Will Hillary Clinton be facing an “entitlement reform” challenge from Elizabeth Warren in 2016?

The party of Jefferson traditionally turns its collective nose up at the idea that any candidate is entitled to their party’s nomination. Find them a young, brash first-term senator, an obscure governor or a cultural phenom whose sudden rise from obscurity to rock-stardom moves at the speed of light, and they will take that candidate any day.  Democrats like new and fresh.  They are attracted to bright, shiny objects, and don’t mind casting relative unknowns into the “role of a lifetime” – to be turned almost overnight into the potential leader of the free world.  That’s just the way the party does it - the newer, the better. New faces which aren’t fully defined draw the big Democratic money, attention and eventual delegates.

Enter Hillary Rodham Clinton, with all the history, prestige and closeted skeletons that name carries.  She is like the Hostess Twinkies of today’s Democratic Party.  One minute old, stale, and nearly bankrupt – the next, on top of the world.  Her brand is so packed with preservatives it seems to be able to survive any scandal, even the threat of nuclear war. The name Clinton has been uniquely defined by drama, dysfunction and chaos but has always somehow managed to retain its credibility and brand appeal.  And like the snack cake recently pulled from supermarket shelves, the Hillary brand itself was temporarily shut down, only to come back with fresh capital, slightly new packaging and a new generation of ready consumers.

Hillary has been re-packaged, her narrative re-worked and her brand re-polished.  The supposedly predetermined heir apparent to the Democratic Party’s 2008 nomination fell from grace at the hands of Barack Obama and was put on an abandoned shelf like those Twinkies, well past their sell-by date.  Cast aside, shamed and forgotten after she finally conceded the nomination (HER nomination) to Obama. She became a good soldier, endorsing the nominee and ultimately serving in his administration as Secretary of State.  

This is not a new role for Hillary Clinton.  Her brand has been banged up again and again.  After Monica Lewinsky she became the scorned but good wife, who quietly stood by and supported her husband.  She carried on after Jennifer Flowers, Whitewater and Trooper-Gate.  She continued to look forward throughout all the trials of her personal and professional life, through the commodities scandal, the Rose Law firm ordeal and even the tragic suicide of her friend and longtime Clinton adviser Vince Foster.  Stiff upper lip, eyes always on the prize, Hillary would not be minimized, or made irrelevant by anyone or anything.  Hillary has picked herself up after each personal or political blow like few politicians ever could.  When they trashed and rejected “Hillary-Care,” she moved on; when her husband appeared to be badly politically damaged after the 1994 mid-term elections, in which the GOP took back the House and Senate, she simply redoubled her efforts.  Steely, strong and remembering - the Clintons always remember.

Even the events in Benghazi were just a brief distraction to Hillary’s rebranding effort.  ”What difference does it really make?” Hillary asked a joint oversight committee investigating the tragedy. This was Obama’s problem, not Hillary’s.

Now she is back.  

With 2016 in her sights, the gateway and data test site for her eventual campaign will come in the 2014 mid-term contests, especially in the many early primary states where she is again ready for her close-up. A political comeback in the making few could have predicted just a few years ago, a second chance at the prize once denied her by Obama, the first African American in history to become president.  Hillary was now prepared to break the tallest of glass ceilings.  It surely must now be time for the Democrats to make her the first woman president.  The stars are aligned – and who else but Hillary?

Not so fast.

Let’s be clear - Hillary Clinton, mega-brand that she is, is not from the progressive Obama wing of the Democratic Party. Much like her husband, she is perceived within the party structure to be more of an old Dem, a moderate, a little too business friendly, not quite as “progressive” as her former boss.  And the energy of the Democratic Party is firmly in the progressive camp.

Joe Biden may have been simply been passed over, perceived as too looney to be taken seriously as a man to succeed Obama.

There is talk of Martin O’Malley the young, popular governor of Maryland (“a lightweight,” an “unknown” say the Hillarybots). Andrew Cuomo, the headline grabbing governor of New York, comes from a famous family and a state where Dems mint big money (“skeletons, Mario?” say the Clintonistas). But these are not really threats, not even distractions, just young opportunists and old hangers-on, political ladder climbers wanting to keep themselves in the limelight.  

However there could be one credible threat to Hillary Clinton coming from a new place, from someone who unlike Hillary is relatively new to elected politics.  And wouldn’t you know it, it’s another woman!  For Hillary there has always been “another woman!”

In this case the woman is Elizabeth Warren, the newly minted US Senator from Massachusetts who unceremoniously defeated Republican Scott Brown in the bluest of blue states to take back Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat and return it to the left where she believes it belongs.  Warren is a Harvard Professor who ideologically makes Hillary Clinton look like Barry Goldwater in drag.  She is farther to the left of even Obama on most issues and her narrative makes a big deal out of her time as a consumer advocate who spent much of her time dueling with evil bankers and venture capitalists.

Warren is not like those old, expired Twinkies.  She is shiny and interesting.  She is loved by the lefty intellectuals who swoon at her “protect the little guy” mantra.  And Warren’s baggage is light as a feather compared to all the drama surrounding Hillary Clinton.  Warren is tomorrow, Hillary is yesterday.  Warren is on the side of the little guy, Hillary is the ultimate insider, the consummate pol, the tired drama queen whose list of scandals is long and whose enemies list is even longer.

The Clinton machine and its “Ready for Hillary” t-shirts are stocked and ready to ship.  Like those Twinkies once again hitting store shelves, Hillary is stepping out, carefully reintroducing herself.  But the potential challenge from the other woman, one who runs from the left and whose sell-by date is far fresher than Hillary’s, could cause real problems for the Democratic frontrunner.  Keep your eyes on Senator Warren as the one obstacle that very well could stand between Hillary Clinton and her ongoing quest for the nomination. The Democratic Party doesn’t usually like to talk about entitlements, but in the race for 2016 Hillary Clinton may run into a different kind of “entitlement reform” – a party that has always believed no one is ever “entitled” to their nomination.

The expectations are high, way too high and tamping them down is a full time job for Team Hillary.  She is the frontrunner in the early primary state polling, but it is way too early to matter, nearly 3 years before the actual primary.  Sustaining her front-runner status will be like defying gravity.  The question of her candidacy has already taken much of the attention away from President Obama’s second term, with so many eyes in Washington looking past the President’s uphill legislative battles and more toward his likely successor.

Will Democrats fall into line for Hillary, as she waltzes back into the national spotlight like she owns the place? Will the party’s new faces provide enough energy to mount any real challenge? Only time will tell, but for Hillary Clinton the 2016 race to the nomination ain’t over till it’s over, and this one hasn’t even begun.