Over the weekend, now-declared candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination Hillary Clinton, fresh from her so-called ‘listening tour’ of America, stepped forward to deliver her first substantive campaign speech. Meanwhile, the long-expected announcement by former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush, that he would seek his party’s nomination came on Monday, 15 June. In Clinton’s case – so far at least – she will have to endure three likely notional challengers on the left – former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Rhode Island Governor and Senator Lincoln Chafee. Bush, however, will need to elbow his way through a vast and growing throng of candidates.

For Clinton, the trio are notional because, at least for now, no one really expects any of them to halt the Clinton juggernaut. By contrast, Bush is facing 10 other challengers, including gambling and real estate mogul Donald Trump who announced his intentions on Tuesday, along with several more politicians who are almost certain to throw their hats into that crowded ring shortly as well. If nothing else, the impossibly crowded Republican field will make candidate debates a logistical nightmare. Either the debates will be virtually unmanageable rugby scrums, or the respective hosts will have to come up with special, even arbitrary, criteria to pick who’s in and who’s not, regardless of their seriousness.

The first state level primaries and caucus votes are still over half a year away and the first candidates’ debate, besides the more informal joint appearances at various conservative talk fests around the country, is now scheduled for 8 August and will be hosted by Fox News TV. At that first debate, the criteria for inclusion will be based on who is already among the first 10 announced candidates, per an average of various national polls. The remainder of the candidates will be consigned to a lesser forum that will come eight hours earlier. Virtually no one will pay much attention to any of those wannabe candidates in the second forum, unless one of them outshines everybody else in that forum and delivers an absolutely stunning, killer sound bite that goes viral nationally, capturing the national zeitgeist to perfection and thereby rockets ahead in the polls.

But even in the centre ring for the Republicans it is going to be one crowded event at that televised debate – and that’s a challenge for the party – and the candidates themselves. Candidates such as Jeb Bush are going to be speaking to the right wing of their party early on so as to capture the affections of primary voters (and thereby delegates for the nominating convention next year). These voters are more likely to be party activists and they disproportionately tend to hold social conservative views and either (contradictorily) neo-isolationist or strongly interventionist foreign policy views.

Collectively, these views are, however, less than representative of the middle of American politics where the majority of general election votes are to be found. But Bush must also be careful as he goes about appealing to potential supporters as he will be put in the position of reconciling some of his earlier positions as a Florida governor with these new ones he may have to embrace as well.

More on Bush’s challenges – and possibilities – in a minute. First, let’s take a look at how things went with Clinton’s first big public speech in her campaign for the 2016 nomination.

For Clinton, the symbolism in her speech was both obvious and multi-layered. Her gathering took place on the parkland at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, a narrow bit of urban land located in the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Depending on the camera angle, one saw Manhattan’s towers or lush greenery framing a cheering crowd. Clinton used this spot to link her campaign to a call for improved economic opportunities, income growth and greater economic equality – and to consciously reach back to the successes of President Franklin Roosevelt administration in coping with the Great Depression. (Daily Maverick did point to this possibility a few weeks earlier.)

As she said, “President Roosevelt called on every American to do his or her part, and every American answered. It’s America’s basic bargain: If you do your part, you ought to be able to get ahead. And when everybody does their part, America gets ahead, too.” Even as she was expanding on that populist pitch, Clinton also embraced the legacy of the incumbent president, Barack Obama, as well as that of her former president husband, Bill Clinton.

It would have been rather hard to dodge such embraces – she’s married to one of those two men and she served the other as his secretary of state for four years. (Bush’s problem is somewhat similar. He can’t very well deny George W Bush is his brother and that he used to be president, along with their father. While he certainly isn’t bound to his brother’s policies, especially the albatross of the Iraq War and those WMD, Bush does need to figure out a way to say, convincingly, something on the order of, “Ok, family is family; but I am indisputably my own man. As for the Iraq War, let’s move on to the future.”)

Clinton used the trajectory of her mother’s life as a metaphor in her speech. As the Washington Post reported, “Framed around the story of how Clinton’s late mother, Dorothy Rodham, emerged from a childhood of mistreatment without losing her faith in humanity, the speech laid out how Clinton drew lessons about hope, perseverance and kindness from her mother’s example. ‘When I was a girl, she never let me back down from any bully or barrier,’ Clinton said. ‘In her later years, Mom lived with us, and she was still teaching me the same lessons. I’d come home from a hard day at the Senate or the State Department, sit down with her at the small table in our breakfast nook and just let everything pour out. And she would remind me why we keep fighting, even when the odds are long and the opposition is fierce.’ The emphasis on Clinton’s personal story is part of an effort to reshape her image, which has often been of an efficient and, sometimes, chilly policy wonk. She talks with glowing grandmotherly pride about eight-month-old Charlotte at nearly every appearance, though the baby has yet to make an appearance at any of them.”

But even as she embraced her mother’s memory and brought her husband and daughter up to the podium at the end, she promised she would lead the country, not as one of its oldest presidents, but as its first and youngest female president, if elected. She said, “I may not be the youngest candidate in this race. But I will be the youngest woman president in the history of the United States. And the first grandmother, as well.”

In her speech, Clinton blended her earlier work as an advocate for children and families with pledges to deliver a fairer bargain on how taxes are levied, how voting is carried out and how immigration is managed. Right at the beginning of this campaign she used this speech to take some shots at putative Republican rivals and the very wealthy. (This was the case even though she is part of that demographic now and on whom she will rely upon to help fund her campaign as it seeks to accumulate a cool billion dollars in order to gain the White House.)

In this populist-tinged moment, Clinton said, “Prosperity can’t be just for CEOs and hedge fund managers. Democracy can’t be just for billionaires and corporations. Prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain, too. You brought our country back. Now it’s time — your time — to secure the gains and move ahead.” She added that she is running for president on behalf of “everyone who’s ever been knocked down but refused to be knocked out”.

In the subliminal cultural references department, while she didn’t specify exactly which Republicans she had in mind for these smacks, although Florida Senator Marco Rubio may well have been the one most to mind, Clinton argued, “There may be some new voices in the presidential Republican choir, they’re all singing the same old song. A song called ‘Yesterday’.” Hmm. Shouting out the Republicans by way of The Beatles.

In her red meat moments to her supporters, Clinton also took shots at Republicans for their efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, their intentions to deport immigrants, and their presumed plans to take away “reproductive-health decisions” from the hands of the women most concerned with such things. And over on the GLBT front, Clinton added, opposing Republicans “turn their backs on gay people who love each other”. On climate change, she told her supporters to “Ask many of these candidates about climate change, one of the defining threats of our time, and they’ll say: ‘I’m not a scientist.’ Well, then, why don’t they start listening to those who are?”

Clinton said her administration would support businesses in making long-term investments, even as she promised to put America back firmly on the cutting edge of innovation, science and research with the commitment of major public investments in these efforts – as well efforts to bring in private funding as well for these activities. The speech also offered promises to support improved preschool options for all, to make tertiary education more affordable, and to rebuild the nation’s decaying infrastructure. Fuller details will follow over the next weeks and months as she rolls out the specifics in subsequent speeches, her campaign staffers are now telling reporters.

The Washington Post reported Clinton’s emphasis on the populist side of the Democratic Party ideological continuum “suggests Clinton thinks she can win by appealing to her own party’s most progressive wing as well as to others who feel left behind in an economy where the gap between rich and poor has grown much wider than when her husband was in the White House in the 1990s. It also suggests that Clinton thinks she can overcome her own perceived cosiness with Wall Street titans, which has caused ambivalence among progressives.” And that will be important in heading off the challenges from Vermont Senator Sanders, as well as former governors O’Malley and Chafee – all of whom are explicitly appealing to the left wing of their party.

Then, on Monday, 15 June, Jeb Bush stepped up to the microphone in Miami, Florida to announce his candidacy for the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency – in competition with nearly a dozen others who have already done so. Labelling himself ‘Jeb’ on the website and miscellaneous campaign ephemera, rather than ‘Jeb Bush’ so as to declare a kind of semiotic independence from the rest of his clan, the newly formalised candidate has now come into the fray to make his fundraising heft show its ultimate impact. However, with his relatively late start, he must contest his home state with the earlier-starting candidacy of Senator Marco Rubio.

Bush (and his campaign) may also have a bit of a learning curve as a candidate in front. He’s actually been out of real politics since he stepped down as Florida’s governor nearly a decade ago. In the meantime, there has been a veritable revolution in campaigning via social media and the impact of the superPACs (those virtually unlimited fundraising vehicles that are officially separate from a candidate’s campaign but effectively reinforce the message). Moreover, in securing his base in his home state, there has been a continuing churning of population – as around a million people move into the state and the same number move out each year.

As Brad Coker, the Florida-based managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling and Research told the media, “Time means a lot in Florida. It’s not like North Dakota where people can say, ‘Oh yeah, I remember when he was governor 25 years ago.’ It’s a completely different type of place. So I think some of (Bush’s) star power has worn off over time.” Still Bush’s popularity rating as a Floridian governor remains high. He ranks as the most popular Florida governor for the past three decades, and his popularity among Republicans in that state was 59% – two months earlier.

But Rubio came out of the starting blocks two months back. Now the two men are neck and neck in state polling. As Lance deHaven-Smith, a political science professor at Florida State University, said, “When they first both started talking about running for president, the perception was that Bush would have a far greater advantage in Florida. Since then, Rubio has risen rapidly in the polls and has a sort of David vs. Goliath role now. Bush is the Republican establishment candidate, and Rubio is this fresh-faced candidate with a compelling life story and who is very articulate. I don’t think that could’ve happened if Jeb had come out earlier.”

In his announcement speech, Bush repeatedly reached back to his years as Florida governor, bragging about those eight years of tax cuts, the 4.4% economic growth, and 1.3 million new jobs. (Candidates opposing him in the primaries or in the general election will undoubtedly note these were tax cuts predominately went to richer residents and that good rate of growth came before the great financial crisis that was presided over by, uh, er, a certain candidate’s brother.)

Of course, a half-year still remains before the first presidential primary. That means there remains lots of time for Bush to re-assert himself as his party’s natural leader. But, as USA Today judged it, “given his experience as governor, his deep fund-raising power throughout the country and a formidable campaign team, Bush was supposed to come out of the box leading the pack. Instead, he’s fumbled his way through interviews, back-tracked on answers and is fending off a Florida challenge from a candidate 18 years his junior. ‘I remember his three runs for governor. He was an excellent speaker, good on his feet,’ said Dario Moreno, a political science professor at Florida International University who has befriended Rubio and taught a class with him. ‘But I think it’s taken him a while to get his sea legs in this campaign, while Marco is this athlete who’s been in training since he was elected speaker (of the Florida House in 2006)’.”

A just-released survey of new signups for candidate Facebook pages in the 24 hours after they formally announced their respective candidacies, and the interactions with those pages in that same period, may offer some light.

The numbers plays out this way:

1) Hillary Clinton: 4.7 million unique people, 10.1 million interactions; 2) Cruz: 2.1 million people, 5.5 million interactions; 3) Rand: 865,000 people, 1.9 million interactions; 4) Ben Carson: 847,000 people, 1.5 million interactions; 5) Rubio: 695,000 people, 1.3 million interactions; 6) Sanders: 592,000 people, 1.2 million interactions; 7) Jeb: 493,000 people, 849,000 interactions; 8) Huckabee: 458,000 people, 814,000 interactions; 9) Perry: 422,000 people, 763,000 interactions; 10) Fiorina: 304,000 people, 515,000 interactions; 11) Santorum: 169,000 people, 266,000 interactions; 12) Graham: 84,000 unique people, 142,000 interactions; 13) O’Malley: 84,000 people, 120,000 interactions; 14) Pataki: 59,000 people, 81,000 interactions; 15) Chafee: 20,000 people, 27,000 interactions.

If one was on the Bush campaign, these numbers could be read as a troubling harbinger of the campaign or the candidate’s problems in connecting with voters.

Still, as Politico weighed it, the two leading candidates, Clinton and Bush, have more in common as candidates than their positions and supporters would initially lead one to believe. As Politico noted, “One candidate vowed to ‘ban discrimination against LGBT Americans’ and ‘make preschool and quality childcare available to every child in America’. The other pledged to ‘take Washington … out of the business of causing problems’ and ‘get back on the side of free enterprise and free people’. She spoke in lists and bullet points; he stuck to broad brushstrokes.

“While their visions for America couldn’t be more different, the duelling kick-off rallies of Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush — coming just 52 hours apart after years of anticipation in both parties — served to underscore a striking fact: Their political problems are remarkably similar. ‘Both are the darlings of their respective party’s elites, unequalled fundraisers, and members of the nation’s political oligarchy’, noted Democratic strategist Hank Scheinkopf, who in the past has advised Bill Clinton. ‘Both, if they are the nominees of their respective parties, need to win the same states. And while their rivals in both parties are using either centre-right or centre-left populist rhetoric, they have both shown propensity to cleave for life to the centre’.

“Then there’s the dynastic factor. A central struggle for both is escaping their famous families — and their political operations have accordingly marketed the candidates around their first names only: Clinton’s logo is a squat blue ‘H’ pierced by a red arrow, while Bush’s is a big red ‘Jeb’ punctuated by an exclamation point. And while neither has created much distance from his or her family, both have inched away from their kins’ policy legacies. Hillary Clinton proposed effectively undoing some of Bill Clinton’s work on criminal justice, and Jeb Bush has struggled to answer questions about whether he would follow George W Bush’s path in Iraq.

“Clinton, 67, and Bush, 62, also face questions about their age, particularly from rivals Martin O’Malley, 52, and Marco Rubio, 44, respectively, who’ve made explicitly generational pitches. And while both campaigns will be run by well-respected 30-something party operatives instead of the legions of family loyalists on offer — Robby Mook for Clinton and Danny Diaz for Bush — the candidates themselves are shaking off the rust that comes from not having run full-scale political operations in years — eight for Clinton, 14 for Bush.”

It is, of course, still early, early days in the 2016 presidential election. But the heavy-duty candidates are all now largely in the game, with only a few governors like Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, Ohio’s John Kasich and New Jersey’s Chris Christie not yet formally in the chase. As they join in, that would make the Republican field even more crowded and chaotic than it already is. Clinton’s opponents will be chivvying her leftward, but it remains her nomination to lose and it is doubtful if Chafee, Sanders or O’Malley really seem themselves as likely winners – absent a major, so-far-unexpected fall from grace by the former secretary of state. Bush’s problem to solve is rather different. He has to, somehow, clamber over all the bodies of a baker’s dozen of his co-Republicans, without making it a bloodletting, because he’ll need them on his team, come November 2016. DM

Photo: (left) Democratic 2016 US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives to make her official launch address on Roosevelt Island in New York, New York, USA, 13 June 2015. EPA/ANDREW GOMBERT (Right) Governor Jeb Bush announces his candidacy for the US presidency at Miami Dade College in Miami, Florida, USA 15 June 2015. Jeb Bush is the third member of his family to seek the nation’s highest office after his father, George Bush, who won the office in 1988, or his brother, George W. Bush, who claimed it in 2000. EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA

For more, read:

• Hillary Clinton = Jeb Bush? Their policies may be different, but their political problems look remarkably similar in Politico.com;

• Democracy not ‘just for billionaires,’ Hillary Clinton tells crowd in NY in the Washington Post;

• First Take: Jeb Bush hopes old-time rally gives 2016 bid new life in USA Today;

• Stressing his experience as governor of Fla., Jeb Bush enters 2016 race in the Washington Post;

• Republican presidential myth busters, a column by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post;

• Jeb Bush is more than a name, an editorial in the Washington Post;

• Jeb Bush runs away from his family name, a column by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post;

• 2016 Republican Primary Debate Schedule at the 2016 Election Central website;

• Running Against Hillary, a column by Ross Douthat in the New York Times.