Hillary will be challenged from the left. Nader will have nothing to do with it.

[cthulu2016]

If Hillary runs in 2016 she will have large majorities of the Democratic center and Democratic right.

The available primary votes will be to her left.

Thus she will be challenged from the left.

And anyone who becomes a plausible challenge will find themselves moving left, as they chase available votes.

No way around it.

Nobody need worry that she will run unopposed.

[DURHAM D]

1. Challenged by?

[cthulu2016]

2. Obama and Dean were not names on everyone's lips in 2001 and 2005.

So I don't even have a guess.

(Not to say there was anything Left about Obama, but he was erroneously read that way in the campaign dynamic.)

[earthside]

3. He was perceived as left of Hillary in 2008.

So, Clinton is vulnerable.

Frankly, except for here maybe, I don't think there are many who believe an Elizabeth Warren candidacy is likely. However, if she is interested and if she is very smart and politically strategic, I think that Warren could upset the Hillary bandwagon.

I believe that the progressive left of the Democratic Party is increasingly impassioned about supporting a real, genuine progressive for the 2016 nomination.

[Cal Carpenter]

4. The Nader obsession here is absurd

and counter-productive to determining what has gone wrong in elections, or why the Dems aren't doing what people think they should.

I dunno who they'll scapegoat when Nader is gone, but it is not helpful.

Intellectual honesty would serve the party/country much better.

The Left exists quite independently from (and often at odds with) Ralph Nader. Perhaps a genuine, ideological shift to the left by the Dems would serve them well, electorally speaking. It is hard to say, and it is even harder to imagine given the current trajectory.

What a lot of folks here don't seem to understand is that the serious, capital-L Left isn't all that focused on partisan electoral stuff anyway, and there is no alternate universe where Leftists who do vote 'would have' voted for a Dem if no one else was on the ballot.

[Le Taz Hot]

12. Please understand it's only a few misguided

individuals with an inexplicable Nader obsession. The vast majority of us understand perfectly what happened in 2000.

[Jim Lane]

17. Nader's own polling indicated otherwise.

You write, "there is no alternate universe where Leftists who do vote 'would have' voted for a Dem if no one else was on the ballot."

There wouldn't be literally no one else on the ballot, but the question was Nader on the ballot.

If Nader had not been on the ballot, the people who actually voted for him would have variously written him in, written someone else in, voted for whomever the Greens did nominate, voted for some other minor-party candidate, voted but left the presidential line blank, or stayed home entirely. Some of the Nader voters, however, would have voted for Gore, and some (a smaller number) would have voted for Bush.

So it's right here in this real universe that, had Nader decided not to exercise his constitutional right to run in the general election, some of those Leftists would have voted for the Dem. (I'm assuming you count all Nader's voters as Leftists. If your "Leftists" with a capital L is defined as people who would never vote Democratic because they think the Dems are too conservative, then, yes, your statement is true but unenlightening.)

[Starry Messenger]

20. They're grooming Grayson to be the next Nader scapegoat.

There have already been a couple of hate-fests here over him.

[bemildred]

5. Correct. Both parties are divided. It's going to be a really nasty election. nt

[PDittie]

6. I'll guess

Martin O'Malley.

[customerserviceguy]

7. Since you've already described

two-thirds of Democratic voters as already being in her corner, I guess that remaining third is going to have to unite quickly and completely in order to have their candidate lose by less than a completely embarassing margin.

I've decided that she's inevitable, both for the nomination and the general election. That is, if she wants it.

You really want to give her a reason to forget it? Elect Anthony Weiner as NYC mayor, that may embarass the hell out of her.

[cthulu2016]

8. 2/3 was not my intention

I wasn't meaning to divide Dems into thirds in saying left-middle-right. There are, IMO, very few right-wing Dems.

I was thinking more like 50% center, 40% left, 10% right. And 60% would be a big majority in a group. So 60% of center (30% total), 80% of right (8% total) and 35% of left (14% total), which would be roughly 50% Hillary and 50% everybody else and undecided.

Which is probably not too far off, as a guesstimate, from what national polls will show a month or two before Iowa.

But Hillary would probably have less than 50% in Iowa at that time, because people will be campaigning against her there, unlike the rest of the country.

[customerserviceguy]

9. While we can play with the proportions

the fact remains, there needs to be one anybody-but-Hillary candidate in the primaries and early caucus states, or this game is over. That's how Mittens finally won the nomination in a party where a third of the electorate doesn't like Mormons, he had a lot of opponents dividing up the vote.

I'm sure Hillary's people have taken careful notes.

[Jim Lane]

19. The Romney analogy isn't perfect because of the differences in party rules.

Romney picked up a lot of delegates in winner-take-all contests in which he had a plurality but not a majority, with several more conservative candidates dividing the right-wing vote.

In the Democratic Party, winner-take-all contests are prohibited. It's at least conceivable to foresee a convention in which Clinton has the most delegates but is below 50%, with several more progressive candidates each having smaller shares.

Nevertheless, I think you're largely right as a practical matter. If the early primaries and caucuses produce a clear progressive challenger to Clinton, then that person will attract more media coverage, more money, more superdelegate supporters, etc. If Clinton wins New Hampshire with 45% to one opponent's 40%, she's the front-runner but has a fight on her hands. If she wins with 45% against two opponents each getting 20%, she probably gets the same number of delegates but she's in much better shape on all the other aspects of the nomination fight.

[customerserviceguy]

22. Again, we can quibble about the rules

But in the end, all Hillary needs is for two anybody-but-Hillary candidates to survive the early caucuses and primaries, and she's played divide and conquer. By the time it gets to South Carolina and Florida, she'll have emerged with a clear victory against anybody else who cannot grab at least a third of the delegates at that point.

The rules are a bit different, but the math is fundamentally the same. The only chance an alternative to Hillary has is effectively zero opposition from others weakening their support. I wouldn't put it past her supporters to give money to someone who could be just such a spoiler taking votes away from an Elizabeth Warren.

Hillary's people play to win. They won't get caught flat-footed again.

[WI_DEM]

10. believe it or not but she will also have a lot of people on the left behind her, too.

[Scurrilous]

13. Yep.

[Le Taz Hot]

11. Running unopposed isn't the problem.

The problem is that game is rigged via Hillary's pre-wire into the Party Machine and ALL that that has to offer. The Party, instead of staying out of the fray until a candidates is democratically established via the voting process, will be in it from the beginning pouring all their resources toward Hillary.

Further, the primary process virtually ensures the inside-the-beltway candidate will win. How? Because it's basically up to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to determine the candidates. The other 47 states can go suck air. What gets me is what the HELL Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have to do with states like California and New York? Answer: NADA. (NB: The only reason the primaries went as long as they did in 2008 was because BOTH remaining candidates were inside-the-beltway candidates and it didn't really matter to the 1% which one won.)

Having said that, IF we can talk Elizabeth Warren into running, she will pull the left in overwhelming majorities (I'm betting the Greens won't run a national candidate), FDR Democrats AND independents AND the poor and the middle class AND even some Republicans, not to mention MANY liberal organizations who can't stomach Hillary and who have just been waiting for someone on the left to support. We'd have to keep her alive through the primary process so, for once, maybe ALL states would have input as to who the nominee would be.

[JoePhilly]

14. And if one of them stands out ... they have a shot

at being her running mate.

That is actually the most likely path for improving the positioning of an "acceptably liberal" candidate in the next administration.

I don't see Hillary getting surprised, or miscalculating the importance of caucus politics, again.

[1-Old-Man]

15. Who ever it turns out to be they have my vote come Primary time

Because the next to last person on this earth I want to be President is Hillary Clinton.

[customerserviceguy]

23. I would assume that the last such person

is whoever is running against her in the fall of 2016? She's counting on that, be sure of it.

[Catherina]

16. You bet your sweet ass. And it has nothing to do with her gender.

I can't wait to see a female as President, but not Hillary.

[Whisp]

21. +++

[xchrom]

18. god i hope so...i'd love to see a charismatic left wing economic populist run.

with emphasis on charismatic.