It could hurt former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her presidential bid if she is seen as the inevitable candidate, especially considering that many voters already see her as "old and stale," says Republican strategist Karl Rove.
"In American politics, there's a sense you want to be new, you don't want to be too familiar, you want to be something fresh, you don't want to be something old and stale," Rove said on Fox News'
"America's Newsroom," according to
Politico.
Urgent: Who Is Your Choice for the GOP's 2016 Nominee?
"Hillary may have the impression in people's minds that she's both the third term of Barack Obama . . . and a third term for Bill Clinton, which is now 20 years in the rearview mirror," he added.
However, Rove explained that Americans like to see candidates have to fight for the top spot and to feel they have a choice.
"People don't like people who have it sort of already made, they want to see a scrapper, they want to see a fighter," Rove said. "And if it looks like you are the candidate, then people tend to pick at your faults and tend to look at alternatives."
The former political adviser for President George W. Bush said that in spite of Clinton's challenges, she is still the biggest threat to the GOP for president in 2016, but that it does put her "in a much more vulnerable position in a general election."
"It's easier to make the case that this is the case of Democrats representing yesterday, let's go back to the early '90s, versus somebody who's focused on tomorrow, a Republican with a constructive conservative agenda with the future," Rove said.
Rove
was responding to a story by Politico citing Democrats who are "wary of Hillary" as the likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, if she decides to run.
Govs. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and Jerry Brown of California are among those who said that they are concerned about "the inevitability" of her candidacy.
Rove recently came under fire for saying in mid-May that Clinton
might have brain damage from a concussion she suffered after she took a fall in December 2012, a statement he later backed away from.
Urgent: Who Is Your Choice for the GOP's 2016 Nominee?
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