A Fairly Confident Prediction of a Pretty Modest Success

I am moderately optimistic about the Democrats' prospects in tomorrow's midterm elections. I think it is likely that they will win back the House of Representatives. I do not expctu change in the senate but they are more likely to loose one or two seats (net) than to win the 2 that they would need to control that chamber. They will also win a lot of important governor's races, take control of various state legislatures and pass some important statewide referenda. But I do not anticipate a true wave elections.  I think the story on election even is that both bases are energives and will turn out in large numbers.  I think that genuine swing voters will favor the Democrats but not in overwhelming numers like they did in 2006. 

POSSIBLE REPORT CARDS.

I will make specific predictions in races below. But I think it's helpful to think of what the narrative will be on Wednesday morning. How will the Democrats gains be judged?  There are a lot of moving parts here, with 435 house races, 34 senate races and thousands of state and local elections. But the story will be driven by who controls congress and by what margin.  A handful of governor's races will also get national coverage, and they might be thought of as tie breakers for how to grade the night. Here are a few broad scenarios by which the night can be assessed after the votes are counted. 

F Scencarios.  The Democrats most important goal is to win control of at least one house of congress. That means the party will have subpoena power and the ability to introduce legislation and provide meaningful insight of the Trump administration. If the Democrats don't win either the House or Senate tomorrow, they deserve an F grade. (And the country will be F'd in our own way for the next 24 months.)

D Scenarios.  If the Democrats win one house but underperform in the other, then they have done the bare minimum to stay relevant to government. The most likely D scenario is a gain of 25 seats, giving them a razor-thin margin in the House, but they lose several of their senate seats and don't pick up any GOP seats.  So about 221 in the house and 46 or 47 in the Senate. Awful, but not technically a complete failure.

C Scenarios.  If the Dems win at least 30 seats and don't lose more than one senate seat (net), they will get a gentleman's C. (C+ if they do well in the governor's race.)

B Scenarios.  A lot of the advanced analytics types have the most likely outcome for the Dems being about +37 in the House and -1 in the senate.  I think that's a solid B. (B+ if they hold even in the senate.)

A Scenarios.  So what makes a wave? The biggest recent was the 2010 Tea Party election when the Dems lost 63 seats. But they started that year with 256. The GOP only has 241 at the moment. So +48 would match that end result. I think anything over 40 would be a wave and it probably means picking up at least one senate seat.  So let's call this 235 in the House and a 50/50 Senate.

A+ Scenario:  This is easy-the House by more than a handful of seats and the Senate. But to really earn the +, we'd have to see some really awful Republicans lose. It's not an A+night if Ted Cruz is re-elected. Beating Steve King or Dan Rohrbacher would be nice cherries on top too. Stace Abrams winning in Georgia would also be a profound outcome for the party

SENATE FORECAST

The good people at 538.com have crunched the numbers and the most likely outcome is the Dems losing one seat, net. I tend to agree with that but my individual forecasts are a little more gut and gumption than arithmatic. There are 11 races that I think will determine the senate, and this is my non-scientific expectation of how they will go.

A.  One Likely Loss. The Dems will lose North Dakota. It's not a done deal, but I think they can only win in a wave.

B.  Two True Toss-ups. The Dems will split Missouri and Florida.  Nate Silver's numbers have them both leaning Dem but I think that's a tough two-fer. Nelson in Florida has better numbers, so if I had to guess that's the one we keep. But I will never, ever trust Florida in an election. So let's call it a split.

C. Three Lean Democrats.  The Dems will take 2 out of 3 among Indiana, Arizona and Nevada.  If it's a wave, they will sweep all three but I'm not that confident.  I think the Dems best chance here is Indiana but that's far from guaranteed. And they could win either race out west but my gut is saying split.

D. Long Shots. The first three outcomes would put the Dems down one seat, for a 52-48 senate. That's my best and official bet. But there are at least three states that could provide upsets: The Dems could lose Montana, but I don't think they will. They could put an upset in Tennessee but I think they will come about 3 points shy there. Texas is hard for me to judge because I so badly want Ted Cruz to lose. I think the party ID fundamentals help him but I think that will be a 2 point race. 

The Dems can pull an inside straight and win the senate.  I think the most likely path to that is keeping MO, FL and IN, picking up both NV & AZ and then winning a substantial upset in TN or TX. The odds of drawing anside straight are about 12 to one. That sounds about right.  Official Prediction: Dems lose one seat (net).

Note-Mississippi is almost certainly going to require a run-off election. But I think the Dems will have a tough time winning that, especially if the seat is decisive for control of the senate or even to force Pence to break a 50/50 tie. For tonight's purposes, I'm counting MS as an L. But we'll take that one up again on Wednesday.

HOUSE FORECAST

I'm a shade pessimistic relative to FiveThirtyEight and the other serious forecasters. I think Trump's people will show up because they think the economy is proof that they were right about him. They also like the fact that he's a dick and many of them are more than a little afraid of immigrants. I don't see the wave happening. But there should be enough suburban moderate districts that went Republican last time because the voters wanted a Republican House to be a check on President Hillary Clinton.  Official prediction: Dems gain 33 seats. 

GOVERNORS FORECAST

The Democrats will take back a lot of governor's mansions that they nevers hould have lost. Illinois is the most obvious. Michigan will also follow suit. So should Wisconsin, which will be an especially sweet result. I think Florida looks good.  I also think the Democrats will win the Kansas race but Kansas has broken my heart before. Georgia and Ohio are going to be very close. Just like the MO and FL senate races, I expect a split but I'm not sure which way. If the Dems win both, then this is a wave election.  

Official Prediction: Dems gain 8 states. (But Republicans lose 7 becaue they will win AK, which currently has an independent governor.)

THE AIRING OF THE GRIEVEANCES, GREAT AND SMALL. 

These are the 10 results that I want the most and the percentage of likelihood I assign for each.

1. A Democratic House (75%)

2. Ted Cruz losing to Beo O'Rourke  (22%)

3. Stacey Abrams winning the GA governor's race. (48%)

4. Kris Kloubach losing the Kansas governor's race. (52%)

5. Steve King losing Iowa 4th  (30%)

6. Devin Nunes losing his seat in California 22nd. (10%)

7. Restoration of felony voting rights in Florida (61%)

8. Andrew Gillum winning FL governor's race. (55%)

9. Scott Walker losing WI governor's race. (70%)

10. Claire McCaskill winning MO senate race.(49%)

There you have it, folks. Nothing especially bold or daring.  I think the Dems will get the most important job done, but I don't think they will run up the score. The nation is still divided, but we have more to be pissed off about this time. Hopefully that nets a few senate upsets and we're having a party 24 hours from now. 

The Re-Election of Donald Trump

In recent weeks, Donald Trump's prospects for re-election have improved noticeably in betting markets.  For most of the early part of this year, his odds hovered around 30%.  Three weeks ago they jumped up to 35%. They currently stand at 39% on Predictit.org.  This surge does not correspond with an upsurge in Trump's approval ratings. The Real Clear Politics average of his approval ratings have stated between 42% and 44% over the last several weeks.  This upswing in the betting markets reflects two more fundamental realities than one politician's polling numbers.  Donald Trump's prospects are improving for two reasons:

1. As time goes by, Trump is being normalized. The American people are accepting behavior from Donald Trump no other president would ever dream of doing, because the American people are becoming numb to his vulgarity and weirdness. 

2. Donald Trump has utter and complete control of the Republican party.  Every single Republican politician is afraid of him, because he is immensely popular with the bloc of people who vote in Republican primaries.

If I had to bet today, I would bet against Donald Trump being re-elected in 2020. But his chances are better than a lot of thinking people want to admit. He is now embarked on a journey to Singapore for a meeting with the North Korean dictator. I think the results of that summit will have a big impact on the 2020 race and I want to sketch some thoughts about 2020 before the meeting happens.

I.  Donald Trump's 2020 Message.

Donald Trump's 2020 campaign will be predicated on simple assertion: that he has made America great again, just as he promised in 2016.  There are three policy claims that he must make, and he will make them with a straight face no matter what the facts on the ground say.  

1. I made the economy better.  He will point to whatever statistics help this cause. Right now he can accurately say that the job market has got stronger during his presidency. He will credit his tax cuts and deregulation if that's still true in 2020.  If not's still true in 2020 he will find some reason why voters should only think about how strong the job market was during the first half of his presidency. 

2. I made the country safer.  Donald Trump will point to the destruction of ISIS as his greatest accomplishment. ISIS has lost almost all of its territory, a trend that began while Obama was still president, but which did accelerate in 2017.  And it does not seem likely that ISIS will make much of a comeback as a de facto sovereign entity. It will be quite easy for the Republican party to craft compelling 30 second commercials featuring people who were tortured by ISIS and who now have a measure of freedom or been able to return to their home. It's a good starting point for claiming success on the world's stage.

The North Korea gambit is all about wanting a diplomatic victory to show that he is a great deal maker.  Trump's incentive is to get a deal that he can call "denuclearization." Kim Jong Un might have a corresponding incentive to get something done too. 

Kim was educated at a boarding school in Switzerland. He knows what the west has to offer and he has to know, on some level, that his father and grandfather's model is no way to run a state. But he also wants to retain political power and the lifestyle of a dictator.  He probably needs some western capital to make that happen.  If he's ever going to make a deal to get that capital, he might as well make it with the current president, because Trump will not make ANY demands related to human rights or political reform. Trump only cares about being able to claim that he got North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.  So Kim could agree to a very loose, wishy-washy statement about ending their nuclear weapons program.  Such a deal will have no teeth and will not make any demands of verification before 2021, other than some symbolic photo ops of Kim's people dismantling some equipment. They will make some rhetorical concessions and empty gestures, like they did when they staged a demolition of their nuclear testing site. In exchange, they will get the prestige of having been treated as a peer by the president of the United States and they will get some sanctions relief. I think Kim will tempt Trump with the possibility of making money for his family and for his other rich asshole friends. 

Donald Trump would love to tell you that he took nuclear weapons out of a mad man's hands. He would also love to tell you that he made an incredible deal that will somehow make gas cheaper or decrease our trade deficit or create some jobs.  He's not big on details and he's way over his head on this trip.  But I think he will get a deal of some kind done, because his inner circle is committed to making that happen and they don't really care about the consequences of a bad deal. Whatever deal he makes, Donald Trump will brag about it-long, loud and wrong.

3. The Democrats are pussies. The Democrats need to nominate someone, and that nominee will have to emerge from a protracted primary battle where everyone fights to prove that they are th most anti-Trump option available to voters. 

Donald Trump's most outrageous policy changes have been in the sphere of immigration. He is breaking families of asylum seekers up. He is still intent on building that stupid wall and he is willing to shut the government down to do it.  To the extent that the wall is shorthand for his insane 2016 campaign, he has to go all out for it. It is an extension of his political persona, and therefore must be defended at all costs. For the same reason, the Democrats have to resist the wall at all costs. In the short term, the wall is hurting his poll numbers. But by 2020, he's going to be beating the xenophobia drum as often as possible, because either way, he can win on it.

If the wall gets built, he will say "Look, I did this amazing thing and now we are safe."  It it does not get built he will say "Look, I tried to save you but the Democrats blocked me and now we have gangs running around and cops getting shot" and making hay out of whatever unfortunate headlines he can point to.  

The Democratic party is vulnerable on this issue, again.  The Democratic base is rightly incensed by Trump's immigration policies. The 2020 Democratic primary race may just turn on who can get to the furthest left on issues of immigration enforcement.  But they could pay a price for that in the general election. Trump will demonize brown people in whatever way works to make voters question the ability of the Democratic nominee to lead the government-to fight for average Americans. He will definitely run 30 second commercials about some crime committed by an undocumented worker here in the states or maybe about some crime wave or other in European countries that are driven by immigrants from Muslim majority countries. 

There will be a 4th dimension to Trump's 2020 campaign.  Something personally insulting about the Democratic nominee. Lyin' Ted Cruz, Lil' Marco Rubio and, of course Crooked Hillary Clinton will know what I am talking about. Trump has the mind of a bully and he has reason to believe that people like watching him be cruel to other politicians.  No matter how the Democrats nominate, he will find a weakness and he will beat it like a drum.  Commie Bernie Sanders, Crazy Joe Biden, & Pocahantas all have easily identified monikers. But over the course of the Democratic primary, he will figure out what to call whoever the nominee is, and there will even be a chant to replace "Lock Her Up!" It will not be subtle.

II.  The Consequences Phase of the Trump Years.

On Friday, Maggie Haberman tweeted out a very interesting observation.  The White House staffers that only met Trump during the transition period all say that Trump has gotten much worse in recent months. But the people who have known Trump for a long time tend to say that his behavior is the same as ever.  The fact is that Trump was intimidated by the presidency for the first year or so. He knew he was in over his head and he reigned in some of his worst instincts. But as 2018 stretches on, he is reverting to his old self. He is becoming the world class asshole that he always has been.

The reason for this confidence is that he is surrounded by sycophants and spends eight hours a day watching a television network dedicated to talking about how successful he is. I suspect that many people reading this blog will have a hard time believing this sentence, but it's a very important one: Donald Trump genuinely believes that he is a great president. 

Like any other narcissist, Trump is able to create excuses for any failures. But his real passion is taking credit for success.  He think the continued drop in unemployment is only happening because of his brilliant tax cuts. He also believes, with equal fervor, that the federal debt has exploded because of past sins by Democrats. No amount of evidence can convince him otherwise. He thinks the stock market boom of 2017 was due to his presidency. The fact that the market is lower in June than it was in January is the fault of fake news and lying Democrats.  This dexterity of mind is great for one's confidence, but reality can't be shut out for ever.

It's not clear when Trump's ignorance will begin to manifest itself  in negative economic news. The tax cuts have not yet caused any increase in economic growth. Last quarter we grew at just 2.2%, but the forecast is slightly better for the rest of the year. And we haven't yet seen signs of a weakening job market, although wage growth has been less than expected.  So Trump might cruise through 2018 and 2019 without a recession. But he's also beginning to play with fire when it comes to trade.

As his confidence in the Oval Office has grown, Donald Trump has begun focusing on the issues that he always cared about. International trade and trade deficits have been a point of interest with him for decades. He seems to think that a trade deficit means that one country is stealing from the other. This is balderdash, but we live in the age of alternative facts.  The president thinks this is true and he remains dedicated to the proposition that the United States should only be a thief, never a victim of  such "theft".  

Trump is beginning to act brazenly here. He is threatening to impose all kinds of tariffs, on both rival nations and our traditional allies.  Most glaringly, he is promising to impose tariffs on Canada.  He is claiming that this must be done for national security, a notion that is utterly preposterous, but that happens to be the only reason he can impose these tariffs without congressional approval. So facts be damned, we're going to punish Canada.  Canada, of course, intends to respond in kind.  That's how trade wars work.  Yesterday Justin Trudeau said that Canada will not be pushed around.  Our president threw a hissy fit in response and refused to have the United States sign off on the joint comminique of the G7 nations. That's all a little inside baseball now. But if he follows through with these tariffs, there will be tremendous consequences for American consumers and workers.  

It is possible that the economy will continue to putter along with reasonable growth rates and job creation numbers. That will strengthen Trump's chances of winning an election. But it's also possible that his trade wars and continued attempt to undermine Obamacare will have the kinds of consequences that voters remember on election  day.  Trump's prospects have improved because he has good fortune on the economic front. I don't think that can hold for another 29 months of this level of stupidity, but the margin of the election will be determined by how severe those consequences are.

III. Mueller.

Robert Mueller has compiled a year's worth of information about the ties between Donald Trump and the government of Russia. Not a single stitch of information has leaked from his shop. That's an impressive accomplishment that makes it difficult to handicap the outcome of his investigation.

This is what I suspect will happen. Sometime in 2018 or early 2019, Bob Mueller will call a press conference. At that conference he will announce a new round of indictments. Those indictments will include people in Trump's inner circle. It might include his son and/or son-in-law. He will also lay out the case that Donald Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey in order to impede the investigation of Russia's election interference.  He will explain that he does not intend to indict Donald Trump because he subscribes to the consensus view that sitting presidents can not be prosecuted for crimes.

This announcement will infuriate a lot more people than it pleases. Many Democrats will be frustrated by the decision not to indict Trump. And Republicans will be faced with yet another moral dilemma: accept the findings of a respected law enforcement professional or side with the raving tantrums of an incompetent, compromised and dishonest president. If the past 17 months have taught us anything, this will not be a hard choice for most of them. 

There has been a lot of talk about a looming constitutional crisis. We could get lucky and avoid something really awful, but I am not optimistic. The constitutional crisis began last week when the president publicly declared that he was above the law and not a single prominent Republican office holder bothered to repudiate him.  If we go forward with the battle lines that Trump has drawn, then the ending will be very ugly.

But Mueller is likely to persuade a lot of independent voters that the sitting president is corrupt. That will probably prevent his re-election. But even under those extraordinary circumstances, the outcome will not be certain.  Donald Trump has captured a major political party. It is now his toy. For the moment, the economy is lumbering on with modest growth and a stable job market. The world has not presented Trump with a military or humanitarian crisis of a big enough to be made truly horrible by his ignorance and ineptitude. 

Donald Trump's presidency may coast to a soft landing, which will set up a very close election. In 2016, there were ten states decided by less than 4 percentage points. Donald Trump won six and Hillary Clinton won four. But more importantly Trump won the biggest states in this group, capturing 102 electoral votes to 21 for Hillary. Both parties will have multiple paths to 270 electoral votes.
The motivation of the Democratic base will be extremely high and that should be enough for them to win. But the Republican party will rally to their leader and they will run on the same spiteful promises and ugly nationalism that won the last election. It could be enough to win again. That is the political reality of the United States of America as we enter the next, even uglier phase of the Trump presidency.

Bernie Would Rather Be Heard Than Nominated. (Updated Democratic Forecast)

                                         The highlight of the Chafee 2016 campaign.



I am late in writing about the first Democratic debate because I missed the first 40 minutes of it and it took me a day or two to find the stomach for watching the whole thing.  Because a few days have passed I am writing with the benefit of at least one post debate poll. That said, here's how I felt about the candidates' performance and how it will affect their chances of being nominated.  For each candidate I give a letter graded followed by how I think the night affects their chances of being nominated.

1. Hillary Clinton: A-  (Greatly improved).
Hillary had a bad summer.  The only things keeping her in the news were the scandal related to her use of a private e-mail account and the continued stubborn surge in support for Bernie Sanders.  The debate gave her a chance to finally be herself.  She's not a great debater, but she's perfectly competent and she's always well prepared.  This debate was no exception and the first post-debate poll in NH shows her taking the lead back from Bernie.  But the best news of the night actually came when her primary opponent was speaking.

2.  Bernie Sanders: A- (Significantly diminished.)

Bernie has a pretty straight-forward shtick. There's only two issues that he cares about: enhancing the social safety net and reducing income inequality. They are closely related and Bernie knows exactly which points play best, especially to a left-leaning crowd.  He was predictably put on the defensive on the subject of gun control but his explanations were plausible enough, at least superficially.  He did nothing to undermine his support among his most avid supporters.

But the moment of the night came when Bernie chimed in to respond to a question about Secretary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server.  He could have kept his mouth shut. He could have offered a halfhearted comment about there being more important issues in the campaign. Instead, he sounded like a complete partisan: "Enough with the damn e-mails."  The line brought the house down and got him some dap from the front runner. It also probably doomed his chances of being the nominee.

Bernie was always a long shot. He is doing far above expectations but he still needs to pull an inside straight if he wants to be the nominee.  This answer seemed to indicate that he doesn't expect that to happen.  Hillary Clinton is competent and well-liked by most Democratic partisans. Her positions are aligned with the party majority in almost every subject. Where they are not, she has bent to the political pull from her left, such as her opposition to the PTP trade deal.  If she is to be beaten, it will be because of a scandal serious enough to make people believe she is unelectable. At this point, the e-mail survey does not rise to that level. But it has clearly hurt her polling numbers, especially with independents.  She is vulnerable there, especially if more unfavorable details emerge in the next month or two.  Bernie decided to take it off the table as an issue.  He can't retract that.

The truth is Bernie doesn't expect to be the nominee. He wants to affect the race, and he already has. Clinton would not have come out for a repeal of the tax on Cadillac insurance plans or against the Pacific trade deal unless she was worried bout her left flank.  What Bernie wants is to talk about the two very important issues that motivate him. He thinks Hillary's e-mails are just a distraction from time spent talking about those issues.  So he gave up one very plausible rationale for nominating someone other than Hillary. Maybe he knows that he has his own issues related to perceptions of electability.  Maybe he just genuinely does not care about Hillary's e-mail. Either way, his already slim chance of being nominated are now much slimmer than they were a few days ago.

This doesn't mean he won't get a lot of votes. He might win New Hampshire. If he does that he can probably win one or two states on Super Tuesday and of course he'll probably win Vermont. He might win 5 or 6 states, control a few hundred delegates and get a plum speaking spot at the convention. If Hillary really stumbles, he could do better than that and drag the race out into June. But it's very unlikely that he will be the nominee.

3. Martin O'Malley. A (Very slight improvement.)

O'Malley was prepared and he seemed confident and even presidential. If this was a competitive race, he would have stood out for sure. But it's not a competitive race for him and nothing that came out of his mouth was going to change that.  Despite his strong performance, that NH poll showed him going down from 2 percent to 1 percent.  The only scenario in which he is the nominee requires Hillary to drop out of the race and him to run as the mainstream alternative to Bernie.  That's extremely unlikely.

4. Jim Webb  B- (He won't be the nominee, but he will get more votes than I thought.)

I wish Jim Webb was running for the Republican nomination. He would be a breath of relative sanity on that stage. But on the Democratic stage, he looked awkward and uncomfortable and not just when talking about killing a Chi-comm during the Vietnam war. There is a small sliver of the Democratic party that Webb appeals to: working class white men who realize that Republican economics is harmful to them but who disagree with the Democrats or don't sufficiently care about issues like gun control, affirmative action and environmental protections. The first post debate poll shows him going from 1 percent to 3 percent. I think he can do better than that if he works a little harder over the coming months. (His campaign presence in the early states is almost non-existent.)  He can get to high single digits in New Hampshire and he might do better than that in South Carolina. But the nomination? Impossible.

5. Lincoln Chafee: D- (Dead as a door nail.)

He was awkward and awful. He didn't say much of substance that was bad but his tone and body language were all wrong.  He's a dead end.  I'm still probably going to vote for him next year but that will almost certainly be a protest vote. I think it's very likely that he will drop out before Iowa.


The Wild Cards: Incomplete (But a bad night still.)

The most significant story line was Bernie's capitulation on the e-mail issue. But I thought a close second might be that Hillary did well enough to freeze out the candidates waiting on the sidelines, specifically Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.  Right now there is no need to come to the rescue of the party. Hillary looked good and she will look even better next year when she's debating someone who believes crazy nonsense about economics, science and reproductive choice.  She is very likely to be our next president.

But the rumor mill says Joe Biden is going to get into this race.  I don't know exactly what the rationale of his candidacy will be. But politicians are not like regular folks. Joe has to know this is his last chance to be elected president. I don't know if he can live with saying no.

It's Not All Roses for the Frontrunner.

Secretary Clinton gave a strong performance but there was one point that she needs to work on. Twice during the debate, she replied to questions about her candidacy by saying that she is the best candidate because she is a woman.  In 2008, Barack Obama let the significance of his race speak for itself. He would allude to it, but never make it an explicit reason to vote for him. Hillary does use gender as an explicit justification for her candidacy. That only helps here with people who are going to vote for her anyway. This tactic might hurt her in the general election.

Barack Obama's political brilliance was to make his race about the country, rather than about him. His comments about race had the cadence of a Yakoff Smirnoff joke: "Can you believe a skinny kid with a funny name is about to be elected president? What a country!" He left it for the audience to realize that the reason his name sounded funny was its African origins. He made people good about themselves for wanting to vote for someone who "just happened" to be black. He never would have been President, or even nominated if he framed his campaign as "It's about time we put a black guy in charge!"  Even though it was. And now it is time to put a woman in charge.  We all know that. We don't have to be told that. But Hillary seems incapable of that nuance. She needs to work on it.

Hillary's last hurdle might come next week. She is set to testify before the Benghazi committee on October 23rd.  The Republican majority will grill her about her e-mails.  She better be prepared. Her job is to make the casual voter believe this is pure politics. The GOP's job is to pretend that it's not and to state good reasons why her handling of these e-mails makes her unfit to be president of the United States. At least one e-mail apparently revealed the name of an intelligence source in Libya. That e-mail came from Sidney Blumenthal but Hillary forwarded it to others and apparently did not tell Mr. Blumenthal to not send such information to her by a private e-mail server.

This is fertile ground. If Gowdy is worth a warm bucket of spit, he will make some fodder for the general election. But Hillary just might have answers for most of the allegations and she has the benefit of facing some truly mediocre opponents. If that's the case, she will emerge unscathed. Not unlike the other night in Las Vegas.

UPDATED Nomination Forecast:

Candidate	Nov-14	Jun-15	15-Sep	15-Oct
Hillary Clinton	70	95+	83	91
Bernie Sanders	N/A	-1	5	3
Martin O'Malley	1	-1	1	1
Jim Webb	10	-1	1	-1
Lincoln Chafee	N/A	-1	1	0
Undeclared
Elizabeth Warren	12	n/a	5	1
Joe Biden	5	n/a	3	2
The Field	-1	-1	2	1

For a sanity check I looked up a European betting website. They have Hillary at 78% and Biden and Sanders each at 10%. I think Hillary is a buy at that number.

Waiting for Godot (D-DE)

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.

The 2014 Midterms: Endorsements and Predictions

I haven't really written anything on this blog about any midterm elections.  They haven't proven very exciting, which means it will be a low turnout election, which always favors the Republicans. People with something to lose are more likely to vote in off-years, and Republicans skew towards the demographics that have something to lose, if say congress raised the income taxes on the top brackets.

I. ENDORSEMENTS:

But here are a handful of the races that I feel most strongly about.

1. Paul Davis for Governor of Kansas. "What's the Matter With Kansas" has been a recurring question in American politics ever since Thomas Frank wrote a book with that title to make the point that lots of people vote Republican even when it is against their own self-interest.  The current governor of Kansas, Sam Brownback epitomizes this dynamic.  He is a zealot for Catholicism and supply-side economics.  The first is largely his business but the latter has resulted in policies so Fubar that hundreds of Republican office holders have endorsed his democratic rival.

Tomorrow night is likely to be a good night for the GOP but a win here will at least expose the great Republican lie that cutting taxes is always popular and always successful. That's why I list this race first. Nate Silver gives Davis an 82% chance of winning.

2. Pat Quinn for Governor of Illinois.  All politics is local and so this race means a lot to me. Bruce Rauner has a reasonable chance (34% per Nate Silver) of winning this race. I'm putting his opponent Bruce Rauner has a reasonable chance (34% per Nate Silver) of winning this race. Pat Quinn this high on my list for two reasons-he's a good man, and I know that a win by his opponent will lead to huge tax cuts that are not matched by comparable spending cuts.  Quinn passed substantial tax hikes and spending cuts a few years ago and he will likely leave them in place.  Rauner's campaign is predicated on repealing that increase and cutting spending.  But here's the catch: there's no way he could get the votes for the spending cuts from a legislature that will still have large democratic majority.  But he will find enough Democrats who will go along with the tax cuts, because they will think its smart politics. The result will be a fiscal avalanche of debt.  We can't afford that, so I'm going to vote for Quinn.

3.  No to Mandatory GMO Labels in Oregon and Colorado.  This may seem like a niche issue but it's not.  Vermont recently became the first state to require food companies to label foods that contain ingredients that have been genetically engineered. in a laboratory rather than through selective breeding. There is simply no scientific evidence that these foods are any more dangerous than "conventional" foods.  Requiring labels will create a false impression that there is something dangerous about those products. It will also increase the cost of food by making food manufacturers segregated their source ingredients for reasons that have nothing to do with food safety.

But the reason I put this food so high on the list is that it has an enormous impact on world health. Genetic modification of food sources holds great promise for feeding the world even as climate change wreaks its havoc on the world in the coming decades.  Research into creating "Golden Rice", the name used to describe rice enhanced with Vitamin A could improve the health of the hundreds of millions of children in Asia whose diets are dominated by rice.  Making the products more expensive (and therefore less profitable) will lead to fewer dollars being spent on the research that could lead to these advancements.

4.  Bruce Braley for United States Senator in Iowa.  I highlight this race because it will be very difficult for the Democrats to retain the Senate if they don't win this race.  Until this morning I haven't paid a lot of attention to this election and just assumed that the Republican nominee, Joni Ernst, was just a run of the mill hack.  But this morning I began my day by reading this interaction between her and a reporter:

ERNST: [Obama] is just standing back and letting things happen, he is reactive rather than proactive. With Ebola, he's been very hands off."

REPORTER:  What should he have done about Ebola? One person in America has Ebola."

ERNST: OK, you're the press, you're giving me your opinion.

REPORTER: It's not an opinion. Only one person in America has it."

Oi vey.

5.  Yes to Minimum Wage Increases in Alaska, Nebraska, South Dakota and Arkansas:  All will pass.  I just hope the margins are huge so that Democrats will learn the obvious lesson: liberal economic policies are popular even in deep red states.

II. PREDICTIONS:

If you've ever had the misfortune of being stuck in a political conversation with me you know that one of my biggest pet peeves is that there are virtually no consequences for political pundits that make terrible predictions.  A personal favorite of this phenomenon is that in December 2006 William Kristol predicted, "Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I'll predict that right now." He still appears regularly on Fox News and the Sunday morning network shows.  And people take him seriously, no matter how often he is wrong.

But you can't through mud at the Dick Morris Class if you don't make some predictions of your own.  So here goes mine:

A.  The House of Representatives.

Did you know that there are 435 House Seats up for election tomorrow?  The most depressing fact in politics is that none of these 435 races have received more than a whisper of national media attention.In 2012 the Democrats "won" the national pop vote by a little over one point, but only won 201 races, while Republicans won 234.  This is the shameful result of the gerrymandering done by Republicans after they got to redraw the state maps because they won the last midterm election in a wave.  The polling average this time has the Republicans up by 2.2%.  I think that will be enough for the GOP to net 10 seats, more than wiping out the 8 that they lost during the 2012 election.

B.  The Senate.

The Democrats start the night with 55 seats, when you include the two independents who caucus with them.  But the Democrats are defending 21 seats and the Republicans are only defending 15. Moreover twelve of those Republican seats, but just nine of the Democratic seats are completely safe for the incumbent party.  That leaves the Democrats protecting 12 seats and the Republicans only have to worry about three.

Vulnerable Republican Seats (All three of them):

i. The Republican will in Kentucky, big.  

ii. The Independent will win in Kansas by 3 points.  

iii. Georgia will go to a run-off, with the Republican getting 48%, the Democrat getting 45% and the Libertarian will get 7%.    

Vulnerable Democratic Seats:

The Republicans can bank on winning in Montana, Vest Virginia and South Dakota, very red states where Democratic incumbents are not running for re-election.  Only Minnesota looks safe for the incumbent, Al Franken.  I also believe the Republicans will win in Arkansas and Colorado. That means they have to win just one of the six truly close Democratic seats to win a majority.  Here are my predictions on those:

i. Louisiana will go to a run off.

ii. The Democrat will win in NH, NC and Alaska.

iii. The Republican will win in Iowa and Colorado.

That leaves the Republicans with 52 seats and good prospects in 2 more Southern Red States. But the night is not without hope for the Democrats.  Which leads me to....

C. Governors.

I think the Democrats have fielded a strong slate here and they will net three governor's mansions tomorrow.  Here are my predictions for the close races with party switches in bold.

i. The Democrats win in: 

Connecticut:by 1.

Maine by 2.

Colorado by 1

Florida by 3.

Illinois by 4

Rhode Island by 5

Kansas by 3

Pennsylvania by 12

ii. The Republican will win in:

Michigan by 1

Wisconsin by 2

Massachussetts by 3

Georgia by 4.

Arizona by 6

And in the closest race of the night, Alaska will elect independent Bill Walker by 2.029 votes.  (The less I know about a race, the more specific I like to be in my predictions.)

The Donkeys Have an Elephant in the Room and the Elephants Have a Bunch of Jackasses Out in the Barn.

                                  Even Gene Shalit might not recognize our next president yet.

2016 is a long way away, but speculating is a lot of fun.  I chose the above clip to give you some idea of how far we are from the 2016 presidential election. It's not quite from the same point in the election cycle, but it is revealing.  In December of 1973, Jimmy Carter was able to appear on a national game show without being recognized by anyone on the panel. At the end of the video they make reference to his role in preparing the Democratic party for the 1974 midterm elections.  Less than 3 years later, he was elected 39th President of the United States.

A. The Donkeys have an Elephant, and the Elephants have a Bunch of Asses.

When David Duchovny left The X-Files, the writers were faced with a big story dilemma. The show was driven by the conflict between a skeptic and a believer in all sorts of nut ball ideas.  To write Duchovny's character, Fox Mulder out of the show, but leave a possibility of returning, should the actor come to his senses, they needed his disappearance to be cooky and unexplained.  This forced his partner, Scully, to disavow her skepticism and become a believer.  After the first episode a review summed up the dynamic between the new leads.  "Scully is now Mulder."

Well the race for the 2016 nominations are also a case of role reversal. Every Republican nomination since Watergate has been a case of orderly succession. The only exception was in the year 2000. The 1996 runner-up had been Steve Forbes.  Forbes did not run in 2000. That nomination went to the son of a recent nominee, George W. Bush. It is because of this history that I give Rick Santorum more of a chance than most observers do. But he can not be called the clear favorite by any stretch of the imagination. He might not even belong on the top tier of candidates.

Will Rogers famously quipped, "I don't belong to any organized political party; I'm a Democrat." And most years the Democratic primaries live up to that aphorism.  The typical Democratic primary process begins with a half-dozen of likely candidates battling for specific racial and economic demographics, with some regional factions complicating things. In 1976, 1984, 1988, 1992 and 2004, a nominee emerged from a field of around five serious contenders. Only twice since then the Democrats began with a heavy betting favorite.  In 2000 Al Gore was the virtual certain nominee from the beginning and he only attracted one competitor, former Senator Bill Bradley.  Bradley put up a decent fight but Gore won comfortably in Iowa and by four points in New Hampshire.  The race was all but over and Bradley never won a single primary. In 2008 Hillary Clinton was also the presumptive nominee by most accounts.  She faced a half-dozen challengers but non were taken too seriously. But unbeknownst to the chatter class of D.C., Barack Obama was building a brilliant strategy: win in Iowa, survive Super Tuesday. and squeeze as many delegates as possible out of the states where he couldn't win.  By the summer, Barack Obama was the nominee.

The 2016 nomination race will probably end up looking like a combination of 2000 and 2008.  The favorite is the same as in 2008, but the result is more likely to be like 2000.  She will face credible challengers, and one or more of them will make Iowa and/or New Hampshire competitive.  If any of them win one of those states, then we will have a race on our hands.  If Hillary wins both, she will probably cruise to the nomination, and might just run the table the way Al Gore did.

My thesis at this point is that Democrats will nominate their previous runner-up and that the Republicans will have a battle among five to seven people with credible resumes and varying regional appeals.  I think that Jeb Bush is their strongest general election candidate. His appeal is broad within the Republican factions but also very thin.  Chris Christie, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz will probably elicit more passionate support but might have problems finding support outside their regional bases.  Huckabee and Santorum probably need to win Iowa to survive.  Luckily for them, the each have accomplished that very thing in the recent past, Huckabee in 2008 and Sanorum in 2012.

B: Another Peak at the Fields.
Some months ago I wrote posts on the likely contenders for each party's nomination.  My intention was to go on the record with my first impressions of the candidates.  The campaign will begin, for real, in the next month or two, and I'm sure I will update these lists more often next year.  But I wanted to do one update before we know the results of the midterms, because next week's elections will probably shape the narrative of the election as it gets underway.

I. The Democrats: One Favorite, 2 Alternatives and a Sitting Vice-President.

Hillary Clinton is the heavy betting favorite to be the Democratic nominee.  So far she has avoided any screw ups and there are some indications that she will learn from her 2008 mistakes and hire the very people who beat her the first time she was the heavy betting favorite for the nomination.  I have not changed either of her numbers: she's almost certain to run, and has about a 70% chance of being the nominee. But one thing has changed in the last few months.  I can now identify 2 plausible, serious alternatives.  And then there's the vice-president.

I still do not think that Elizabeth Warren will run, but she is the clear alternative and the base loves her.  I'm sure she has had many very serious (read: rich) people whispering in her ear that if she runs, they will open their checkbooks for her.  Recently, for the very first time she indicated some hint of wanting to run.  I think she might view a run as a way to put her ideas forward. She definitely thinks that the threat of her candidacy can nudge the party in the right (read: left) direction.

The biggest mover since my last posting is the emergence of Jim Webb as a possible candidate.  I really hope that he runs because I think he would expand the intellectual breadth of the field by talking about issues that are not talked about enough, like prison reform.  He's also the perfect candidate for pointing out that Hillary's foreign policy views are very far to the right of the Democratic party's base.  It's a long trip from being Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy to being the darling of the Democratic base, but this Marine just might be the guy to do it.

And dear old Joe Biden is extremely likely to run. And you can never count out the sitting Vice-President if for no reason other than the uncomfortable fact that he is one heart beat away from running as an incumbent.

Soon after the midterms we'll probably hear more from the less likely candidates.  So far no one has stood out as especially credible or promising.  The two New Yorkers that I listed last time both took steps backward.  Senator Gillibrand was listed mostly because she's an obvious alternative to Hillary Clinton if she didn't run.  But as ever, there seems to be no let up in the Clinton machine. So Hillary will run and that will probably preclude a Gillibrand candidacy.  Governor Andrew Cuomo meanwhile has proven to be a borderline boob who was lucky to be renominated for Governor.  He can not win the nomination.

II. The Republicans: Lots of Options, None of them Particularly Good.

The Republican field, lacking a heavy favorite, is much harder to predict at this point.  The biggest wild card as of now is Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.   I leave him as a pretender for now because he might lose his re-election bid on Tuesday. Nate Silver says he has a 76% chance of being re-elected on Tuesday.  If he is re-elected, even by a very narrow margin, he immediately becomes a serious contender for the nomination. He has been a semi-hero of the base for a few years and his proximity to Iowa could be a big asset But if he loses, he is toast.

The rest of the field has been very static.  Jeb Bush does seem more and more likely to run, and I think he would be the party's strongest nominee.  It's at least possible that the GOP will be so thirsty for a win by next year that they will overlook his heresies on education and immigration but the pitch forks will come out for him on a lot of fronts.

I've also added Mike Huckabee to the list of possible candidates because I think he has under appreciated appeal. He ran a solid third place in 2008 (second if you go by delegates pledged, rather than votes received)  and probably could have been the nominee in 2012 if he wasn't busy paying of his mortgage by hosting a show on Fox News.  When I see him lately he strikes me as a lot cockier than he was when he first became a national political figure.  The confidence might push him towards running but it also might work against him with voters once he is actually running for the Presidency rather than just leading jeers against the current president.

Rand Paul, Chris Christie, and Ted Cruz are all going to run.  And they will all have sizable support in different corners throughout 2015.  Any of them could be the nominee but any of them could also go up in flames early. Paul will have his father's donor base behind him, and that makes him a threat to gobble up delegates all along the way.  If the field stays splintered, he could sneak in.  But he's going to get a lot of heat about some of his less than orthodox views on war and crime.  He'll also say lots of stupid things along the way.

But he's not really any worse of a candidate than the others.  I do think he would be the worst president we have ever had, but that's not a disqualifier in this race. The nominee of this party is likely to be the person who can most convince the GOP primary voters that they hate Obama as much as they do.  But then they will have to run in the general election with some kind of health care plan that doesn't take away the benefits from the millions of Americans that received coverage under Obamacare.  I don't think any of these candidates can thread that needle.  But most of them are going to try and it will be nearly as amusing as watching a monkey try to fuck a football.

Pew Survey on Belief in Evolution of Humans

Four years ago, majorities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents all expressed a belief that humans evolved. Today, a large plurality of Republicans (48%) claim that humans have always existed in their present form.  Only 39% of Republicans believe that humans evolved from other forms of life. Did Fox News succeed in making their viewers dumber? Tempting as that is to say, I suspect that not many people stopped believing in evolution in the last four years. But I think that a lot of people who are smart enough to know that evolution happened, no longer identify as Republicans.

But let's focus on the positive.  Sixty percent of Americans overall now believe in evolution.  Just a third, (33%) believe that humans have always existed in their present form.  We have a long way to go, but what has Darwin taught us if not to believe in the power of very slow, extremely gradual change over long periods of time?

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/

Democrats 2016, The Morning Line

Assessing the Democrats will require a different metric than I used for the Republicans.  The Republican party is overwhelmingly white and majority male.  Fully half of them are white evangelical Christians.  So when I assessed the prospects of their possible candidates, I evaluated them in terms of their appeal to certain ideological blocks within the party.

The Democrats have fewer obvious ideological splits that Republicans, and a lot more demographic diversity.  Nearly 60% of voters in the 2008 Democratic primary were female.  And 31% were black or Hispanic. Candidates will also need to have access to money and to passionate volunteers.  Such resources can be found in labor unions and among the young, passionate voters who tend to be skeptical of government and anti-war.  So when evaluating the Democratic field, I will assign grades based on the ability of each candidate to appeal to women, minorities, labor unions and peaceniks.

For the Republicans I divided the field into three tiers: Contender, Pretenders and Niche Candidates. I will use slightly different labels for the Democrats.

I.  The 600 Pound Gorilla.

1.  Hillary Clinton (69).  It is rare for a non-incumbent to be such a heavy favorite to win their party's nomination.  The closest example in recent memory is Vice-President Al Gore, who eventually defeated a reasonably strong candidacy by Bill Bradley by winning every single primary and caucus in 2000.

Secretary Clinton is the obvious choice.  She has astronomical name recognition, a solid resume and the goodwill of the party faithful.  She also stands ready to make history as the first woman presidential nominee.  There's just one problem.  She's a lousy candidate.

I say that based mostly on her 2008 campaign.  She was the heavy favorite but she hired a bunch of warmed over hacks, most notably Mark Penn, who were influential in her husband's campaign. Senator Obama's campaign outworked her nearly everywhere and picked off delegates that she never should have lost.  The sheer incompetence of her campaign cost allowed the nomination to slip through her fingers.

A track record like that matters, and I can not consider her the inevitable nominee.  But the good news for her is that Barack Obama is not walking through that door this time.  As we'll see below, she is the most likely nominee.  But she can lose again, and her first job is to not forget that fact.

Report Card:  Women: A Minorities: B+ Labor Unions: B Peaceniks: C-

Hillary's biggest mistake in 2008 was under estimating Barack Obama's appeal to minority voters.  She relied on very early polling data that had her way ahead of him with black voters who thought highly of her.  Her primary campaign did real damage to the Clinton name among black Democrats.  But serving as his secretary of state probably healed those wounds sufficiently. 

Chance of Running:  99%  Chance of being the nominee: 70%

Veep Prospects:  None.  She doesn't want to spend her 70s waiting for some dude to die.  Except maybe her husband.  Zing!
Will She Get My Vote?  Probably not.  I think she is qualified and will probably make a decent President.  If she's the nominee, I'm sure I will support her strongly.  But I also expect a candidate to emerge that better matches my beliefs on certain key issues, most notably drug policy, defense spending and our relationship with Israel.

II.  The Obvious Alternative.

2.  Joe Biden (74).  Few men were born for their job more than Joe Biden was born to be Vice-President.  One reason that he was such a brilliant choice in 2008 is that Hillary Clinton could reasonably believe that he was not a threat to run in 2016 because of his age.  He will be older in 2016 than Bob Dole was in 1996 and John McCain was in 2008.  He will even be older than Ronald Reagan was when he ran for RE-election in 1984.

He also ran twice for President with spectacularly poor results.  He has no obvious base in the party, other than people who really love Barack Obama but who don't like Hillary Clinton. That's a small base.  But his name recognition and large rolodex of contacts will probably

Report Card:  Women: B+ Minorities: B+ Labor Unions: B- Peaceniks: C-

He most likely will run.  There are few things in life he loves more than the sound of his own voice. Glad handing might be one of them.  And he has tons of name recognition and supreme self-confidence. He should run and he should have a good time and he will lose, spectacularly.

There is one somewhat morbid factor to consider here.  If Barack Obama dies in the next two years, than Joe Biden will run as an incumbent.  It is a remote prospect, given the President's apparent health and relative youth. But it would improve his chance of being the 2016 nominee.

Chance of Running:  98%  Chance of being the nominee: 6%

Veep Prospects:  None.  No one takes this job twice.
Will He Get My Vote?  Probably not.  I would love to vote for a Blue Hen but I don't think he's a strong candidate and I don't think he's especially strong on the issues that I care about.

III.  The Plausibles.

3.  Brian Schwietzer (61).  He's an interesting guy and a successful two-term governor of a western state.  But it's a tiny state with just three electoral votes.  The Democrats last carried Montana in 1992, thanks largely to Ross Perot getting over a quarter of the votes there.  (Clinton won with less than 38% of the vote.)
Report Card:  Women: B+ Minorities: B Labor Unions: B+ Peaceniks: B+

I think he faces an uphill battle but his opening is from the Libertarian left.  He's an educated man who knows a lot about energy policy and who lived in the Middle East long enough to speak Arabic fluently.  He's also from a state with a health Libertarian streak and knows how to talk to people who are skeptical of government.  He made some news this morning by declaring an intention to visit every county in Iowa.  His challenge will be to combine the emotional appeal of the 2004 Dean campaign with the political efficiency of Obama's 2008 campaign.  He's a long shot but might be the most plausible one.

Chance of Running:  98%  Chance of being the nominee: 5%

Veep Prospects:  Reasonable. He has executive experience and is a solid campaigner.
Will He Get My Vote?  Quite possibly.  He has my attention.

4.  Kristen Gillebrand (50).  She's good on TV and she represents a huge state.  Despite a fairly conservative voting record and image during her time in the house, she has made a name for herself in the Senate by championing issues that resonate with both the liberal base and with the party establishment.  That's an impressive feat for a young senator.   And she put up huge numbers in her second senate race.  She's a player, but she's probably crowded out by Hillary.

Report Card:  Women: A Minorities: A- Labor Unions: B+ Peaceniks: B-

If Hillary does not run, she might well be the front-runner.   But Hillary is extremely likely to run.  She is young, however and I expect her to run some day.

Chance of Running:  40%  Chance of being the nominee: 5%

Veep Prospects:  None, if Hillary is the nominee but excellent if it's someone other than Hillary.
Will she Get My Vote?  Perhaps.

5. Mark Warner (62).  He has an impeccable resume.  A very successful CEO, extremely popular Governor of a swing state, and now a Senator.  He has checked every box on the sheet.  And his electoral success in Virginia speaks for itself.  But I don't see a rationale to distinguish him from Hillary.  I'm not sure what story he tells that will resonate with the base.
Report Card:  Women: B+ Minorities: B+ Labor Unions: B Peaceniks: B-

If Hillary does not run, she might well be the front-runner.   But Hillary is extremely likely to run.  She is young, however and I expect her to run some day.

Chance of Running:  25%  Chance of being the nominee: 4%

Veep Prospects:  Outstanding.  His popularity in Virginia means that he will be on any nominee's short list.  If there can be said to be a front-runner for the #2 slot, then it is he.
Will he Get My Vote?  If he runs, it means he has come up with a message to run against Hillary on.     And that will get my attention.

6.    Martin O'Malley (53).  Governor O'Malley could carve out a place to Hillary's left on the issues while still projecting the kind of main stream posture that passes for gravitas in the current political climate.  And he has the ultimate "in" with liberal hipsters, he is the inspiration for a character on The Wire. (Mayor Carcetti).  He's also term limited, so he'll be out of office come January, 2015.  Just about the perfect time to launch a Presidential bid.

Report Card:  Women: A- Minorities: A- Labor Unions: B+ Peaceniks: B+

In short, a very plausible alternative to Hillary.

Chance of Running:  80%  Chance of being the nominee: 4%

Veep Prospects:  Decent, particularly if he does well in the primaries.
Will he Get My Vote?  Perhaps.  In the history of the republic, only one President has ever been mayor of a major city.  (Grover Cleveland, Buffalo).   One of my goals in life is to see another.  O'Malley qualifies.  (See above comment about The Wire.)

7.  Andrew Cuomo (59).  The rationale for his candidacy would be, more or less, I'm the governor of a really big state.  That might work some years, but it's not something the base can rally around.  His only liberal bona fides come from being Mario Cuomo's son and from being the first governor to get marriage equality through his legislature.  But he lacks the oratory skill and political shrewdness of his old man.  And his natural constituencies (bankers, limousine liberals) are perfectly fine with Hillary being the nominee.

Report Card:  Women: B+ Minorities: B Labor Unions: B- Peaceniks: B-

I'm not sure how he wins this thing but he might be tempted to run and hope for Mrs. Clinton to stumble.  If Clinton does win, he won't be the running mate (see the 12th amendment) and he would likely be 67 before there is another open nomination race. .

Chance of Running:  70%  Chance of being the nominee: 2%

Veep Prospects:  Not very good.  The nominee is likely to be a New Yorker, and that would put him out of the running.  And I can't think of a state or constituency that he shores up for the Democrats if the top of the ticket is someone else.
Will He Get My Vote?  That is unlikely.

IV.  The Long Shots.

8.  Elizabeth Warren (67).  In the interest of full disclosure, and not passing up on a humble brag, let me say that I know the Senator, a little.  She was briefly my boss, although I had virtually no direct interaction with her.  But I admire her very much, and some of that is based on the opinions of people who do happen to know her well.  I think she's brilliant.  And I will absolutely vote for her if she does. But I do not think she will run.  I think the Senate is exactly where she is meant to be, and I expect big, big things out of her on behalf of the middle class.
Chance of Running:  5%  Chance of being the nominee: 1%

She is in the long shot category mostly because I do not think she will run.  If she does run, she has real potential.
Veep Prospects:  None.  She's from a deep blue state and was an uneven candidate during her only previous campaign for office.  I also think she might be the rare politician that would turn the 2nd slot down.  She went to the Senate to get stuff done.
Will she Get My Vote?  Yes.

9. Howard Dean (68).  He is still very popular with the base.  2004 was a long time ago, but he can rebuild his network of supporters pretty fast.  And like Hillary, he also paid his dues by working hard for the party after a losing presidential bid.
Report Card:  Women: B+ Minorities: B+ Labor Unions: B+ Peaceniks: A

I'm sure he's thinking about a run.  But I don't think he wants to get beat again.  And I was never convinced that his wife was fully on board with the previous run.  Its hard to make this run without the support of a spouse.

Chance of Running:  35%  Chance of being the nominee: 1%

Veep Prospects:  Very weak.  His negatives are high and the Democrats have tended to pick a candidate closer to the center than the Presidential nominee.
Will he Get My Vote?  Unlikely.  I admire his success as the DNC chair, but I've never been sold on the Doctor as a future president.

10. Russ Feingold (63).  Impeccable bona fides with the base.  But he has maintained a relatively low profile since leaving the senate.
Report Card:  Women: B Minorities: B+ Labor Unions: B+ Peaceniks: A

His biggest practical problem may be that he is twice-divorced.  Spouses have become important campaign assets, and he doesn't have one.  That hurts.  He also hasn't shown any real interest in running. But he could probably compete in the Iowa caucuses, and whoever wins there has a shot.

Chance of Running:  15%  Chance of being the nominee: 1%

Veep Prospects:  Very weak.  Thinks about that big moment at the convention where Hillary accepts the nomination, then Bill joins her on stage, and then Russ....unaccompanied.  Its a bad visual.
Will he Get My Vote?  I think he is very principled, and we agree on most issues.  If the primary were held tomorrow, and I'm right about Warren not running, then I would vote for Feingold.

11.  Alan Grayson (58).  He was elected to the house in 2008, then lost in the 2010 midterms, before winning the seat back in 2012.  If he loses in the next midterms, I suspect he will at least ponder a run in the primaries.  He has the potential to become our equivalent of Ron Paul, by raising a lot of money and inspiring some very devoted followers.  But I don't think he will be seen as a real contender for the Presidency by the press unless he makes some huge noise in the early states.

Chance of Running:  20%  Chance of being the nominee: <1 p="">

Veep Prospects:  Very weak.  Sure he's from a swing-state, but I don't think he could win a statewide election in Florida, so he's not much help there.
Will he Get My Vote?  We agree on most issues and I really hope he stays in Congress.  And I'll keep an open mind if he does run for President, but his resume is a little light at this point.

IV.  The Field.
This list is far from complete.  Several candidates will emerge between now and then.  There will be someone on the far-left who runs on a campaign of reduced military spending, an end to NSA spying and creation of a single-payer healthcare.  There also seems to be a gaping hole in this field for a Latino or Latina to run in this field.  But I don't know who.  So for now, I'll stand with 11.