NEW YORK TIMES: No matter what happens on Election Day in November, when Mr. Obama wakes up the next morning, he will no longer be the future of his party. If he loses, attention will immediately turn to which Democrat might be able to pick up the pieces from the deep disappointment of his one term. If he wins, the party will begin turning to who might be able to accomplish the difficult task of winning a third straight term for one party. Already, the jockeying for 2016 has begun.
Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, a possible candidate, traveled to South Carolina for its primary two weeks ago to give interviews criticizing Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner. Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York governor, had a successful first year by going to the left on same-sex marriage and to the center on the budget. The candidate looming above all others is Hillary Rodham Clinton, who would instantaneously become the front-runner if she entered the race but who says she is retiring from public life when she steps down as secretary of state at the end of Mr. Obama’s current term. Democratic strategists and fund-raisers are divided over how seriously to take that vow.
Whoever the candidates turn out to be, they will inevitably need to define themselves in relation to Mr. Obama, even if they don’t say so. (After George Bush called for a “kinder and gentler” society in his 1988 Republican convention speech, Nancy Reagan reportedly asked, “Kinder and gentler than whom?”) … (more)
