GOP to Win Congress This Year, Hillary Likely President in 2016: US Academic

© RIA NovostiThe Republican Party is likely to win a majority in Congress this year, but the strongest potential presidential candidate is still Democrat Hillary Clinton, Prof. Christopher Arterton says.
The Republican Party is likely to win a majority in Congress this year, but the strongest potential presidential candidate is still Democrat Hillary Clinton, Prof. Christopher Arterton says. - Sputnik International
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The Republican Party is likely to win a majority in Congress this year, but the strongest potential presidential candidate is still Democrat Hillary Clinton, Prof. Christopher Arterton told Radio VR.

MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) - Hillary Clinton may be able to satisfy her presidential ambition during the 2016 elections season, as public opinion of her is high and she lacks any serious competition, Prof. Christopher Arterton of George Washington University said in an interview with Radio VR.

“I think that in most cases there will not be a serious competitor to Hillary Clinton for various reasons”, Prof. Arterton says confidently, speaking on the phone from Washington, DC. Recently, the Washington Post and ABC News conducted a public opinion poll showing strong Democrat public support for the former first lady's possible run for President. “I think the people feel her time has come. I think it’s hard for a candidate like Elizabeth Warren to decide she wants to run against the first woman who has a very serious prospect of being elected president. I think there’s a kind of sisterhood that will affect her calculations”.

As for the Republicans, Washington Post-ABC News polling has revealed only 20% of conservatives want to see Mitt Romney run again as a candidate for President. “On the Republican side, even if Mitt Romney gets into it, I think we’ll have a real donnybrook as there’s too many divisions in the Republican party for there’s not being a serious candidate from the Christian conservatives, from the Tea Party, from the Country club, the Wall Street crowd”, Prof. Arterton suggests. “So I think that we’ll see a robust campaign on the Republican side and kind of a walkaway on the Democratic side”.

However, despite being a very strong candidate for the White House in 2016, Hillary Clinton is not guaranteed an easy victory, the expert notes. “It’s a unique situation because her history makes Hillary Clinton into a very different kind of a frontrunner. Certainly, we’ve had instances in the past when two years out we’ve had a frontrunner, and a lot of other ‘also rans’, and surprisingly to the frontrunner the ‘also rans’ have come out of nowhere as recently as in 2008 when Hillary Clinton was about to announce she would be a frontrunner, and out of nowhere came an unknown senator of Illinois and knocked her off”.

In Prof. Arterton’s opinion, the Republicans are most likely to win the interim elections in 2014, thus further depriving the Obama administration of legislative support. “I think it’s fair to say that the two political parties are in a tie in the forthcoming election in two weeks. The Republican Party is seemingly in a slightly better position nationally than the Democratic Party. In part, this is a result to the Obama’s declining popularity probably brought on by the fact that during his 6 years in office he’s not been able to bring the economy back into robust shape. It looks like the Republicans will hold on to the House or improve themselves a little bit there and will capture the Senate. So, we’ll have Congress that’s Republican and the White House that’s Democratic”.

The main reason for such a dramatic decline in popularity for the Democrats, according to Prof. Arterton, is the continuing deterioration of the middle-class America and the overall turmoil of the economy. “There are two trends”, the expert says. “One is that in the short-term we’ve had the first recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s that started just as Obama took office, and he could not bring it back to where we were in 2008. The second, the long-term trend is that the middle class has been rather dismal during the last 20 or 30 years, so people in the middle class are doing less better than they did 20 or 30 years ago”. Foreign affairs do not play a key role in the bipartisan struggle at this moment, the expert notes.

Hillary Clinton’s success in opinion polls is explained by a variety of things, Prof. Arterton points out. “Part of it is in a sense that Bill Clinton administration was really the last time we saw a sustained growth, so that’s a halo effect from that era. I think she also did extremely well as a Secretary of State during the first administration which has made her an international figure that she had not been as the first lady or a senator. And I think as well some of these 65% is coming from the absence of a real competitor either in the Republican Party or the Democratic Party at this point”.

Hillary Clinton’s popularity is such that if elections were held today, she would be elected, the expert says; but in 2016 in won’t be that easy, as the GOP is mobilizing. “If we had the election today, it would be a walkaway, but of course, there would be a strong Republican candidate attacking her and raising alternative ways of thinking about the future. When we actually get to the 2016 election, it’s certainly going to be a lot closer than it appears now”.

Prof. Arterton is confident when speaking of Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambition. “I think there’s no chance she won’t run”, he says. “But it is in her interest to postpone the announce as after that there’ll be a fairplay, and the people will have more legitimacy to attack her ideas, her history and her past, her husband and so forth”. At the same time, to prepare a full-scale presidential campaign, Prof. Arterton points out, it will take the Clinton team about a year, once Hillary announces her candidacy. However, it won’t happen later than February 2015, the expert says.

On the Republican side, the main problem is lack of party unity. Despite the GOP heading for success this year, the Party is not cohesive enough to produce a strong presidential candidate at this point, the expert says. “Mitt Romney has been flirting with the idea of running again, and there is a question whether he’s going to announce for the 3rd presidential run as he had also been a candidate in 2004. I think we may get Romney for presidential campaign, but if you think about it just being rumoured, the potential candidate means that attention focuses on him, the press is more interested in him. He’s spent two years out of the limelight, now with the 2014 campaign giving him an excuse to travel and raise money for people and go give speeches again. You know, once you get the presidential bug, it’s often hard to get rid of it”.

However as bright as Hilary Clinton’s presidential prospects may be, there are several scandals she will never be able to outlive, namely her husbands infidelity in the White House. Monica Lewinsky has recently drawn the public eye again, claiming to have been the subject of abuse on Twitter. “I think this is somewhat of a publicity stunt”, the expert suggests, going on to say that her activity may undermine Hillary’s campaign. “This is not what the Clinton people are very happy to have occurred at this point. There’re not particularly enthusiastic about the resurfacing of Monica Lewinsky.  On the other hand, I think this is the case where the cyber bullying is happening and is a very serious matter for people who are subject to that, so I think she has every right to say that there’s nasty people out there who hide under the anonymity of the web and can be pretty obnoxious”.

On the other hand, the former President and Hillary are still married, a big plus in the eyes of the US ‘moral majority’, Prof. Arterton says. “They are still married and they have the loving business relationship, a successful daughter and they’re doing interesting things in Clinton’s post-presidency, and I think that indicated that Clintons have not faded away and have gone into some noble causes, so I think that helps Hillary as well. I think that if one had the choice advising Hillary Clinton, one would opt to not have Monica Lewinsky resurface again at this particular point”.

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