Marijuana and the 2016 Election

Lots of folks seem to think that marijuana legalization is going to be an important issue in the next presidential election year.   We keep seeing articles (like this one and this one)  on the question of what politicians -- Republicans in particular -- need to do about the weed issue of they want to improve their performance among millennial voters.

I haven't been optimistic that there's really much of an issue here.  I think President Obama confirmed that this week when he basically told voters that he's not about to support marijuana legalization and that they shouldn't be spending time worrying about that issue when there's more important stuff going on.   President-elect Hillary Clinton has long been an opponent, although she's made some noises recently that suggest that she might go as far as President Obama has in not actually interfering with state-level legalization.  

So it seems to me extremely unlikely that Democrats in 2016 will be peddling weed as an important issue at the national level.  And if the Democrats aren't doing that, why would Republicans want to take that on when they're already in what they feel is a target-rich environment?  Any GOP nominee who comes out clearly for legalization (e.g., Rand Paul) risks alienating a goodly chunk of the current base, which probably is a really bad idea in the primaries.

I could be wrong, of course.  It's possible that a year and a half from now the idea of legal weed is so popular that everybody will want to get on board.  But I suspect that we're going to have two nominees who each will do their best to avoid saying anything about it at all.  Imagine it's Secretary Clinton against Governor Jeb Bush -- a 69-year-old semi-liberal who never smoked a joint in her life, against a 63-year semi-conservative who sold joints to friends in college.  Would marijuana activists have a strong preference?