NEW YORK — The Hillary-in-2016 buzz has hit overdrive, and the political speculation game has gone viral. By ten o’clock Monday, I’d watched a variety of commentators on three cable news programs speculate, guess, opine and bet on the real and imaginary future of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“Everyone’s in fear of Hillary,” said one anchor, announcing a “Hillary Watch.”
“Wait, it’s too early,” one female guest advised Hillary. “Don’t believe the hype.”
“There’s no limit to her potential,” crowed a partisan.
“It’s a coronation,” said another, meeting no contradiction.
A few hours of this chatter, and everyone is echoing each other, every segment similar to the one an hour earlier, but we keep listening, just in case something new drops in.
Some try to guess what brave soul in the currently down-at-the-mouth Republican Party would dare to come up against a world heroine like Hillary. (The secretary of state, who is leaving her job in January, has forged an incontestable global position, especially among women, as my latest Female Factor column attests.)
So who would face off against Hillary?
There’s Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida who is known as “the good Bush,” a more people savvy and centrist politician than his brother, the former president. There’s Marco Rubio, the great Republican Hispanic hope, who may break ground as the first Latino presidential candidate. But can he beat Hillary? Really?
As for Vice President Joseph Biden, a onetime presidential candidate, few believe he would want to challenge her in a primary (a recent PPP poll said she would receive 58 percent of the vote in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, traditionally the first in the nation, while Mr. Biden trails far behind).
The way many Democrats and pundits see it is this: She declares her candidacy, and the waters part. That’s how far out they’re going on a limb.
Rampant guesswork — “she’s going to go off the grid” — is totally permissible, and fun. Being on a bandwagon like the one that’s off and roaring for Hillary is de rigueur. Pity the Republican (or clueless Democrat) who dares to suggest that she may not run at all. Buzz killer!
It’s a pretty diverse crew, this political class. There are serious, bespectacled veterans and graying pols and a raft of lilting-voiced, sharp-tongued and clip-talking thirty-somethings whose eyes are on the shining prize, a cable political show of their own. There are familiar bylines from major newspapers and magazines, and Washington authors and Beltway insiders.
Political chatter is an industry all its own. It is Washington’s obsession but it also infects power-mad New York, where politics meets fame, fashion and money.
An addictive parlor game, it’s played in front of millions of political fanatics, like me, who can’t resist tuning in and feasting on the dish. Like sports, politics offers plenty of opportunities to blow hard, to bet on the wrong team and to lose miserably.
But you can’t help playing the game, even when your speculation, usually tinged with certitude, is often dead wrong.
All the talk today about the 2016 election — a veritable thousand lifetimes away in politics — is a little crazy. But for political junkies this is the stuff of life. Not to know the latest on such a riveting and important figure like Hillary Clinton can prove embarrassing, not to say unforgivable, in a place like Washington that breathes that air and drinks that water.
So I’ve got to go. “Andrea Mitchell Reports” is coming on.
IHT Rendezvous: Why Everyone Is So Certain About Hillary 2016
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IHT Rendezvous: Why Everyone Is So Certain About Hillary 2016
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IHT Rendezvous: Why Everyone Is So Certain About Hillary 2016
