While the horse race aspects of 2016 election Presidential election are mostly meaningless, the election is still important because it can impact the significant decisions powerful politicians are currently making. As long as a politician is seriously thinking about a run in 2016 it changes the leverage groups have over him/her. A perfect example is this anti-fracking ad that was run in Iowa against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). From the New York Times:

Increasingly, for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, all politics are national.

With a deadline for issuing guidelines for hydraulic fracturing in New York State approaching at the end of February, a group of organizations opposed to the practice are running an ad about him in … Iowa.

“Not one well,” the full-page ad, destined for Tuesday’s Des Moines Register, urges in large block print. The closing line: “Your choice now will be remembered forever.”

If Cuomo is planning on running in four years his political future depends more on what Iowa Democrats think of him than registered voters in New York. Probably the best hope of moving a possible 2016 candidate on a policy decision in the short term is by exploiting this dynamic.

Photo by Azi Paybarah under Creative Commons license