First Read notes the various components of "The Clinton Machine," and how they're expected to play out in the near future:
Bill will be the campaigner, Hillary will talk policy and try to be the statesman..., and the Clinton-leaning interest groups are going to punch back against any GOP attacks. And oh, it was interesting to see Clinton confidante Harold Ickes back on the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee yesterday as the party begins to lay the groundwork for how its delegate-selection process will work in 2016.
"The groundwork"? Whatever worked against them in 2008.
I already feel a bit of Peggy Noonan's "malaise," since the Clinton Machine's operation is depressingly familiar. It leaves nothing to wonder about, or speculate on. One could write its 2016 script today, and not be surprised for the next three years.
Bill will schmooze on the stump, and in interviews he'll take elliptical shots at Obama's "lack of leadership"; Hillary will talk policy in an uncompelling policy-less kind of way, leaving herself abundant room for narrow interpretations; and Clinton-leaning interest groups will savagely castrate foes and even mildly critical friends alike.
Meanwhile, the GOP will refashion the United States of the 1990s as some sort of American Buchenwald, this time with Hillary--not Bill--as the grimly monocled Kommandant. We'll all--all of us--want to run for the sanity-saving hills, except the Millennials, who will be in the generational dark as to just what in God's name the GOP is so hysterical about.
The Machine's money will in all probability crush any challengers along the way, notably the immensely qualified Joe Biden, whose gut political instincts could otherwise outsmart all the imminent, metric-driven beanheads of the Clinton operation any day. "I’m not sure this is a moment for caution or deliberateness," Biden reflected recently (via Glenn Thrush). And he's right; the electorate has about had it with little, indetectable steps toward overly cautious nothingness.
Yet Hillary will play the safest of games, because she can. As her party's nominee, she'll be running in the general election virtually unopposed. (Rand Paul? Jeb Bush? Yeah, right.) Why upset a sure thing?
So if you too are already feeling a bit malaised, it's understandable. In fact, it was always that most Clintonesque of descriptions--inevitable.