2016 Election Bound to Produce More Excitement | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: This post was created by the staff for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    RALEIGH     The 2016 presidential election campaign already has generated plenty of excitement. Veteran presidential campaign reporter John Gizzi expects more. Gizzi, chief political correspondent for Newsmax, offered expert analysis during a recent John Locke Foundation election panel discussion in Raleigh. In connection with that event, Gizzi shared his electoral expertise with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio.

    Kokai: How has this campaign been different from those you've seen in the past?

    Gizzi: It's been different in the sense that there is a crowded Republican field - one larger than any since 1920. I was not around to cover the 1920 election, but I certainly have read quite a bit about it.

    In addition, the Democratic side was once considered a coronation for Hillary Clinton. About the closest thing you could compare it to was 1920, when Republicans were almost certain to elect former President Theodore Roosevelt for a third, unprecedented term. And what happened was he died at the age of 59, throwing the party into turmoil.

    Hillary Clinton was the closest to T.R. to be a nonincumbent certain of nomination so early. Now she's in the fight for her life against Bernie Sanders, who surprised everyone by electrifying the grass roots.

    Kokai: So in some ways, [this is] the type of campaign we haven't seen for nearly a century?

    Gizzi: I think that's a pretty fair analogy - 96 years.

    Kokai: On the Republican side, is it good news to see so many conservative candidates?

    Gizzi: It's good news in the sense that it underscores the fact the Republican Party is a conservative party. However, there certainly is also room for diversity. Jeb Bush and Chris Christie are considered not as conservative as, say, Ted Cruz. The same has been said in some circles about Sen. Marco Rubio.

    That said, there is an abundance of riches. The Republican Party has a broad field of fresh faces. This was not the case in 2012. Every one of the candidates was very familiar to the voters and to the Republican electorate in particular. In the end, people were just voting for someone other than Mitt Romney. That is not the case now.

    Kokai: Some Republicans said they wished they had been able to unify more quickly around a single candidate. Others said, "Hey, we're the party that believes in competition. We should be glad to see so many competitors." What's your take on this?

    Gizzi: Ask a fellow named Barrack Obama. He and Hillary Clinton almost went up to the convention [in the 2008 Democratic nomination process]. And he will tell you it made a better candidate out of him. Certainly, Bill Clinton didn't wrap up the nomination until the California primary in June of 1992.

    The idea of having someone become the nominee early is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it gets the party united behind someone. On the other hand, that person is left out there and is subject to attack from the other side repeatedly, until the campaign heats up in the fall. And then he goes in a little bit bruised.

    My guess is the nomination process works. The debates, which are fewer in 2016 than 2012, have been most productive in that they bring out the fighting spirit of many candidates. So I would say, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, this is the worst system for nomination, with the exception of all others tried.

    Kokai: Is a hard-fought campaign going to be good for the Republican nominee?

    Gizzi: Let me put it very bluntly to you. There is always talk that a highly competitive race, a divisive contest, will leave the party weakened in the end. I would say there have been cases of that. And there are some people who walk away mad and don't come back in the fall.

    On the other hand, when the presidency is open, and there is no incumbent, that almost never happens. And let me give you an example. In 1952, supporters of Sen. Robert Taft, the conservative, were very bitter that backers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the moderate candidate, had, in their view, stolen the nomination at the convention and taken it away from the man they called Mr. Republican. However, by the time the fall came around, Mr. Republican and everyone else was firmly behind Ike as the candidate.

    In 2000, George W. Bush had a very hard-fought contest with John McCain. I covered some of their primary bouts and was in South Carolina when Bush finally won a primary and went on the road to victory. Everyone got behind him after eight years of Democrats in the White House.

    So I would say that after eight years of Obama, Republicans will be united behind whomever their presidential and vice presidential nominees are.

    Kokai: On the Democratic side, are you surprised that nomination didn't turn into a coronation of sorts for Hillary Clinton?

    Gizzi: Not really, and I'll tell you why. In 2008, Hillary Clinton should have been the Democratic nominee. That was her time. Had she been nominated, given the collapse of Wall Street in September, she almost surely would have been elected to succeed George W. Bush.

    By the time she was geared up for another campaign, she was eight years older and, in many people's eyes, yesterday's news. I saw so many supporters at rallies for her in Iowa who were old Clinton hands. "I caucused for Bill in 1992," they said.

    On the other hand, the Bernie Sanders rally could have been a fraternity out of "Animal House." There were lots of young people cheering on their 74-year-old hero who told it like it was.

    Kokai: It's too early to say at this time how the fall campaign might play out. But what are some themes you expect at this point based on what we know?

    Gizzi: Bruce Herschensohn, who teaches the honors course in foreign policy at California's Pepperdine University, once said that foreign policy in presidential campaigns is discussed for, perhaps, 20 minutes. This year it's going to be discussed for a lot longer than that, I would say.

    Because when one goes from the frozen streets in the Ukraine, to the Middle East, and the deserts of Jordan, and Syria, and Iraq - already a petro state - to the Far East, and Japan, and Korea, which feel increasingly threatened by China, foreign policy is, indeed, moving up at the top of one's agenda. And terror, embodied by ISIS, which already has made a few strikes within this border, is going to certainly be high on everyone's list.

    Obviously, the effort to repeal Obamacare, six years after it was enacted, is alive and well. The polls have never changed on this - the only major piece of social legislation that was passed on strictly partly lines.

    We're also going to see a rich debate on taxes and the nature of capitalism in the United States. And, of course, the "I word" - immigration - is going to come up. And that is almost a first cousin to the war on terror. It will be a campaign year rich in discussion on public policy.

    Kokai: Do you expect a hard-fought campaign in the fall?

    Gizzi: Absolutely. I have no doubt about it, and it usually is. The party that has had control over the White House does not want to relinquish it. The party that's out is hungry to be back in power. I've seen it so many times in my life. And only once has the party that was in the White House retained it when the incumbent president stepped down. That, of course, was Ronald Reagan in 1988, followed by George H.W. Bush.