Democrats clamor for credible Clinton challenger in wake of email revelations

As Hillary Clinton continues to come under fire for her use of private emails during her four years as US secretary of state, a groundswell of opinion suggests the Democratic party must stage a competitive search for its 2016 presidential candidate and avoid a Clinton coronation.

With 20 months still to go before Americans go to the polls to decide their next president, Clinton stands head and shoulders above any other potential candidate. The latest tracking poll from Real Clear Politics puts her 44 points ahead of her closest rival, Vice-President Joe Biden – a dominance that so far has dissuaded most credible alternatives from coming forward.

But after a tumultuous week of negative headlines and widespread criticism of her decision to use a private email domain in her former role as America’s top diplomat, memories have resurfaced of the kinds of campaigning difficulties that dogged her last unsuccessful run for the White House in 2008. Voices are starting to be heard questioning whether it is desirable to anoint her the Democratic nominee without a robust contest that would hone her message and flush out some of the difficulties that have recently beset her.

“We don’t do coronations,” said Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist and former staffer for Bill Clinton during both his presidential campaigns. He said that regardless of the wide admiration for Hillary, her apparently unassailable position was uncomfortable for the party.

“Look at all our recent presidents – Carter, [Bill] Clinton, Obama – they were all insurgents running against the party infrastructure. The way things are going this cycle is not organic – it’s not how we do things,” he said.

Progressives on the left of the party are pushing for greater debate that would clarify where the presidential candidates stand on core issues and potentially nudge them towards a more radical stance. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a grassroots campaign that supports the Massachusetts US senator and liberal firebrand Elizabeth Warren, argues that the discussion needs to be stepped up rather than dampened down.

“Hillary Clinton – or any Democratic candidate – will be stronger in the general election if they adopt an Elizabeth Warren-style economic populist agenda. We’re working to incentivize all Democrats who may run for president – including Clinton – to promote expanding Social Security benefits, making college debt-free, and breaking up the Wall Street banks that broke our economy,” said PCCC’s TJ Helmstetter.

Warren herself has repeatedly insisted she is not planning to run for president. Other big-hitters in the Democratic party have also been hanging back, notably Biden, while less prominent figures such as the former governor of Maryland Martin O’Malley and the Vermont US senator Bernie Sanders have been exploring bids but would struggle to make an impression against the vast name recognition and fundraising might of Clinton.

But the absence of credible opposition has paradoxically left Clinton more exposed when awkward news has broken – as it has with disturbing frequency in recent weeks. In addition to the private emails controversy, there have been questions over the Clinton Foundation, the couple’s philanthropic arm, after it was disclosed that the organization accepted donations from foreign governments while Hillary was still at the State Department.

The furore over her use of private emails has the potential to be long and drawn out, given that the State Department has said it will take several months to meet Clinton’s request by releasing more than 50,000 pages of her emails to the public. The Republicans, smelling blood, have also demanded to see all the emails on the 2012 Benghazi attacks in which the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans died.

Prominent Democrats fear that the controversy will be a running sore that will sap Clinton well into the presidential race. Dick Harpootlian, a former party chairman in South Carolina who is backing Biden, told CNN that Clinton faced death by a thousand cuts. “There’s always another shoe to drop with Hillary. Do we nominate her not knowing what’s in those emails?”

Professor Bruce Buchanan, a specialist in presidential politics at the University of Texas at Austin, said that the chorus was growing for a real race. “There’s a feeling that Hillary Clinton does need to be vetted with some serious opposition.”

Republican strategists too are watching what is happening on the foothills of the 2016 presidential race and thinking that Clinton’s lack of competition may play to their advantage. John Weaver, a Republican consultant who advised John McCain in his presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2008, said it would be vastly beneficial to Clinton to have a feisty primary challenge before she went into the general election.

“No one wants a competitive campaign if they can avoid it, but it would force her to hone her message and it would test her. George Bush was tested by John McCain in 2000, and it made him a much better candidate,” Weaver said.

The billion-dollar question now is whether Clinton’s recent travails will embolden bigger Democratic fish to take her on. “The email controversy could be the opportunity that folks need to come forward,” Buchanan said.

Rosenberg agreed, pointing out that the spate of bad news was falling at a critical time in the election cycle, when senior politicians had to finally decide whether to throw their hat in the ring. “The practical impact of all this is that it’s now much more likely that it will be a truly competitive Democratic primary.”