"The Dynastic Hillary Bandwagon: Bad for America"

[KoKo]

17. This!

But the bigger problem is that speculation over who the presidential nominees will be three years from now ascribes too much power to whoever tops the ticket. For example, the question of whether Elizabeth Warren will challenge Hillary Clinton is really a proxy for discussing the future direction of the Democratic party. For five years, usually warring Democratic factions have been unified in revulsion toward the tea party’s growing dominance within the GOP. But the divide between the centrist, Clintonian wing and what the late Senator Paul Wellstone called the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” still simmers beneath the surface, and there will likely be a reckoning during the 2016 nominating process.

The reality is that the fight over the direction of the party will determine the ideological lean of the nominee, not the other way around. Presidential nominees tend to hew closely to their party’s median vote in Congress. If the Democrats end up adopting a more populist platform, than Clinton, if she runs, will move to the left regardless of who is challenging her. This kind of analysis is, of course, less fun than the horse race.