Enter
people who we know are thinking
about running but won’t say (Martin O’Malley, Bobby Jindal), partisan wish-list candidates (Elizabeth Warren, Ted Cruz), the “these
guys ran the last time” set (Newt
Gingrich, Rick Perry), a handful of
“most likely nots” (Kamala Harris, Jim DeMint), and some “please
please no please don’t” candidates
(Evan Bayh, Sarah Palin).
It’s too early to be doing this
much speculating on who might
run. It’s too early for an early primary state — I’m looking at you,
Nevada! — to be mucking about
with the 2016 primary calendar and pushing the other states
to move their contests back to
Thanksgiving. And why is anyone
talking about doing away with
the Iowa Straw Poll, as Iowa Sen.
Chuck Grassley and Gov. Terry
Branstad are? It’s way too soon to
be worried about it! Besides, if you
get rid of the Iowa Straw Poll, how
will Tim Pawlenty find out no one
wants him to run for president?
Right now, my favorite candidate in the 2016 race is Hillary
Clinton, because — as the media
tells me — she is “freezing the
field.” What that means is that
she’s such a force majeure as a
potential candidate, that until she
LOOKING FORWARD
IN ANGST
HUFFINGTON
03.17.13
says she’s in or out either way,
none of the other 2016 wannabes
can afford to stick their toes into
presidential waters.
While Chris Cillizza suggests
Clinton can’t spend too much time
not telling people what she intends
to do, I hope she refrains from announcing her intentions for a long
while. In the meantime, everyone
should stop worrying about an
election that’s many years away.
This year, we seem
to have stumbled out
of the gate looking to skip
the midterms entirely.”
Besides, the midterm elections
are an exciting, spontaneous, iddriven wreck of a political season
— way more fun than its tweedy
presidential year counterpart. So
let’s allow the midterms to unfold
on schedule, if only because it will
inevitably identify the next young
political hotshot to emerge from
obscurity and come to Washington. Whereupon he or she will get
barraged by a bunch of idiot reporters with questions about his
or her plans for 2016, and
regret ever coming here.