The second GOP debate was the one thing I thought it would never be: boring. The consensus is that Carly Fiorina won and it certainly seems like this format plays to her strength. She is likely to gain some steam and stay near the first tier going forward. The other semi-important development was that Scott Walker did nothing to help himself. He is beginning to look like he is in over his head.
The one truly disturbing moment came when Donald Trump was asked about his anti-vaccination stances. He clearly rehearsed for this moment and managed to answer the question in a way that would sound less than bat shit crazy to anyone who is completely unaware of the science. And then it got worse. Dr. Ben Carson and Dr. Rand Paul, two men with decades of experience as doctors responded to him by suggesting there was something wrong with the vaccination schedule. This is not just stupid, it's very dangerous. A lot of people had their anti-vax views validated by no fewer than three presidential candidates. That was disgusting.
Speaking of boring, the Democrats.
There have been only two stories on the Democratic side: Hillary Clinton's emails and occasional speculation about who else might join the field.
A. Hillary' Emails.
I haven't watched the McLaughlin group with any regularity since Hillary was First Lady but I will frame the subject as the moderator of that show might: On a scale of 0 to ten, zero being no scandal at all, 10 being a metaphysical certain death of her campaign, how you would rate the e-mail scandal? At this time Mort and Freddie the Beetle Barnes would say 8 or 9, Jack Germond would say 2 and Eleanor Clift would say zero.
I'll go with four. It's still not clear to me if any real damage was done by her decision to not use a .gov e-mail address but it is clear that her judgment was poor. If nothing else, she saddle her candidacy with a monstrous distraction. The degree of this distraction seems worse because all of the energy this cycle has been on the Republican side. The impact on her polling numbers has also been lasting because people are simply sick of both Clintons and Bushes.
B. Whither Biden?.
Forecasting the Democratic race is boring because Hillary is and remains a prohibitive favorite to be the nominee. I don't think even Bernie Sanders would bet on himself to give an acceptance speech in Philadelphia next July. Handicapping the race has been made even more difficult by the continued practice of every major pollster to include Vice-President Biden in the field. Biden has been averaging about 15 percent in the polls that include him. In Iowa and New Hampshire that amount is greater than the gap between Secretary Clinton and Senator Sanders. It's also roughly equal to the combined polling numbers on the Republican Side of Scott Walker, Jeb! Bush and Marco Rubio. That's more than enough to distort the state of the race for a candidate unlikely to enter the field.
It's true that he has begun kicking the tires on a run but he's not in any great hurry to actually enter the fray. More problematic for him as a candidate is that there are simply very few policy differences between he and the front-runner. The only one that comes to mind is that he was against authorizing the raid that led to the death of Osama bin-Laden, a point that will be made endlessly during any primary against Clinton and in the general election against any Republican who can fog a mirror.
Yes, he has some great intangibles. He's well-liked and very experienced. He has both an ironic hipster appeal and foreign-relations bona fides that go all the way back to the Cold War. But he's also past his prime and better suited for his current role than for being the leader of the free world, although we'd trust him to assume that role in a pinch. His status reminds me of a sports cliche: the most popular guy in town is the backup quarterback.
But Hillary's weakness as a candidate is real. If she wasn't a weak candidate, than Vice-President Obama would be rehearsing for his first debate against Senator Booker and a field of also-rans. So we have to acknowledge the possibility that she will not sweep Iowa and New Hampshire. If she splits them, she'll probably still look strong headed to South Carolina. But if she loses both, the party bigwigs and the Silicon Valley donor class will look elsewhere. The only person that could raise the right amount of money and be treated seriously by both the establishment and the lefties is Elizabeth Warren. So yes, I'm including her in the forecast.
Where they stand:
Hillary still has the institutional support of all the right people. She has a ton of money and there is zero chance that she will go gracefully. In June I said her odds of being the nominee were "comfortably over 95%" and I didn't attach a specific number to any other candidate. That has changed, but only slightly.
Note: I used 95+ for more than 95% and -1 for less than 1% because < and > screwed up the HTML.
Candidate. November 2014 June 2015 September 2015
Hillary Clinton 70 95+ 83
Bernie Sanders n/a -1 5
Jim Webb 10 -1 1
Lincoln Chafee n/a -1 1
Martin O'Malley 1 -1 1
Unannounced
Elizabeth Warren 12 n/a 5
Joe Biden 5 n/a 3
The Field -1 -1 2
And yes, my preferred candidate is still Lincoln Chafee. And yes, he's the only one listed with a less than 1 percent chance to win. He is moderate, centrist, even-tempered and reasonable. Just does not feel like the the year for any candidate with those attributes. Webb and O'Malley each get one percent because they are in the field and I can imagine things going to shit in a way that it falls into their lap. Webb's scenario would have to involve some kind of horrific war breaking out. O'Malley's would be something health-related forces Hillary to drop out and then he manages to eke out a plurality primary win in a multi-candidate field. You know, just like Carcetti did in Season 3 of the Wire.
So the race is still Hillary's to lose. But unlike three months ago, I can now imagine a plausible scenario for that to happen. I will get on that general election preview soon.
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