Jeb and Hillary: The Two-Edged Sword of "Inevitability"

Maybe everything's already settled. I wouldn't count on it.

by Rod D. Martin
April 16, 2015

Are Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton inevitable? No. But the reasons aren’t necessarily as you think.

Their advantages are certainly enormous. Both can raise truly vast sums of money. Both have the backing of their respective establishments (although to be fair, that backing is imperfect in both cases).

More important by far is what they share on the ground: organizational depth. This is something the average American, busy with real life and not immersed in the world of activism ("organizing" for our leftist friends), doesn't fully appreciate.

Our primary process is designed to give the little guy a chance: this is why we don't have one big national primary. Iowa goes first because it's representative of what the Beltway calls "flyover country;" it's also light on media markets (which require big ad budgets and thus big fundraising early on) and heavy on retail: handshakes and hugs.

In Iowa, you get a pretty diverse cross section of America (on the R side this i…