It takes a party

SO Hillary Clinton is officially running, to nobody's surprise. And you know what's coming: endless attempts to psychoanalyse the candidate, endless attempts to read significance into what she says or doesn't say about President Barack Obama, endless thumb-sucking about her "positioning" on this or that issue.

Please pay no attention. Personality-based political analysis is always a dubious venture - in my experience, pundits are terrible judges of character. Those old enough to remember the 2000 election may also remember how we were assured that George W Bush was a nice, affable fellow who would pursue moderate, bipartisan policies.

In any case, there has never been a time in US history when the alleged personal traits of candidates mattered less. As we head into 2016, each party is quite unified on major policy issues - and these unified positions are very far from each other. The huge, substantive gulf between the parties will be reflected in the policy positions of whomever they nominate, and will almost surely be reflected in the actual policies adopted by whoever wins.