I argued in a column last week that, despite the conventional wisdom that Hillary Clinton is certain to run for president in 2016, there’s a decent chance—maybe 30 percent—that she won’t. …
The vast majority of the more than 4,200 comments that appeared on nationaljournal.com were anti-Clinton and among the most vitriolic that I have encountered in 28 years of column writing. It’s proof that no matter how polarizing President Obama has been, no matter how much many conservatives despise him, he has in no way displaced their deep-seated hatred for the Clintons. …
For either Clinton or Biden, the challenge is to make themselves, and their candidacies, more relevant to the future than to the past. The youngest voters in 2016 were 2 years old when Bill Clinton left office in 2000 and were not born when Biden first ran for president; indeed, many of their parents may not yet have been born when Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972. Having elected, and reelected, Obama, himself a member of Generation X, the 2016 electorate poses a significant problem for any potential candidate. CONT.
Charlie Cook