What if Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush pass on 2016?

Well, what if they pass or fail to win the nomination? Neither candidate has announced yet but there is at least one political export who believes the chance of Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton being on the ballot in 2016 is quite low.

Report from the Kansas City Star:

Charlie Cook, one of the most respected political experts in the country, believes Hillary Clinton has only a 25-30 percent chance of not running for president, and in any case he thinks she is either “rusty” or “she has lost her fastball.” He bases that on her disastrous book tour, in which she said some very inappropriate things and also did not sell many books.

The author of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report newsletter for almost 30 years also disappointed a local audience when he did not give Jeb Bush much of a chance of gaining the Republican nomination.

“Bush has two issues working against him to win the Republican primary for the 2016 presidential election,” Cook said. “One is immigration reform, which he favors; and two, is his advocacy of education reform.”

Neither of those causes would sit well with Republican primary voters, Cook said.

He expects the next Republican nominee to be either a tea party Senator or a governor from the Midwest. He wouldn’t predict beyond that.

I think the chance that Hillary runs for President is far greater than 50%. Whether she wins the nomination, that can be debated. However, given the polls on the Democratic side and wide support from Democratic donors, why shouldn’t she at least launch a campaign? The notion that she might defer because of a bad book tour is, I think, shortsighted in the political world.

In the case of Jeb Bush, he does hold some positions which are outside the mainstream of the conservative base within the Republican Party. Immigration is one and the education issue will become one as soon as his opponents start cutting ads and making him defend support for the Common Core educational standard.

Both candidates have hurdles to over come before they could hope to appear on the 2016 ballot.

Correction: The original story from the Kansas City Star misquoted Charlie Cookie concerning Hillary Clinton’s chances of running. Cook actually said that Hillary only has a 25-30 percent chance of NOT running, as opposed to a 25-30 percent chance of running.