Scott Walker, the frontrunner in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, leads his nearest competitor, Jeb Bush, by four-tenths of a percentage point, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls. The rest of the crowded GOP field stretches out behind.
Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner in the Democratic race, leads a virtually nonexistent “field” by 44.5 points.
Walker’s and Bush’s most recent public appearances were last weekend in New Hampshire, where they met with voters and took lots of questions. Both are heading to South Carolina for more of the same in a few days.
Clinton’s most recent public appearance was last week in a previously unannounced paid speech to eBay executives in California — the kind of speech she usually receives between $200,000-300,000 to deliver.
The Republican Party is planning to have a series of debates between candidates starting in August. With a large and rowdy field, the GOP wants to limit the number of debates because it does not want to repeat the free-for-all debating that some believe hurt the party in 2012. Even with limits, though, the GOP’s 2016 debates promise to be robust.
The Democratic Party is seriously wondering whether it will have any debates at all during its primaries and caucuses.
The Republican candidates have been in an intense battle for campaign talent. Seeking any advantage possible, candidates are vying for the best managers, consultants and strategists.
Democrats have created the reverse of that, with crowds of politicos trying to get on the Clinton campaign, which is the only gravy train around.
Republican candidates are taking shots at each other, pointing out their rivals’ weaknesses, whispering that this or that candidate is not ready for prime time.
Democrats are defending Clinton, most recently in the State Department email affair, and waiting for talking points from Clinton Central to tell them what to say next.
Put it all together, and it’s not too much of an exaggeration to say the Republican race is alive — indeed teeming with life — while the Democratic race is dead.
Not dead dead; of course there is activity in the Democratic/Clinton world. But it’s not the sort of creative tension among rival campaigns that makes candidates better and prepares them for general elections.
That’s a huge disadvantage. “We get tested both offensively and defensively a lot earlier,” says one GOP strategist. “The eventual Republican nominee will have been tested for months on end. When you go to that sprint after the convention to the general election, you want to be in the best shape that you can, and that’s hard if you’re not being tested.”
Who will push Clinton into shape? The deadness of the Democratic contest has led to a situation in which the political world is trying to create an artificial rival for the former Secretary of State. The New York Times, for example, has declared the press to be Clinton’s stand-in opponent.
“With no other powerful Democrats likely to run against her, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s toughest adversary for her party’s presidential nomination in 2016 has now become clear,” the paper wrote last week. “The news media,” the paper concluded, is Clinton’s only real opponent.
That is not a natural state of affairs; a candidate’s toughest adversary should be his or her rivals. And it is not the proper relationship between the press and candidates. Yes, that relationship can be adversarial, but a reporter is not an opposing candidate, and can’t act that way.
The lifelessness of the Democratic race will also make it harder for Clinton to make news. Conflict draws coverage. When Republican candidates A, B and C go after each other, that creates news. When a single Democratic candidate moves from one non-contest to another, that does not create news. Faced with that, Clinton will have to figure out some way to remain newsworthy, although it’s not clear how that will be done. (Yes, incumbent presidents often run without opposition, but they have the power of the presidency to stay in the news.)
Of course Clinton has advantages. Polls show her ahead of her Republican rivals, and the Democrats enjoy an electoral college advantage at the moment. But her campaign could be weird and fraught with risk because it will proceed in such an unnatural environment.
In June 2008, when Clinton admitted defeat in the Democratic presidential nomination race, Barack Obama said, “I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton.” Of course he was being gracious. But he was right. Now, Clinton herself would benefit from a formidable opponent of her own.
