very low name recognition, closely associated with website issue on Obamacare, and about a hundred other reasons. (Note: I am not thrilled with Hillary. Would much prefer Warren or Sherrod Brown or several others)

Your objections are, actually, very weak

Very low name recognition. Didn't that apply to a certain President currently in office when he announced his candidacy?

Closely associated with Obamacare which is both a success and widely popular. She also remained in office to get the website fixed. The point of the WHCD appearance was that she solved a computer problem (see below).

She served a full 2 terms as Governor of Kansas and hence an excellent chance she could gather that state. In a campaign this would easily be contrasted with a certain Half-Term Governor.

Like Hillary she would not be risking a Senate seat.

She does not carry the baggage that the the Republicans could (falsely) use against Hillary

Secondly Sebelius has only said not running for Senate - it may have slipped your mind but the Presidency is not in the Senate

Thirdly there is even less reason to expect Warren to challenge Hillary - yet that does not stop the supporters of Warren.

Why should I not point that out?

Please note that I am not saying that Ms Sebelius will run, only that she is a viable contender. It is the President has made her the face of healthcare and who has now emphasised she solves problems rather than running away.

Let's be honest, through no fault of her own Mrs Clinton* carries a lot of baggage; the Republicans are certain to bring up Bill's infidelities, the (admittedly non-existent) Whitewater scandal as well as Benghazi. They will also insist that Bill might be the "real" President and that somehow he is breaking the limits on Presidential terms.

In contrast for Kathleen Sebelius they will have to build a whole new set of scandals, especially as the "failure" of the website was solved very quickly and successfully

[hr]

* I think that as as it is very likely that Hillary Clinton will be running for President we all stop calling her just Hillary, she deserves the gravitas of a surname

We still have 2014 elections to get through. Why does the incumbent party always fair poorly in mid-terms? Because the incumbent party is worried about the next presidential cycle, while the opposition party is energized to oppose the incumbent party at every turn.

2014 seats will be won on table-setting for 2016.

So when you say "Who cares? We still have 2014 elections to get through." what you're really saying is "Let's lose the White House and the Senate by not focusing on the thing that actually does fucking matter in those races."

2014 will be a referendum on 2016. If you want to win in 2014, worry more about 2016 & your local races and not on the national political climate in 2014.

Some of us, even-better, live in places where the only race between now and the start of 2020 that matters at-all is 2016. I can tell you today who is winning every congressional and statewide race here in W. CT though Jan 2019 barring someone dropping dead.

They ran all through last year and the mid-Terms are not going to stop them.

All I am doing is demonstrating that Clinton and Warren are not the only choices open to the Democratic Party.

They closed with a joke in which she fixed a broken computer ... that's it.

Right

to mangle Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

What kind of frenzy you could whip up?

Is it silly to think that the President uses the WHCD for political ends? Remember all of the "self depreciating" jokes the president makes are aimed squarely at his opponents and in support of his allies.

Is the idea that Sebelius might make a run in the primaries silly? If so why?

There have been posts and polls in this forum asking asking about possible contenders in the next Presidential election and most seem to regard the Democratic primaries as a show-down between Sen. Warren and Mrs Clinton. At no point have I ever seen Sebelius' name mentioned as a possible contender yet she has the qualities necessary. She has not declared herself out of the running for President in the way Sen, Warren has and, at present, has few of the negatives attached to the Clinton name.

Yes, the President made a funny - but the framing of that funny was interesting and very political. You may like or loathe President Obama but you have to admit he is a consummate politician.

But, as many people on this board seem to think that Mrs Clinton is a shoo-in for the nomination, I submitted to the group think.

Obama was making a joke at his own expense!

easy easy

I'm sorry, but he does; he uses jokes as political point scoring all the time because, as I said above, he is a consummate politician. The President uses his humour in the same way that Reagan used homely anecdotes, in public perception BHO likes to cultivate the idea that he is a simple father telling groan-worthy "dad" jokes.

The WHCD is not an audition for a career in stand-up on the rubber chicken circuit