democratic base overwhelmingly wants her to be their nominee, while, contrarily, they want a serious challenge for her. This is probably because a serious contested and drawn out battle between Obama and Clinton in 2008 strengthen Obama and prepared him for McCain in the fall. Well, there is no Obama on the scene, and the conditions are not there for an Obama to emerge this time to challenge Clinton.

Roger Simon: "There is a poison pill inside the Republican Party and if its presidential hopefuls keep swallowing it, they are going to choke off their chances for the White House. The religious right has managed to convince some potential candidates that it is extremely powerful. It has convinced the more gullible ones that they must grovel, kowtow and genuflect before it. This is nonsense. As I have written before, the religious right has not gotten the nominee it has wanted since Ronald Reagan. It is a paper tiger. And by taking the poison pill that the religious right offers, the potential candidates risk alienating the rest of the nation." But that's not what the right wing is saying. They are telling this frightened cowards of candidates that they cannot ever hope to win without them. On Monday, Iowa’s Steve Deace was talking to the Family Leader’s Bob Vander Plaats about the necessity of opposing marriage equality. Vander Plaats, who has previously said that “You cannot run away from the heart of God and expect God to bless the country,” told Deace that Republicans are hurting their election chances by not standing firmly enough against gay rights. Vander Plaats insisted of Republicans that “They’ll never win again without this base.” Has the base not been with the GOP in 2008 and 2012? The religious right loved Sarah Palin and they turned out for her, and she and they got destroyed in a massive landslide for Barack Obama. The religious right was with Mitt Romney because they wanted to get rid of Obama in 2012. They all believed, seriously believed, that Romney would win and they were devastated when he did not. I always love this instantly revisionist denial that Republicans and conservatives go through when they lose. I guarantee you that when GOP Nominee Ted Cruz loses 49 states to Hillary, the religious right will say he was not conservative enough and that is why he did not win.