It doesn’t seem particularly far-fetched to presume that people with statist tendencies have an affinity for being told what to think and who to follow. People who believe that more government involvement in their lives and the lives of others is a good thing should be expected to trust government and those in government who share their mind-set. Nowadays, we are more likely to find such people identifying with the Democratic Party and the big names therein. President Obama has done quite a bit to expand government. Annual federal expenditures jumping from $3.0T the year before he took office (up from $2.7T the year before) to a steady $3.5T every year since, and the power and scope of the executive branch, including the various bureaucracies and agencies, has been growing steadily in many different areas. This expansion has been cheered and encouraged by Democrats of all stripes, the representatives and senators in Congress that wear the (D) label have been voting lock-step ever since Obama was inaugurated, and statism in its various forms has increasingly displaced the elements of liberty that the Left used to espouse. The herd mentality in the Democratic Party has grown strong.
We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that there’s been a sense of inevitability regarding the party’s next candidate for the White House. Hillary Clinton has been the heir presumptive almost since Obama took the oath of office. Obama made her Secretary of State, a move that added “foreign policy” to an already-long checklist. She retired out of that role far enough ahead of a political campaign to provide separation from her (less than stellar) track record, and to allow people’s memories of her tenure to fade and be displaced by the raw fact that she was Secretary of State. For many, that’s enough.
Ms. Clinton’s long history and track record have, on the other hand, fomented discontent from the far-left wing of the party, with a handful of loud voices expressing support for Elizabeth Warren. However, the latter’s insistence that she’s not running, the paucity of those voices in comparison to the balance of the party, and the strength and formidable presence of the Clinton name and legacy have combined to preserve the sense that her nomination is inevitable.
There’s also the front-runner element. People love a front runner. They love to be on the winning side, and they especially love to be able to claim they were there from the beginning. This is likely to hold especially true for those who prefer the herd, and the herd has long been expecting Clinton to be the standard bearer for the 8 years after Obama retires.
Front runners do, from time to time, fade. While momentum and presumption are powerful forces in politics and can keep voters and the party rank-and-file in line, inevitability is often a mindset more than it is a fact. And when the front runner’s shine starts to dull, when the easy cadence starts to break and flaws start to appear, some members of the herd may start straying. Some will see an opportunity to challenge the front-runner and others will see a chance to be “among the first” to support the apostate and thus claim some moral high ground should the challenger succeed.
Hillary has had a fair number of scandals and missteps over the years, and has managed to roll on in her heir-presumptive role despite them. She hasn’t seemed to fare as well, however, with the latest (the private email server controversy). Either this particular bit pierced the armor or the accumulation of scandals finally reached a critical mass, because people are starting to break from the herd. Warren’s being urged, again, to run and Martin O’Malley, former governor of Maryland, is starting to grab headlines as a potential challenger to Ms. Clinton.
Any fan of professional sports understands changes in momentum. Watching a game where the losing team is suddenly starting to hit, or score, or move the ball, and the intangible becomes real. Belief and presumption change, and the team that was perceived as having locked the game down suddenly looks vulnerable. Hillary’s on that cusp. She’s still the presumptive nominee, it still appears as if it’s hers for the taking, but the herd is starting to fracture. If O’Malley continues to make noise, he’ll draw followers, and if Warren relents and throws her hat in the ring, the herd will break.
Hillary, more than the others, needs that herd. She’s not a gifted orator, she doesn’t have a track record that inspires, many of her achievements amounted to riding the coattails of others, she failed in her previous attempt to win a contested presidential primary, and doesn’t inspire the way Obama did. She needs the sense of inevitability and the presumptive status in order to dissuade challenges from within her own party. A contested nomination will make things more difficult for her, both in the primary and in the general election should she prevail. The herd, once scattered, will be difficult to round up again.
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