Hillary Clinton is Still Winning

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)

The media needs to take a chill pill.  With Hillary Clinton's worst public approval ratings in over a decade out and the media smitten with new names like Lincoln Chafee and Bernie Sanders, journalists desperate to create a race have for some reason decided to call it one, claiming that Hillary Clinton is somehow vulnerable to all of these men.  I'm going to illustrate below with three key points why this is hogwash.

1. These are not presidents

The reality is that no one looks at Lincoln Chafee and Bernie Sanders and sees someone that could legitimately be a president.  It just isn't done.  This is the same sort of fire that someone who supported Dennis Kucinich or Pat Robertson or Herman Cain might have had-firebrands who can gain press and maybe drive the actual nominee to the left or right, but these are not presidents.  Bernie Sanders is a registered Socialist and not someone that has ever been elected under the banner of the Democratic Party.  Lincoln Chafee was a Republican senator less than a decade ago.  These are not the sorts of men who can convert party bosses, and you have to have the party bosses behind you-every major candidate of both parties has for decades.  The last time that the establishment candidate lost a nomination was arguably 1964, when Barry Goldwater chased Nelson Rockefeller out of the race, or maybe 1976 with Jimmy Carter but that's hardly a great example since Carter didn't really have to face the A-Squad.  These two are too outside-the-mainstream of the party. If Martin O'Malley were getting this kind of momentum (he's someone the DNC could actually coalesce around), I'd maybe buy into this, but Bernie Sanders-not a chance.

2. Hillary Clinton Still Dominate the Polls

Yes, her polling numbers are down, but she's still so far ahead of every other candidate in the race it's kind of ridiculous.  She's up by roughly 45-50 points over candidates who haven't even mustered 15% in the polls.  If literally ANY other candidate had that kind of a margin there would be no talk whatsoever about them being in trouble-it would be utter foolishness.  And the reality is that Mrs. Clinton simply cannot maintain those sorts of numbers.  Republicans in Wyoming can't win by 50-points.  So yes, Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley will definitely be able to gain slightly from their current positions if they don't have any other new competitors, but the reality is that 50-points is something basically unbreakable without a politician as skilled as, say, Barack Obama there to try and crack thedent.  And O'Malley, Chafee, and Sanders, unlike Obama, have been on the national stage for years, in some cases decades-these are not men that are going to be able to shake the foundation of the race up in the way that Obama did, because we know what they have.  At best they'll be Howard Dean, someone the media and activists become smitten with before they settle on a respectable nominee who can, you know, actually get votes in a general election.

3. The A-List Still isn't Running

But the number one reason I can tell that Hillary Clinton isn't losing this race-the best candidates in the Democratic Party aren't running.  You could make an argument that Martin O'Malley at least could be considered a "real" candidate, but that's a stretch, particularly considering that he couldn't remotely score if there were better candidates against Hillary Clinton.  If Clinton were truly vulnerable, Elizabeth Warren would be running.  We'd be hearing constant articles about Joe Biden getting into the race.  Up-and-comers ranging from Julian Castro to Cory Booker to Amy Klobuchar, politicians that clearly WANT to be president, would be toying with visits to Iowa and New Hampshire in the same way that the Republican Party is doing against Jeb Bush.  We'd continually see articles about one of the Great White Whales of the Democratic Party like Al Gore potentially getting into the race.  The reality is that Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders are, at best, Bill Bradley in 2000-someone who is too respectable not to include in a debate or in articles, but there's no way they're actually going to win this thing.  Hillary Clinton has not made any missteps that will cost her the nomination yet.  Yes, she's still very vulnerable in the general election and Barack Obama's approval ratings are of concern for the Democrats for 2016, but not Clinton in 2016.  No matter what the papers are trying to sell you, that's going to happen.