Dems Looking for the Panic Button?

John mentioned on Tuesday that Democrats should be very worried about the early and obvious weakness of their presumptive nominee, and Fred Barnes takes up the theme in today’s edition of the Weekly Standard in “The Coming Democratic Panic”:

That Clinton’s candidacy is in trouble is indisputable. She’s not threatened with losing the Democratic nomination—at least not yet. She has the well-financed Clinton machine and a national network of supporters on which she can rely. The campaigns of her Democratic opponents are small and weak in comparison.

But the rationale for her bid for the presidency, the strategy of her campaign, and the tactics she’s adopted—all have failed to stop her steady decline. The expectation of Clinton’s glide into the White House in 2016 is gone. . .

But so far, the list of Democratic challengers to Hillary are a bunch of no-names and cranks (or no-name cranks like Missing Linc Chafee).  So who might answer the panic button bat-signal and step up to make things interesting? Over to the NY Post:

NY Dems Push Bloomberg to Run for President

By Michael Goodwin

. . . New York Dems friendly to Bloomberg have approached him to gauge his interest. Their argument is that Clinton’s vulnerability with general-election voters, especially independents, could result in a Republican president. They also believed Bloomberg could be interested because, as one of them told me, “Mike can’t stand Hillary.”

Well who can, really?  Anyway, back to Goodwin:

It’s far from certain that Bloomberg will run, but I can envision a scenario where he floats a trial balloon to see how people react. I’m saving him the trouble because I hope he gives the idea serious consideration.

Besides, it’s not as though this is virgin territory. As mayor, Bloomy didn’t hide his ambition for the White House, and spent considerable money to test the waters. Before the 2008 election, he sponsored polls and researched state laws on ballot access while saying he would spend $1 billion to run as an independent.

“Honey? Can you plug in the popcorn machine?”

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