My thoughts on Hillary Clinton announcing she is running for president.

Hillary Clinton's official portrait. State Department Photo. 

In a move that surprised absolutely nobody Hillary Clinton announced today that she is running for president again. I thought I should talk about it because at this point she seems like the most likely Democrat to win the nomination. I already talked about the Republican field in this post. 

So what are Clinton's advantages and disadvantages? For one, she seems to have the female vote locked up for the same reason that Obama had the black vote locked up. I don't think she has as much support as Obama did, but there are a lot of women out there that will vote for her just because they want a woman in the White House. She's also very famous and her husband was reasonably well liked when he was president. She is also rich, which goes without saying. 

She also has very little competition in the democratic field.  As far as I know nobody else has put in for the nomination. Joe Biden has made some noise about running but he has given off so many "creepy uncle" vibes lately that he isn't a serious contender. Martin O'Malley may run as well, but I don't think he is all that well known. The only person I have heard of on the Democrat side of the field that may run is Elizabeth Warren, as a far-left alternative to Clinton, but she has made it very clear that she does not want to do so. I guess it is possible that some maverick could rise from the ranks like Barack Obama did in 2008, but if that does happen I have no idea who it would be. 

But it is clear to me that Clinton has some serious disadvantages as well. She has not done much at all in her political career. Here tenure as a Senator from New York was rather uneventful and her performance as Secretary of State was very poor. She also had a couple of rather severe scandals while at the State Department including the Benghazi attack and her e-mail scandal. Plus she has to deal with everything her husband did while he was president. 

Clinton also has some rather severe likability problems. She comes off as arrogant, mean and cold. She does not act like someone that cares about the little people at all. Some would argue that her personality makes her seem tough, but for me it just it just makes her look like someone like I would not want to be around. 

Is she beatable though? Of course! She lost back in 2008 so it can happen again. It just won't happen in the primaries. It really depends on who the Republican candidate is. If it comes down to her and Jeb Bush, I think she wins because as much as people are sick of the Clinton, they are sick of the Bush's even more. Ted Cruz seems like he is too far to the right to get a huge amount of support from anyone in the center. Scott Walker has a chance, but the left absolutely hates him. 

I think Rand Paul could pull it off. Amazingly enough, he's the anti-war candidate compared to her, plus he has quite a lot of support from centrists. He's the only Republican candidate that could bring people over from the Democrats. Left Libertarians are a thing that exists and they would probably support Paul more then Clinton. Though he will be eaten alive during the primaries, if he secures the nominations Republicans will support him just because he isn't Hilary Clinton.