by Carl P. Leubsdorf
Just hours after the news broke that Mitch Landrieu would manage the administration’s new infrastructure program, the first 2024 presidential speculation emerged about the former New Orleans mayor.
“Add another name to the 2024 roster,” tweeted The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin, adding that an unnamed Democrat had texted him, “Mitch succeeds at this job and he becomes a strong player down the field.”
That speculation was hardly unique: “Biden-Cheney 2024? Maybe Harris-Romney?” headlined a recent Thomas Friedman column in The New York Times, suggesting threats to democracy might require a historic bipartisan ticket.
And two New York Democrats, Doug Schoen and Andrew Stein, weighed in with an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, speculating, “A perfect storm in the Democratic Party is making a once-unfathomable scenario plausible: a political comeback for Hillary Clinton in 2024.”
As Joe Biden begins his second year as president, media speculation about the next election is in full sway, spurred in part by his age and poor poll ratings.
Here’s some advice:
Take most of it with a grain of salt. History tells us the 2024 contest won’t unfold like it looks three years out. In fact, it will probably differ from how it looks one year out.
But that hasn’t stopped the predictions.
In recent weeks, numerous analyses of Kamala Harris’ first year as vice president have concluded her inconsistent showing in the nation’s No. 2 office has damaged her future political prospects.
“Exasperation and dysfunction: Inside Kamala Harris’ frustrating start as vice president,” headlined a CNN story by Edward Isaac-Dovere and Jasmine Wright, one of many detailing the first Black, female vice president’s missteps.
Other prospective Democratic candidacies are also being floated in the press.
“Harris and Buttigieg under the spotlight amid uncertainty over Biden’s future,” read a Nov. 13 headline in The Washington Post.
“Will Ocasio-Cortez challenge Biden or Harris in 2024?” asked Douglas McKinnon in The Hill, a Washington political newspaper.
Most Democratic speculation assumes Biden won’t run again at age 82. The president has tried to knock that down, telling ABC’s David Muir last month, “If I’m in the health I’m in now — I’m in good health — then in fact I would run again.” If Donald Trump runs, he said, “that increases the prospect of running.”
Still, Democratic speculation pales alongside the incessant analyses of the likelihood that Trump will seek to regain the presidency in 2024 and how that might affect other Republicans already making moves toward running.
“The question isn’t when Trump will start campaigning,” Jonathan Allen said in an NBC News analysis, “It’s whether he’ll stop.”
Trump, who attracted thousands to an Arizona rally last Saturday, has been pretty open about his intentions.
“I am certainly thinking about it, and we’ll see,” he said in a recent Fox News interview. “I think a lot of people will be very happy, frankly, with the decision, and probably will announce that after the midterms.”
That view is not unanimous. “Donald will not run,” predicted his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to CNN. “His fragile ego can’t stand to be considered a two-time loser.”
But though he dominates the GOP like no former president in modern times, that has not stopped speculation about other potential candidates, mostly Trump allies but also critics like Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
In a recent Vanity Fair article, Mike Pence’s biographer, Tom Lobianco, called the former vice president the “putative front-runner.” A busy speaking schedule and the loss of 90 pounds have fueled speculation about former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s intentions.
The out-of-control speculation even included a Marc Caputo Politico article, discussing potential Trump running mates, ranging from former acting National Intelligence Director Ric Grenell to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.
Most have visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago and, according to an anonymous adviser quoted by Politico, Trump says “They’re all begging me.”
