Hillary Clinton has a better chance of winning her partyâs nomination without a serious contest than any nonincumbent in the modern era. If that happens, she will be lucky to avoid the fight. Most of the concerns about an unopposed Clinton candidacy are overstated, and there are big reasons she will benefit from running unopposed in the presidential primary.
Vigorous primary campaigns do tend to make fundamentally sound candidates stronger. They provide an opportunity for candidates to refine their messages, raise money, register voters, build organizations and gain additional valuable experience. Barack Obama, who had few weaknesses but little experience, was served exceptionally well by the 2008 Democratic primaries.
But primary campaigns tend to expose the flaws of fundamentally weak candidates. Take Mitt Romney, who was tarred as a flip-flopper in 2012 and forced to move to the right on immigration and other issues. Establishment Republicans blamed the primary debates and have since moved to reassert control over the process. But the debates werenât the problem; Mitt Romney was. He had changed his positions on a number of crucial issues, and when he was governor of Massachusetts, he had overseen the creation of a health care plan similar to the Affordable Care Act. All this was bound to be examined in a competitive primary campaign, regardless of how many debates were sanctioned by the Republican National Committee.
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Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
The primary had an obvious and negative effect on public views of Mr. Romney. His unfavorable ratings surged to around 50 percent and never recovered. His favorable ratings ultimately rose to meet his unfavorable ratings, mainly because Republicans ultimately rallied behind him, but Iâm nonetheless skeptical of the position of my colleague Brendan Nyhan, who doesnât think it made much difference. At the very least, Iâm sure the Romney campaign would have preferred to start the general election with an even favorability rating rather than one with a minus 10.
For a candidate as strong as Mrs. Clinton, there are a lot of reasons many liberal Democrats â and voters more generally â could have reservations about her candidacy. As ProPublicaâs Alec MacGillis put it, âThere is a sort of collective amnesiaâ about Mrs. Clinton among Democrats, and particularly among former Obama supporters, regarding their old âestimation of Mrs. Clinton.â The concerns include foreign policy, ties to Wall Street and the various reservations about her personal dealings, revived by news about foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation and her use of a personal email account and server while secretary of state.
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His favorable ratings ultimately recovered, but his unfavorable ratings remained near 50 percent for the whole campaign.
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Mr. MacGillis argues that it would be better for Democrats to reckon with their true feelings about Mrs. Clinton in the primary rather than in the general election. That may be true on matters of style â on the âhyper-cautious answersâ or âdisingenuousâ efforts to align herself with the moods of the moment that Mr. MacGillis cites. But on the more substantive matters, a credible and vigorous primary challenger would be the single likeliest thing to increase Democratic dissatisfaction with her candidacy. It would involve a full year of a liberal Democrat and allies reminding liberal Democrats of all of the reasons they thought Mrs. Clinton was a problematic candidate in the first place.
Mrs. Clinton has a good chance of fending off these charges with a unified Democratic Party. Republicans wonât attack her for being overly hawkish on national security, and Democrats wonât countenance a Republican like Jeb Bush or Scott Walker attacking Mrs. Clinton on her ties to Wall Street. Controversies about the Clintons â like over the Clinton Foundation or her email account â are far less likely to take hold if Democrats defend her.
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But without a unified party, she could face recurring and resonant attacks on all of those issues. Though it probably wouldnât be as bad as what Mr. Romney faced, it could also be worse. After a year of being characterized as a Wall Street hack, or a warmonger with low-grade corruption issues, Mrs. Clinton could face a Ralph Nader-like third-party challenge, which generally becomes likelier after a party has held the White House for consecutive terms.
And Mrs. Clinton is not the type of candidate who benefits most from a primary campaign. She is not an inexperienced candidate who needs to be vetted or to prove her ability to handle a presidential campaign. The 2008 Democratic primary was as intense and as long as most general election campaigns. Her experience as first lady and secretary of state gives her additional national and international political experience.
Her total political experience entering the 2016 contest is probably more akin to that of an incumbent president than anything else. Did Presidents Obama or Bush or Clinton struggle in the general elections in 2012, 2004 and 1996 because they werenât tested in the primaries? It may have hurt them a little bit in the first debate. But incumbent presidents tend to fare pretty well in presidential elections, and I donât remember too much talk about the trouble they faced getting back into playing shape.
Perhaps sheâs rustier than most â it has been seven years since she last ran â but itâs not as if Mrs. Clinton will be on the sidelines for the next year. Sheâll probably engage and respond to her Republican opponents, sheâll hold events in the early primary states, and she can debate the likes of Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee if her campaign thinks itâs useful practice for her. Back in 2008, though, she was generally thought to be a better debater than Mr. Obama in 2008, and sheâll have plenty of opportunities over the next year and half to get back up to speed.
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