Breaking Down The Frontrunners For The 2016 Election
The 2016 election is already developing into a hot topic across the nation a year before its advent.
Several politicians have declared for candidacy, drawing the eagle eye of the press upon themselves. All of this information about the candidates bubbling to the surface will serve to arm the voters in the election. For 2016, the voting population includes high school upperclassmen.
Three of the most talked-about candidates are republicans Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. However, the hubbub surrounding them pale in comparison to democratic Hillary Clinton, who has sparked much controversy in recent months.
Hillary has been a prominent political figure for decades now, whether it be as Bill Clinton’s first lady or as the Secretary of State under the Obama administration (replaced by republican John Kerry in 2013). She’s come under fire lately for keeping a personal, private email account during her time as the Secretary of State, which is seen as a serious breach of trust for someone in a public office.
Hillary’s views are largely democratic - she is reluctantly pro-choice, sues for bankruptcy reforms and fully supports efforts to curb climate change. However, she was rather tight-lipped about gay marriage rights until recently; on Wednesday she said that same-sex marriage is constitutional, despite her previous views that it should be left to a state-by-state decision.
On the republican side, the most popular candidate isn’t so certain. While Hillary is clearly receiving the most press on the left, it’s rather split for conservative candidates.
Rand Paul is one of the frontrunners, with what some call a libertarian slant to his political views - however, his stances aren’t very radical for a republican candidate.
He’s been vocal about cutting corporate taxes for more jobs, as well as about his disdain for gun control laws. His gay marriage views are reluctant at best, as he’s been evasive in the past and said that the decision should be left to the states. According to him, moral problems arise when the definition of marriage is tampered with.
His drug-related views are some of his most original for a republican candidate. He’s repeatedly stressed a more relaxed approach to the punishment for marijuana use for years, and more recently called for legalization.
Jeb Bush is another promising republican candidate, though his family name has a certain stigma surrounding it. George W. Bush has said that the nation might be sick of Bushes, harming Jeb’s chances for election.
He takes a similar stance on many issues to his older brother - conservative through and through. He has been critical of the Obama administration’s spending repeatedly, calling the latest economic stimulus out for tailoring to the liberal viewpoint rather than the economy.
His gay marriage views have swung from adamant opposition to reluctant acceptance lately. His drug-related stance is far from Rand Paul’s, as he advocated for the war on drugs in the 2000s and continues to hold those opinions. Though his proposed responses to crime are iron-fisted, he has a rather lenient view on immigration.
Yet another republican candidate is Florida senator Marco Rubio, who will leave his position as senator for the race to presidency in 2016. Rubio’s impending absence from the senate has some GOP members nervous, as their current majority may slide away from them in the next elections.
He is stalwartly opposed to the environmental efforts of the Obama administration, calling for support to the energy industry without focusing on renewable energy. He also believes that any environmentalist efforts should be left to the free market, and not the government.
On gay marriage, Rubio does not support redefining marriage rights. However, he is okay with allowing state votes to decide the issue. In line with the other right-wing candidates, he’s knocked the recent federal spending often.
He’s previously defended pro-life sentiments in law-making, but recently he has begun to side a little with allowing women to choose for themselves.
This race’s starting pistol won’t fire for another year still, but the runners are already flocking to the line. The democratic candidate in the spotlight (for better or for worse) is undisputably Hillary Clinton, but the republicans have yet to show a definite frontrunner among themselves.
However, November of 2016 is a long way away, and politics are constantly prone to change. For high school upperclassmen, the first election in which they’re eligible to vote is already shaping up to be an intense one.
