The Trump primary has already begun

The smartest thing Barack Obama ever did was running for president when everyone thought Hillary Clinton was invincible.

The second smartest thing he did was invite Clinton into his Cabinet and keep her there through his first term. Obama understood that avoiding a primary challenge is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for re-election. And he knew that Hillary Clinton had her own political power base. Which meant that if things went south during Obama’s first term, the safest place to warehouse Clinton was inside his administration.

And things did go south during Obama’s first term. There was no economic prosperity. His major legislative accomplishment was deeply unpopular. His party lost 63 House seats in the midterm elections and lost the House popular vote by 6 million votes. Every normal indicator suggested that Obama could have drawn a primary challenge in 2012—except that he and David Axelrod went to great lengths to court and stroke Democrats in order to avoid one.