Democrats who really don't want Biden, Clinton or Cuomo to be the nominee.

[Mr. Morden]

Hillary Clinton is my #1 choice (I'm not sure there are any other viable female possibilities), but I would kill myself if Biden or Cuomo won the nomination.

Elizabeth Warren
Amy Klobuchar
Kirsten Gillibrand

Yeah, I like all three of them a lot and know they're listed as possibilities. I just don't think they'd have the support to mount a successful national campaign yet.

Well, let's assume that Clinton doesn't run, and one of those three women ends up running in the Democratic primaries against an otherwise all male field?  Don't you think that the one female candidate would get an awful lot of media attention just by virtue of being the only candidate with two X chromosomes.....enough to make her competitive both in polling and fundraising?  I just get the feeling that there's a sense of unfinished business among many female Democratic voters from 2008, about wanting to elect the first female president.  If Clinton doesn't run, then that feeling will be transferred onto whoever else looks remotely viable.

[Mr. Morden]

I wouldn't be so quick to assume Clinton would walk away with the nomination - Similar to 2008, there will be a huge target on her back from the very beginning, and even if she makes it to the General Election, she'll have a lot of battle wounds from the primary. Her best bet at the White House was Romney winning this time.

I agree that the general election is unpredictable, and it depends on what things look like in 2016.  But for the primary.......Clinton's standing with Democratic voters is much better now than it was in 2005/2006, when she was preparing her first run.  To the point where I think she'd be as strongly favored to win the nomination as Gore was in 2000, and might receive only token opposition.  I lay out the case here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=152668.msg3277351#msg3277351

[Mr. Morden]

Problems:  her speaking style is unexciting (hard to imagine Klobuchar throwing “red meat” to the base) and her national profile is very low.  Lower than Gillibrand’s and way lower than Warren’s.

My point in that last post of mine that you quoted was that it doesn't matter how low her profile currently is, or how low the profile of any potential 2016 female Democratic presidential candidate is.  As long as they're not in the unelectable fringe of the party a la Dennis Kucinich, the mere fact of having two X chromosomes running in a Democratic primary against a field of men will make them high profile.  They'll get a surge of media interest, boost in polling and fundraising and the like just for that.  (Whether that'll be a big enough boost to win the nomination is another story.)

There isn't going to be a female version of Chris Dodd 2008, because the media simply isn't going to ignore a female candidate like that.

[Mr. Morden]

Another problem with Klobuchar I forgot to mention:  her position on internet censorship will probably be unpopular with the base.

Right, but there are also many many Democratic primary voters who don't care a lick about issues like that.  Many of whom are the type who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2008, and almost won her the nomination.

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Sure, Gillibrand would probably be the stronger candidate of the two, if they were to both run.  But we probably won't see both of them running, and Klobuchar's probably the more likely of the two to run.  Neither will run if HRC does, and if HRC doesn't run, Klobuchar is still maybe only ~50/50 to run, with Gillibrand less than that.  The question for Gillibrand is, does she run if Cuomo does?  It would be highly unusual for the junior senator in a state to run for president against the incumbent governor, when the incumbent governor has effective control of the state's political machine and fundraising base.  And Gillibrand's young, so she might see it as less risky to wait until 2020 or 2024.

OTOH, if it really looks like no other women are going to run, then Gillibrand might see her opening as "heir to the Hillary Clinton mantle".  She would try to build a national fundraising base based on that, and rely less on New York.  I'll grant that both Cuomo and Gillibrand running in the same primary strikes me as more plausible than both Bush and Rubio running or both Ryan and Walker running.