Hillary Clinton’s Strong Start

That was partly spin, of course. There is no end in sight to the stories about the finances of the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton e-mails, or the activities of some of the Clintons’ associates. But as spring rolls into summer, Team Brooklyn has successfully accomplished its two initial goals: heading off the possibility of a serious challenge for the Democratic nomination and surviving a barrage of negative publicity that was inevitable at some stage, and which was, therefore, best confronted early on.


The entry into the Democratic contest by Bernie Sanders was welcome from a Clintonite perspective, because it filled a potentially dangerous vacuum. With his long record of service to progressive causes, Sanders is popular enough to garner a decent-sized following among liberal Democrats, but he’s almost certainly too far to the left to represent a serious threat to Hillary. So far, at least, his presence has been more of a problem for Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, who is set to officially announce his candidacy on Saturday. As I noted back in March, O’Malley is a serious figure who demands some respect. As governor, he eliminated the death penalty, legalized gay marriage, and championed various good-government initiatives. But with Sanders already out there on the stump, O’Malley has struggled to gain traction.

A new poll of likely Democratic voters conducted by Quinnipiac University illustrates the scale of the task that is facing Clinton’s challengers. The survey, which was carried out from May 19th to May 26th, showed her getting fifty-seven per cent of the vote. Sanders was in second place, with fifteen per cent. O’Malley got just one per cent, and so did two other possible candidates, Jim Webb, a former U.S. senator from Virginia, and Lincoln Chafee, a former governor and U.S. senator from Rhode Island. Of course, it is early in the process, and anything could happen between now and the end of the primaries. At this stage, though, Clinton is sitting pretty.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/at-this-early-stage-hillary-clinton-looks-strong