That gets us to ideology. Bill Clinton was credited with competence and acceptable ideology, which made his party competitive in the early 2000s and well-positioned to take advantage of George W. Bush’s perceived incompetence (Iraq, Katrina) in 2006 and 2008.
President Obama’s ideology — expanded government, Obamacare — has been less widely acceptable, and his reputation for competence is currently in tatters. He was able to eke out re-election with a reduced percentage by good organization. But he leaves his party in trouble.
Yes, Hillary Clinton leads in polls for 2016. But her numbers have been sagging. And other Democrats poll worse against not-very-well-known Republican alternatives than I can remember any party’s potential candidates polling in the last half-century.
Predicting 2016 when 2014 isn’t over is risky. But it looks like President Obama has left his party in worse shape than any president since Woodrow Wilson nearly a century ago.
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