Washington ( CNN ) -- Democrats seem poised to choose their next presidential nominee the way Republicans often choose theirs : according to the principle of `` next in line . '' Hillary Clinton came second in the nomination fight of 2008 . If she were a Republican , that would make her a near-certainty to be nominated in 2016 . Five of the past six Republican nominees had finished second in the previous round of primaries . ( The sixth was George W. Bush , son of the most recent Republican president . ) Democrats , by contrast , prefer newcomers . Six of their eight nominees since 1972 had never sought national office before . Obviously , past performance is no guarantee of future results . Democrats chose the next guy in line in 2000 -- Vice President Al Gore -- and they may well do so again . But speaking from across the aisle , it 's just this one observer 's opinion that Democrats would be poorly served by following the Republican example when President Obama 's term ends . Hillary Clinton is 14 years older than Barack Obama . A party has never nominated a leader that much older than his immediate predecessor . ( The previous record-holder was James Buchanan , 13 years older than Franklin Pierce when the Democrats chose him in 1856 . Runner-up : Dwight Eisenhower , 12 years older than his predecessor , Thomas Dewey . ) Parties have good reasons to avoid reaching back to politicians of prior generations . When they do , they bring forward not only the ideas of the past , but also the personalities and the quarrels of the past . One particular quarrel that a Hillary Clinton nomination would bring forward is the quarrel over the ethical standards of the Clinton White House -- and , maybe even more , of the Clintons ' post-White House careers . Relying on Hillary Clinton 's annual financial disclosure reports , CNN reported last year that former President Bill Clinton had earned $ 89 million in speaking fees since leaving the White House in 2001 . Many of these earnings came from foreign sources . In 2011 alone , the former president earned $ 6.1 million from 16 speeches in 11 foreign countries . Is it an ethical problem for the husband of the person charged with the foreign affairs of the United States to earn so much foreign-sourced income ? Let 's rephrase that question : How much time do Democrats wish to spend arguing the ethics of Bill Clinton 's foreign earnings over the 2016 political cycle ? Yet the biggest risk to Democrats from a Hillary Clinton nomination is not that it would be generationally backward-looking -- or that it would reopen embarrassing ethical disputes -- but that it would short-circuit the necessary work of party renewal . After eight years in the White House , a party requires a self-appraisal and a debate over its way forward . Bill Clinton offered Democrats just such a debate in 1992 with his `` New Democrat '' ideas . Barack Obama offered another in 2008 with his careful but unmistakable criticism of Clinton-era domestic policies and Hillary Clinton 's Iraq war vote . But if Hillary Clinton glides into the nomination in 2016 on the strength of money , name recognition , and a generalized feeling of `` It 's her turn , '' then Democrats will forgo this necessary renewal . Here 's what could happen instead in 2016 : . One candidate could seek the Democratic nomination on a platform of keeping faith with the ideals of the pre-presidential Obama : closing Guantanamo , ending targeted killings , and so on . Another Democrat could run to represent those Democrats who supported Bill Clinton back in the 1990s , and who worry that the Obama administration has drifted too far to the left : spending too much , ignoring budget deficits , getting into too many fights with business . Yet another could run as a full-throated defender of the Obama legacy , updating the 1988 George H.W . Bush `` stay the course '' message . This would be a real debate that would summon forth hard thinking about how Democrats might govern their country if returned for a third presidential term ( as could very well happen , given the continuing political weakness of the GOP ) . A Hillary Clinton campaign would want to shut down any such debate before it starts . It would want to inherit the Democratic nomination and then the presidency as an estate in reversion : a debt long owed , now collected . If successful , it would arrive in office without a platform and without much of a mandate . That 's not a formula for an effective presidency -- or a healthy democracy . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Frum .
Democrats seem poised to let Hillary Clinton inherit nomination in 2016 , writes David Frum . He says after eight years in the White House , Democrats should reassess their future . Picking Hillary Clinton would be a backward-looking move , he says . Frum : Clinton would arrive in office without a platform or much of a mandate .