Hillary Clinton Might Win Nomination Without Opposition–Unless Brian Schweitzer Counts

After looking at bad news for the presumed front runners for the 2016 presidential nominations, and criticism of Hillary Clinton’s conservative record, the speculation today is that Hillary Clinton might still take the nomination with no real opposition. This speculation was precipitated by an announcement that California Governor Jerry Brown will not run. A few years ago, who would have even thought that this would be news? The response from First Read:

Here’s something for political reporters and pundits to chew on: It’s more likely that Hillary Clinton would face only gadfly opposition in a 2016 Democratic primary (we’re looking at you, Dennis Kucinich) — rather than a competitive challenger. California Gov. Jerry Brown has become the latest Democrat to rule out a presidential bid. The Los Angeles Times: “Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday that he will not run for president in 2016, dashing political speculation that he might make a fourth bid for the White House. ‘No, that’s not in the cards. Unfortunately,’ he told reporters at a news conference before brightening about his current job: ‘Actually, California is a lot more governable.’” Already, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has said no. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has said he won’t run if Hillary does. And while former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer is certainly dipping his toes into the presidential waters, he did the same thing regarding the state’s vacant Senate seat — and remember how that turned out. American politics is full of surprises. But right now, the smart money is on Hillary facing little to no opposition if she runs in 2016.

It is hard to see Brian Schweitzer making a credible challenge to Hillary Clinton, but who would have thought Barack Obama could have won at this point before the 2008 election? I do wonder if Schweitzer is actually positioning himself for a future run, or perhaps as Hillary Clinton’s running mate. His is from a profile of Schweitzer at MSNBC:

It could be that Schweitzer is really aiming his sights for the vice presidency. He pulls his punches ever so slightly when talking about Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state. When asked about Benghazi, he leaps to her defense.

“The Republicans like to blame her for four people killed in the embassy and that’s tragic,” he told msnbc. “But did the Republicans forget already that during the time I was in Saudi Arabia there was a big explosion in a hotel in Beirut, Lebanon, and 160 American Marines were killed? 160’s a lot more than four, right?”

In fact, 220 Marines and 241 American personnel total were killed in the 1983 bombing. Which brings up another issue for Schweitzer: he doesn’t have much of a filter. In a presidential campaign, even the slightest gaffe can explode into a firestorm.

Ultimately, Schweitzer’s biggest impact on the 2016 presidential contest could be pressuring the centrist, cautious Clinton to stay in the left lane.

It is one thing for Schweitzer to defend Clinton on Benghazi considering the absurdity of the Republican attack, but he has also been critical in other areas, with an aim at keeping her from moving “hard right.”

“The question that we have is, will it be the Hillary that leads the progressives?” he said. “Or is it the Hillary that says, ‘I’m already going to win the Democratic nomination, and so I can shift hard right on Day 1.’ We can’t afford any more hard right. We had eight years of George Bush. Now we’ve had five years of Obama, [who], I would argue, in many cases has been a corporatist.”

Schweitzer has also criticized Clinton for her vote on Iraq, a position which should gain points (if not enough votes to win) from Democratic voters:

“Anybody who runs in this cycle, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, if they were the United States Senate and they voted with
George Bush to go to Iraq when I would say about 98 percent of America knows that it was a folly, that it was a waste of treasure and blood,
and if they voted to go to Iraq there will be questions for them on the left and from the right,” he told CNN.

Later, in his remarks to a holiday party organized by the liberal group Progress Iowa, Schweitzer asked the roughly 70 audience members
to keep the Iraq war vote in mind as they begin to think about potential candidates passing through the state.