Hillary may be disastrously misjudging the politics of 2016

Inequality could be a huge political winner. But only if she tries.

Hillary Clinton

In what may be the most predictable piece of news since the last time Dick Cheney grunted something insane, Hillary Clinton is reportedly going to announce the start of her official campaign for president on Sunday. Now that we've got some Democrats alongside Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, we can let this bleakly nihilistic struggle for dominance over a crumbling empire — I mean, presidential election — commence.

The question I have for Clinton is whether she is going to play her campaign exclusively for the money seats. Barring some crazy upheaval, she will win the Democratic nomination and certainly have little trouble raising an emperor's ransom-sized campaign chest. But the general election will not be nearly so easy. And if she's going to give big donors effective veto over her campaign messaging to keep those dollars rolling in, she could end up losing — especially given the relatively low value of political spending in presidential elections.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.