Clinton Not The New Yorker To Back For 2016

With Mitt Romney having shot himself in the foot too many times to be a major threat to Barack Obama in this year’s American Presidential Election, ante-post politics punters should start to analyse the 2016 White House race.

Bookmakers have chalked up odds about not only the 2016 American Presidential Election winner but also the person who contests it on behalf of the Democratic Party since Obama will be ineligible should he beat Romney in 2012. As entertaining as presidential elections are, there remains a lot of value for those savvy enough to explore the long term political bets.

The general favourite on both markets is none other than Hillary Clinton, the current Secretary of State and, of course, the former First Lady from the time when her controversial husband, Bill, occupied the Oval Office.

Beaten by Obama to the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 2008 American Presidential Election, Clinton is around 3-1 to get the nod for the 2016 ballot and 7-1 to become the first woman to lead the world’s one genuine superpower.

A week is a long time in politics, let alone four years and the Democratic Party may have a tough time trying to win the 2016 American Presidential Election if Obama’s likely second term ends up being as uninspiring as his first has been. So forget about betting on the overall winner and stick to the odds available about the Democratic Party’s candidate.

There are some politics analysts who believe that Clinton will run and that she has the potential to wipe out every other Democratic Party contender. But many of them were making similar predictions before Clinton was defeated, comprehensively in the end, by Obama in the late 2000s.

Also, Clinton will be 69 by the time of the 2016 American Presidential Election. No-one has been older than that and won a first term in the White House and the Democratic Party has no modern tradition of nominating first-time candidates anywhere near their 70s. No Democratic Party member over the age of 60 who was not already President has been elected as a first-time nominee since James Buchanan Junior in 1856.

And while Clinton has won over some of her critics during her time as Secretary of State, particularly by the way in which she has thrown her support behind Obama, she remains one of the most polarising figures in American politics.

Clinton owes her place at the head of both opinion polls and betting markets on one thing: her surname. She has fantastic brand recognition and that means that she will score well in early litmus tests and punters will back her at short odds.

Both Clinton and the general second favourite to represent the Democratic Party in the 2016 American Presidential Election, 8-1 chance Joe Biden, are bad value bets. Biden will be in his mid 70s by the time that the 2016 American Presidential Election rolls around. He should be 80-1.

The value lies in supporting New York’s Governor, Andrew Cuomo, at 12-1 to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for the 2016 American Presidential Election because, if sanity prevails and neither Clinton nor Biden runs, the 54-year-old has the potential to win the nomination in a landslide.

Unsurprisingly, Cuomo trails Clinton and Biden in early 2016 American Presidential Election opinion polls. But take out the current Secretary of State and Vice President and the Governor of New York has an 18-point lead over the rest.

In 2016, the Democratic Party is very likely to go to the libertarian middle in an attempt to maximise its victory chances and that would suit Cuomo’s campaign down to the ground. And it will not hurt that he is a member of the Kennedy family having been married to Kerry, the seventh child of RFK, for 13 years before their 2005 divorce.

Cuomo is as low as 16-1 with one bookmaker to win the 2016 American Presidential Election because that firm, William Hill, has done its homework and rates him above Biden.

That is a decent tip in itself. Snap up the 12-1 available from Paddy Power that Cuomo is the Democratic Party’s fighter in the 2016 American Presidential Election.