February 18, 2013 | 10:32 am

Israel Factor: Clinton First, Paul Last on Chance-Desirability Combo

Posted by Shmuel Rosner

Hilary Clinton and Chris Christie, photos by AP

I was looking at two lists of possible 2016 presidential contenders and their probable chances for success. Surely, making such projections at such an early stage is more sport than science (and maybe even more like gambling than an actual sport). But since we at the Israel Factor have also already started ranking the 2016 field (as we did in previous rounds), comparing notes was a temptation that could hardly be overcome.

So there are two lists to which we compared our most recent Israel Factor survey- The Prez 16 list of potential Democratic candidates and The Fix list of potential Republican candidates. In a few days, when the two blogs add their respective lists of the parties they didn't yet list, we will add a column to our own comparison and let you see the full picture.

So, what did we discover?

Take a look at the comparisons, followed by some short comments:

Three notes, the first one cautionary, the other two more substantive:

1. There are candidates we rank and they don't (vice versa), so differences are to be expected - even before we consider the fact that the rankings are completely different in nature (they rank chances for victory, we rank candidates on US-Israel relations). Some of the unranked Israel Factor candidates will be added to our list in the coming months.
2. If you add chances to our "good for Israel" rankings, you get the sense that Clinton is the best potential candidate among Democrats and Christie the best candidate among Republicans.
3. Rand Paul - whom I wrote about last week in this context - is obviously the most problematic candidate in the sense that he has far better chances than our panel seems to want him to have.

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