The U.S. presidential campaign is finally taking shape. It is already a year into the contest and the election is still nine months away, but the field is being winnowed and some themes are emerging. Unfortunately, for many observers these developments are not encouraging. Anger and insecurity is washing over the United States. This is not new to the U.S., nor is it a uniquely American phenomenon. Nevertheless, it threatens to shape, if not determine, the 2016 presidential election.
The presidential race today looks vastly different from that which was anticipated when the contest began. Then, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush looked set to claim the Democratic and Republican nominations, respectively. Each enjoyed the support of her or his establishment (Bush had a $100 million war chest to scare or fend off any challenger) and each's claim to front-runner status was based on long experience governing, a deep appreciation of the complexity of issues and a readiness to govern from the center and heal the divisions of the last eight years of U.S. politics. Each candidate's last name was either a blessing or a curse, depending on one's point of view.
The anger that animated U.S. politics throughout the Obama years has not abated, however. The most important feature of the presidential campaign is the rise of anti-establishment candidates on the right and the left that tap a deep vein of anxiety and resentment. Their insurgent campaigns have surprising stability and appeal; among Republicans, the leading contenders for the nomination, reality TV entrepreneur Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, both claim that mantle. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — officially an independent who caucuses with Democrats and embraces the socialist label — has pulled even with Clinton and now defies expectations that he would be a flash-in-the-pan candidate.