Now is the time

It’s not just that the “one hand clapping” plan of running a non-incumbent without opposition was always problematic. It’s that this particular candidate is not only scandal-prone but a bad politician. On a meet-and-greet tour she went to Chipotle without talking to anyone, met “everyday people” who were liberal activists, parked her van in a space reserved for the handicapped and unveiled a logo that looks like the directions to the emergency room, where her campaign may be headed.

This took place between the uproar over the deleted emails and the burgeoning scandals over the Clinton Foundation, which are bound to get worse when the book that describes them is released on May 5. There will be congressional hearings into the less fortunate parts of her career as a diplomat, and the Associated Press is still planning to sue her, which should make interesting headlines well into next year.

People who say the Clintons get into messes and always get out of them ignore the fact that the last time they got out of messes they were ensconced in the White House, with total control of the party machinery. A person seeking office is much more exposed than someone in it already, and in the 16 years that have passed the Clintons have grown older, and rusty. With the Washington Post and The New York Times joining the Right Wing Conspiracy, the times may be changing, and her prospects of being a winner are sliding downhill.

“For the first time, her net unfavorability ratings put her (narrowly) behind several Republican contenders,” Josh Kraushaar of National Journal tells us. “Only 38 percent view her as being honest, while 54 percent disagree.”

For Democrats, the worst case scenario is not that Hillary Clinton is forced out of the race at some time in the future, but that she puts off enough swing voters in swing states to become unelectable while keeping such a tight hold on the base of the party that nominating somebody else becomes an impossibility. A row could break out between realists and the part of the base that’s been Ready for Hillary since 1993. If it feels men are deep-sixing the First Woman President, that segment will not go quietly.

Then there’s the question of who “someone else” is, and where they can find him. Just as Republicans are fielding the strongest, deepest and youngest field in their history, Democrats trying to see beyond Hillary are finding that their cupboard is bare.

In 2008, Barack Obama swept into office bringing with him 60 senators, 32 governors and 257 House members. By 2014, six years of activist governing by the Messiah had brought those numbers down to 44, 18, and 188, respectively. Hardest hit were the centrists, the young and the purple state governors who stood the best chance of reaching a national audience.

The remainders are the old (Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Joe Biden), the Left (Elizabeth Warren) and the undistinguished (many of those left in the Senate and in the state houses), most of whom have no national profile and no resumes saying ‘commander-in-chief.’

Effective presidents usually leave a positive legacy, but the two charismatic Democrats elected since the mid century have somehow contrived to box in their party. Between a rock and a hard place indeed.

Noemie Emery, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”