A Weak Bench

Almost a year ago, I wrote about the early line on the Republican presidential race for 2016. A lot has happened, but not much has changed. The candidates appear to be pretty much the same, but some of the names have moved up, some down.

What's striking about the field is that there is no front-runner. As I wrote last year, Republicans are all about front-runners. Democrats tend to hold free-for-alls, with someone out of left field ending up the nominee. This time around, the parties have switched, with Democrats having a huge front-runner, Hillary Clinton. If she runs, there may be token opposition, but she will be the biggest non-incumbent favorite for a presidential nomination that anyone can remember.

The Republicans, meanwhile, are a bunch of midgets skirting about Clinton's ankles. They have some names in the news, but no one with her kind of prestige. But, this time next year, there will be announced candidates, and the fog is clearing.

A poll about a month ago taken of Republicans saw Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin as one-two. This is purely name recognition, because it's highly unlikely either will give up their television salaries. More accurately, the annual C-PAC conference gave their straw poll vote to Rand Paul, the eye doctor (though he isn't certified) turned senator who has seemed to corner the market on the lunatic fringe, beating out fellow nutflake Ted Cruz (last year I wrote that Cruz couldn't run, because he was born in Canada. This is still unclear).

There are many other names floating in the conservative ether. There's Paul Ryan, the losing VP candidate of 2012, and fellow Wisconsan, Governor Scott Walker, who made a name for himself as a basher of unions. Another governor is Bobby Jindal, who has moved on from his disastrous Republican response to the State of the Union a few years ago, and is now a person confused about the First Amendment--you see, he thinks the Duck Dynasty guy can say whatever he wants about gays, but MoveOn can't put up a billboard criticizing him.

Then there's Marco Rubio, the Latin hope, who is trying to live down a moderate response on immigration to his Tea Party brethren. He may end up being a consensus choice, if only in reaction to the party rapidly losing the Latin vote. I see him more of a natural VP selection.

But the biggest change over a year has to be rise and fall of Chris Christie. Last year I thought the conservative wing wouldn't go for him, because of his cuddling with Obama after Sandy. But Christie seemed to gather strength, perhaps because he looked like the candidate most likely to beat Hillary. But the bridge scandal, among others, has perforated his balloon. He may still run, but it's hard to imagine someone with his thin skin making it through a campaign without a major gaffe.

The Republicans may be a nest of Tea Party hornets, but who still really controls the party? Wall Street. They picked Mitt Romney, who tacked right to appeal to the bloodthirsty base. Christie may have been Wall Street's choice, but it's likely they will look elsewhere. Paul, Cruz, Rubio, Jindal--they are unlikely Wall Street picks. So I'm left thinking what I was last year--that Jeb Bush may be the nominee. This would probably be disastrous--another Clinton vs. Bush race? But until Wall Street coalesces around another candidate, just who I have no idea, that may be the result. Then again, maybe this is going to be a year similar to 1972, when the Democratic Party collapsed on itself and nominated an extremist. We saw what happened then.