“Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has opened up a 9-point lead over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire and is closing ground on the Democratic front-runner in Iowa, according to an NBC News/Marist poll released Sunday. Sanders is leading Clinton 41-32, up a whopping 19 points from a similar poll in July. And Clinton’s support dropped by 11% in Iowa over the same time.” (Read story here.)
There are disturbing signs that Hillary Clinton’s candidacy is imploding under the weight of public skepticism of her ethics, honesty, and trustworthiness. While it’s still very early in the 2016 campaign cycle, Bernie Sanders’ surge of popularity smacks of the Democratic grassroots searching for a Hillary alternative, and is somewhat reminiscent of Eugene McCarthy’s challenge against LBJ in 1968. McCarthy had no hope of winning the party’s nomination, and Sanders probably doesn’t either, but LBJ ultimately bowed out and Hillary appears headed for the trash bin, too.
Something similar is happening to the GOP’s early presumed frontrunner, Jeb! Bush, too. He’s failed to light a fire under his party’s grassroots, and like Hillary he’s burdened with baggage, but his problems go much deeper than that. His party’s supporters are in full-fledged revolt against the party’s leadership and establishment, whom they feel have repeatedly betrayed them. All of the candidates leading in GOP polls are improbable outsiders, and all of the party’s logical candidates — senators and governors — are getting trashed in the polls.
Deep currents of dissatisfaction are coursing through the electorate on both sides of the partisan divide in this pre-election-year season. The increasingly radicalized Republican base is disgusted with their party leadership’s inability to thwart Obama and impose their agenda on the nation. Many Democrats are upset by GOP obstructionism, and want their party’s leaders and office holders to get tougher against the Republicans; and they, too, have much unfinished business on their agenda.
The Democrats’ supporters have more to lose than the Republicans’ supporters. The GOP has a deep field of presidential contenders, and even if several stumble, they still have a strong bench. The Democrats have no bench at all; if Hillary turns into irretrievably damaged goods, another President Bush is probably the best they can hope for, and it could turn out much, much worse — a President Trump or Walker are real possibilities. The Democrats have a good shot at recapturing a Senate majority next year, but no hope at all of reclaiming the House. Even if they’re able to stymie much or most of a Republican president’s legislative agenda, the fact of a GOP president making the next several Supreme Court appointments will be disastrous for liberal and progressive causes all by itself.
So what’s the answer? Is there one for Democrats besides helplessly watching from the sidelines, and praying that Hillary doesn’t take her entire party down with her? Liberals and progressives can’t afford a 2010 or 2014 in 2016. Hillary increasingly looks weak; she was beaten by Obama in 2008, and now in 2015, she looks worryingly vulnerable. Bernie Sanders is endearing, but unelectable. Democrats had better find a backup candidate fast. A growing number of them understand this, and that’s what’s behind the movement to draft Joe Biden into the race. There really isn’t anybody else.