Politics: Let the Race Begin!

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Politics Let the Race Begin! Why silly speculation about the 2016 presidential race can do some real good. By John Dickerson Posted Wednesday, Apr 03, 2013, at 12:53 AM ET Hillary Clinton takes the stage tonight for the first time since leaving the State Department. The talk about her running for president in 2016 has swelled ever since. The combination of Clinton's stature, the stretch of time between now and the first caucus, and the media's undifferentiated love for presidential campaigns is going to create a vast bloom of speculation. We should call in the meteorologists, because by 2014 you're going to be able to spot it on Doppler radar. This is mostly terrible. There's nothing wrong with the idea of a Clinton candidacy, but the coverage of that idea is going to encourage us to be stupid at times. (She'll eat corn and people will say she's pandering to Iowa.) Clinton is very popular, and people want to know if she's going to run. Fair enough. But she's probably not going to let us know for quite some time. In a reasonable world, we'd task someone to wake us when Clinton is ready to tell us she's running. (In this world we'd do the same thing with vice presidential picks. No more veepstakes!) But we don't live in that world. For some time, no one will really know what Clinton is going to do, but that will not stop us from guessing. In the absence of information, the stories will come—and they will keep coming. They probably won't be nourishing either. If only we could ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate To Save Everything, Click Here Forty Years Ago Today, Snarky Tech Journalists Made Fun of the First Cellphone Is Living in a Nuclear Evacuation Zone Good for You?	Advertisement
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