Hillary isn’t inevitable, but challengers are

The angst surrounding president Obama’s last two years in office is rubbing off on Hillary Clinton. Nervous Democrats, rightfully, are asking basic questions. Rather than stressing out about her age, they’re grimacing over her timing.

After two terms of a disappointing-at-best administration, will the American people really line up to vote in that administration’s second-most-famous figure?

Indeed, will Democrats?

Poor Hillary: it never seems to be the right time for her. Outside of politics, that sad state of affairs is often occasion for some sympathy, or at least pity.

At the top level of national affairs, however, sympathy is a pose, and pity for losers. Some Democrats will continue to demand that we shatter “the hardest, highest glass ceiling,” as Hillary herself likes to put it. Others will observe that history was just made last time around and that women seem to be doing better than ever climbing the ladders of power.

So, make no mistake: the Clintons will get challengers. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has sworn off a campaign, for now, not wanting to be the latest and greatest novice leader drafted too early and trained too fast. But Democrats, who have worried that their “bench” of prospective presidential candidates is just too light, are now waking up to some interesting alternatives.

First, there’s California Gov. Jerry Brown — the Democrat with the strongest popularity, deepest executive experience and most idiosyncratic track record around. Sure, he’s voiced more interest in returning to run the city of Oakland. But television host Bill Maher has already warned Democrats that they’d be fools to ignore him. And when Mr. Maher isn’t talking up Gov. Brown, he’s teasing his audience with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

One media personality does not an electorate make, of course. But Maher perfectly captures the key, growing slice of the electorate Democrats are losing their grip on — and Hillary is hard-pressed to recapture.

Then, there’s Jim Webb — remember him? The former Virginia Senator who doesn’t like war? He’s the kind of guy there used to be a lot more of in Washington: “Blue Dog” Democrats, the socially conventional and politically cautious figures who predate the Clinton/Obama wing of corporatist progressives.

Of late, Mr. Webb has emerged from relative isolation to speechify on the topic of a responsible foreign policy — using Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama’s Libya debacle as a conspicuous punching bag.

Mr. Webb, like other not-so-urban male Democrats such as former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, also offer Dems a shot at an electorate slipping from their grasp: middle-class white men skeptical of grandiose schemes, whatever their partisan pedigree.

Right now, Hillary’s possible foes look small on the national stage. But the less inevitable she seems, the more their stature will grow. One of them — no telling who — might even make 2016 interesting.

— From the Orange County Register