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The multiple and still-growing crises hitting the Obama administration are not, I expect, likely to lead to his impeachment, but they are making 2016 look like a very good year to have the Republican nomination.
If you wanted to be president, now would be the time.
This should bring the big guns out in the next primary season, and the Republicans have a lot of strong potential candidates available.
A couple who sat out 2012: Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee. Both might have topped the polls last time had they chosen to run.
Paul Ryan, as VP nominee last time. Rick Santorum, as runner-up last time.
A wave of youngish, new faces: Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul.
A brace of high-profile governors: Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Nikki Haley. Rick Perry as governor or Texas has the heft to give it another go.
Jeb Bush’s best shot would be this time, if he wants it; and he has a lot of admirers in the party. Same for Condoleeza Rice, who excited a lot of people at the last convention.
Probably not last, and probably not least, it seems to me that the scandals may generate some sympathy, enough to make another run possible, for Mitt Romney, who in the end was a good candidate, and might have won in a fair fight. And for David Petraeus.
That’s 16 candidates, by my count, all of whom look to me to be highly plausible as presidents. Not a dark horse among them.
And who, on the other side, do the Democrats have? Not Hillary Clinton. First, she is too long in the tooth now to excite the Democrats, and she will be badly tainted by the scandals. If she is nominated, so much the better for the Republicans. Not Joe Biden. Again, he’s been around too long to fit the Democrat self-image, and he too will of course be tainted. Andrew Cuomo seems to be mired in scandals in Albany.
Given the scandals, they NEED a dark horse.
Which is just as well; since with those three, we seem to have come to the end of their list of household names.
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