The close of the 2014 midterm elections last week sounded the opening bugle of the 2016 campaign season, and potential candidates are already in the hunt for the presidency.
On Tuesday night, scarcely after polls had closed in Kentucky, Sen. Rand Paul called the results a “repudiation basically of the president’s policies, but also Hillary Clinton.”
“Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have been all over the place,” Paul said. “They’re trying to make out as if they’re somehow better for Democrats, but in Kentucky they were soundly rejected.”
Paul is among the potential candidates for president in 2016 who are wasting no time laying the groundwork for a campaign, even if no official announcement has been made.
Of course, Paul has been making moves for months now. He has made multiple visits to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, all important presidential primary states, and he has hired seasoned campaign operatives through his PAC.
But politicians tend to honor a gentleman’s agreement to forego campaigning for the presidency until the preceding midterm election cycle has concluded — even by a few hours, in Paul’s case.
Now, potential candidates are moving ahead at full speed, their motives more transparent than ever.
Over the weekend, Texas Gov. Rick Perry returned to New Hampshire for a series of six events. There, he touted his own leadership on issues such as Ebola and immigration, and urged the new Republican Congress to reform the latter.
“If they need an instruction on how to secure the border, here I am,” Perry told a crowd in Concord, N.H., according to a Fox News report.
Marco Rubio said in a radio interview Thursday that he will decide “in the coming weeks” whether he will run for president. And Ted Cruz has been scouting campaign office space in Houston, U.S. News reported last week.
It’s not just Republicans. Hillary Clinton is also in the process of deciding where her campaign will be headquartered. According to a Politico report last week, the New York City suburb of Westchester County is an early favorite.
The potential candidates’ allies are also girding for the coming fight. Later this month, the pro-Clinton PAC Ready for Hillary will convene a meeting in New York that is expected to draw some of the names who might later make up a Clinton campaign roster.
Likewise, the pro-Clinton PAC Priorities USA has begun its outreach to party donors, the group confirmed earlier this week.
“Priorities will start today,” political strategist Andy Spahn told the Washington Post Wednesday.
As allies have begun working at full speed behind the scenes, the next stage of public posturing and water-testing also has commenced, more aggressive than during the midterms.
Former President George W. Bush has in recent interviews boosted his brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, as a potential contender for 2016. The chance that Jeb Bush runs, George W. Bush told NBC News, is “50-50.”
“He’s had the experience necessary to be president,” George W. Bush told Reuters during a promotional tour for his forthcoming book. “He understands what it means to be a leader.”
But don’t expect Jeb Bush — or any other Republicans, for that matter — to reach a public decision before next year. Paul, for example, said he will decide publicly in the spring if he will launch a bid for president. Rubio will wait until the new year.
Until then, each potential contender will be free to test the waters and act like a candidate, with the midterms safely in the rearview mirror.
