Does Clinton Plan to Run Again in 2020

(CNN)All it took was a fleck of speculation from a guy who isn't especially close to the almost famous people in Chappaqua, New York, for the pointer on the "love-Hillary Clinton-or-hate-her" meter to start swinging wildly once more.

All of a sudden, the Boston Herald declared the idea of Hillary Clinton running for president in 2024 "a nightmare scenario." But at The Hill, author Joe Concha looked at the other Democrats who could run and asked, "If those are the options, why not Hillary?"

While the mere mention of the Clintons in the context of some other presidential campaign offends some and inspires others, everyone in the political world has a reason to be excited by the prospect. Amid her supporters, there must be millions who have recovered from the heartbreak of 2016 and are fix to dorsum her again. Amongst those who oppose her, the chance to resume boxing against the woman they beloved to hate must surely send hearts racing.

To be clear, Hillary Clinton hasn't indicated she'due south running for anything -- and a political comeback by the erstwhile secretary of land seems unlikely. This recent speculation began with Doug Schoen, the polling and consulting firm founder who worked for quondam President Nib Clinton. Schoen, along with co-writer Andrew Stein, wrote a Wall Street Periodical opinion piece outlining the Democrats' current struggles -- an unpopular president and VP; political party infighting; and looming midterm challenges -- while making the case for Hillary as a "change candidate" who, at 74, is yet younger than President Joe Biden.

Except for the fact that she's not Biden, I would disagree where the idea of "change" is concerned; both Clinton and Biden are heart-of-the-route Democrats of the same generation. But whether Schoen is correct or incorrect about Clinton's prospects, the most telling affair about a potential Hillary run in '24 tin can exist found in the reaction that followed his article.

While the political pros may jostle for work -- some fantasizing nearly a future Clinton entrada, some using the buzz to make a pitch for other would-be candidates -- conservative media is already cashing in.

From the New York Postal service to Fox News to Sky News Australia, the Clinton talk revved engines across Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Big names at Play a trick on are dragging Hillary on the air, and at the Post a columnist mused over her "inevitable loss." According to a Heaven News headline, "loser" Hillary Clinton is "obsessed with the presidency."

But written report these reactions closely and you might notice the Murdoch stars and others salivating over the prospect of Hillary Clinton's return to public life. For decades, certain media outlets and personalities have used Clinton as a bogeyman to excite viewers and readers -- and this time is no different.

In 1994, it was radio host Blitz Limbaugh repeating false claims that White Business firm lawyer Vince Foster, who died past suicide in a park, "was murdered in an flat endemic by Hillary Clinton." In 2016, it was writer Dinesh D'Souza's suggesting she "orchestrated" her husband'due south infidelities. (With Foster'due south death, there have been repeated investigations that ruled it equally a suicide. And every bit for whatever infidelities, friends have said that Clinton didn't condone them.)

As I discovered researching my 2020 book "The Hunting of Hillary," Clinton became a target for free media criticism and conspiracy theory attacks as before long as she entered public life in Arkansas. In Little Rock in the belatedly 1970s, she wasn't merely the country's first lady; she was a symbol of the changing status of women in America and a repository for all the anxieties, anger and confusion felt by those who didn't welcome the change.

Immature Hillary's desire to work, use her ain proper noun -- Rodham -- and delay childbearing irritated many. All these issues were raised in a 1979 TV interview: "Does information technology concern you," asked the host, "that maybe other people feel that you don't fit the paradigm that we take created for the governor's wife in Arkansas?"

In the years that followed, as Clinton resisted the gendered limits placed on her, the questions and critiques morphed into conspiracy theories.

Past 1994, televangelist Jerry Falwell was using his broadcasts to sell a video called "The Clinton Chronicles" in which Hillary and her husband were not merely ambitious but dangerous. The flick fifty-fifty falsely implicated both Hillary and Bill in various murders.

At the 1992 GOP convention, presidential candidate Pat Buchanan used his nationally broadcast opening-night spoken communication to declare a "civilisation war" and identify Hillary in his crosshairs. Afterwards twisting her tape as an attorney, he accused her of "radical feminism" and declared her ane of God's opponents "in the struggle for the soul of America."

Ambition has always been i of Hillary Clinton's supposed sins, which may be why Sky News Commonwealth of australia would run a headline today claiming Hillary is "obsessed with the presidency."

Yet if she is ambitious, this would make her like other politicians -- Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, the first president Bush -- who lost either primary or full general elections and came back to win the White House. They won because voters deemed them most qualified. Given her experience as First Lady, a U.s. senator, and Secretary of State, Hillary is one of the most qualified potential presidents in the land.

Add to her qualifications the resilience she has shown nether pressure: so many books accept taken aim at her that it'due south hard to continue track. A burst of titles emerged in 1999, with 1 book alleging that "in scandal after scandal all roads pb to Hillary." Some other had the on-the-nose title, "The Example Against Hillary Clinton." Many more attack books followed. Four were published in 2016 lonely.

Despite the onslaught, which continued when Republicans feared she might actually win the presidency, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 by roughly 2.9 one thousand thousand. Nevertheless Donald Trump reached the White House thanks to the curious institution known every bit the Electoral College.

In the backwash of her loss, Clinton recovered at her home in Chappaqua and just recently began returning to public life. It is this resilience that energizes her critics and her supporters at the mere mention of a comeback.

Never the monster they tried to make her, Hillary Clinton is instead a leader who -- like others before her, including President Biden -- just becomes more compelling and powerful with experiences that would have defeated others.

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Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/18/opinions/hillary-clinton-2024-reaction-dantonio/index.html