The NYT Contemplates 2016 without Hillary

How does “President of the United States” sound to you, baby?

And here the “progressives” at the New York Times had their hearts set on electing a woman who’s been in the public eye for decades and decades:

We’re on record here at The Upshot as believing that Hillary Clinton is in an extremely strong position to win the Democratic nomination. And as Brendan Nyhan has explained, the furor over her private email account is likely to affect far fewer voters than may now appear to be the case.

But what if the unlikely happens, and she is forced to abandon her planned presidential campaign because of a development we can’t now anticipate? In that case, what would the Democratic field for the 2016 nomination look like? The short answer is: Chaos.

First off, it’s not the emails that have done Herself in — it’s Herself. They are simply the top of the steaming pile of doggy doo that Mrs. Clinton drags around with her wherever she goes, and why whoever (hello, Barry Hussein and ValJar!) is trying to do her in is doing both her and the rest of us a favor. She’s an awful candidate and, as much as I hate to say this, the Democrats would be far better off without her.

Mrs. Clinton’s dominance has kept other top Democrats from taking the kind of steps that serious presidential candidates have typically taken by now. Additionally, the Democrats’ poor performance in statewide races during the Obama years has left the party with a relatively shallow bench. All of this helps explain the absence of Democratic infighting about the email account.

Without Mrs. Clinton, there would be no Democratic front-runner. Initially, there would not even be a top tier of candidates on par with the Republicans’ top tier of Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and possibly Marco Rubio. (Some Upshot office gossip: I think Mr. Rubio can fairly be described as part of the Republican top tier; Nate Cohn does not. As a general rule, you should trust him over me on political analysis.)

Eventually, the Democrats would produce a nominee, even if it were not Mrs. Clinton. As a thought experiment, we decided to imagine a Democratic race without her. To be clear, we’re not predicting such a race. But we generally don’t believe in putting 100 percent odds on political matters. So here goes:

Click on the link above to find out. Hint: the first name on the list is Crazy Joe Biden, serial female-molester and all-around nut job. He’s followed by… no, I can’t give it away. As Daniel Craig’s character says in Road to Perdition: “it’s all so bleeping hysterical.” Enjoy.