Just as much as the mainstream media (and much of the Democratic Party) wants to cast Hillary Clinton as the inevitable Democratic nominee for president nearly three years before the next election, there is an equal effort on the part of some other media outlets and grassroots progressive activists within the party to find an alternative to the former First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State.
Although the emphasis wasn't as much on an economic populist as there is today (which is why politicians like Mark Warner were floated as legitimate challengers to Clinton back then), there was still a thirst to find a viable alternative to what appeared to be a preordained coronation.
Enter Barack Obama.
So who might play that role this time around?
It seems like Brian Schweitzer, the former two-term governor of Montana, is dipping his toe into those deep waters. He was asked about that on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopolous on Sunday after a recent appearance in Iowa, the site of the first presidential caucus every four years (watch at the 10:55 mark).
If Schweitzer were to run, his odds are, to say the least, formidable.
In a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling a few weeks ago, the former Montana Governor barely made it on the map of the non-Hillary contenders.
Q2 If Hillary Clinton was not a candidate for
President, who would you support, given the
choices of Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Andrew
Cuomo, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Martin
O’Malley, Brian Schweitzer, and Elizabeth
Warren?
Joe Biden........................................................ 35%
Cory Booker.................................................... 7%
Andrew Cuomo ............................................... 7%
Howard Dean.................................................. 4%
John Kerry ...................................................... 13%
Martin O'Malley............................................... 4%
Brian Schweitzer ............................................. 1%
Elizabeth Warren ............................................ 13%
Someone else/Not sure .................................. 16%Q3 If neither Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Howard
Dean, nor John Kerry ran for President in 2016,
who would you most like to see as the
Democratic nominee?
Cory Booker.................................................... 13%
Andrew Cuomo ............................................... 14%
Martin O'Malley............................................... 7%
Brian Schweitzer ............................................. 2%
Elizabeth Warren ............................................ 24%
Someone else/Not sure .................................. 40%
Apparently the D.C. political establishment isn't taking a Schweitzer candidacy too seriously at this point. The Washington Post's Chris Cilizza wrote last month that, "Viewed as altruistically as possible, it gives Schweitzer (or Howard Dean) a raised platform to influence the Democratic party as it begins to mull its post-Obama future. Viewed as cynically as possible, it gives Schweitzer a raised platform by which he can emerge as a national television voice, speechmaker and general commenter about politics."
Whatever. The fact is there will be competition against Hillary Clinton of some sort if she indeed opts to run for president. And then there's always the chance she won't, which means that Schweitzer's public coming out now to any audience that will have him certainly makes a whole lot of sense.