Mediaboss Marketing

Hillary Clinton is obviously running for president, to the extent that, at this point, it's hardly revelatory to point that out. It's impressive she was able to deliver her speech at the Harkin Steak Fry this weekend in Iowa, given that she must have been winking melodramatically every time she made a joke about her non-candidacy.

"It's true," she said Sunday, and the crowd at the Steak Fry could probably be heard to audibly inhale -- will she say it? Then, I imagine, a big wink: "I am thinking about it!" Loud exhalations and oh-yous ring out over the crowd.

Even Ready For Hillary, the unaffiliated organization run by loyalists to Hillary and the Democratic Party, can barely pretend that she isn't yet officially running. Take this quote from USA Today, about the organization's planned November strategy meeting for its "900-member national finance council." Spokesman Seth Bringman teased, "What better time to come together and show our support right before this decision will be made?"

Well, if that decision were, theoretically, a "no," that would be an absolutely terrible time to fly everyone to New York and instruct them to start wringing money out of people. Bringman, like everyone else, is aware that it isn't a "no." He's winking, too.

But, what if? What if it were a no? What if all of this nudging and winking and campaigning really was this terribly weird way in which Hillary went about making decisions, running full bore just in case, and then pulling the plug?

The primary result would be that a lot of people would be hospitalized withcatatonia. Among those would be the Democratic candidates who either aren't bothering to thinkabout running -- Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), for example -- and the ones who are clearly thinking about running but can't get any oxygen.

If there were no Hillary 2016, America might have heard of Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), a good-looking guy who's in a band and so on. But as it is, no one has heard of him. Even as I write this, I have to double-check that his name isn't Marvin. (That's not true, but it's close.)

Then there's the whole Ready for Hillary crew. Political campaign professionals live uncomfortable, feast-or-famine lives, working for months on end until a campaign is over, and then often going unemployed until another campaign springs up. Ready for Hillary's key insight was, What if the campaign could start months and months earlier than normal? This hasn't been tried before in part because so few candidates could get enough people to give money to keep hundreds of people employed handing out stickers for two years. Clintoncan. It's a banquet table for consultants that stretches from now until November 2016 -- the sort of job security enjoyed only by tenured college professors and, well, politicians. But what if they're sitting there, nibbling on their 293rd course during this never-ending dinner and they suddenly hear, oh, the kitchen's closed. The answer: catatonia.

Democrats across the country probably wouldn't be hospitalized (not literally), but they wouldn't be happy. The most fun that any political junkie has had in the past decade was watching the 2008 Democratic primary. But Democrats were perfectly happy not to have to do that for two open primaries in a row. If Hillary didn't run, the scramble that ensued would be grotesque, a bloody spectacle worthy of the Caesar. It would be months of panicky how about this guy? speculation. Every failed name of the past 20 years would be mentioned non-ironically. ("Who has Mike Gravel's phone number?") Once Warren and Gillibrand recovered from their catatonia, they'd probably jump in, but what they'd be jumping into would be a complete mess.

Republicans, on the other hand, would dance a 600-hour long jig, just dancing and dancing and clinking champagne flutes. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus would be unavailable for appearances on the Sunday political shows for a while, unless producers wanted a guy who was just going to sit there giggling and clapping. There might be a surge of new entrants in the Republican primary, as well, since the odds of a Republican victory in 2016 would have just gone through the ceiling. (These things change, of course, but that would certainly be the initial reaction.)

Read more from the original source:
The Fix: Imagine a world where Hillary Clinton didnt run for president in 2016