While he might do better, I doubt if he could win as an independent. I can imagine a lot of his supporters wanting him to run as an independent if they thought that Clinton has “stolen” the convention – but I suspect that he himself would realise that he’s young enough to wait 4 or 8 years.
Freudian paragraph break? 
I’m struggling to figure out what Bill Clinton’s absurdly long convention speech has to do with running as an independent.
The OP does realize that Hillary is married to Bill Clinton, not Ralph Nader?
From her current stash, since a majority of the cash she has on hand can only be spent on the General Election. From here:
Not that I think she’d do something this stupid (though she’s fooled me before), but at least she’d have a head start on the fundraising.
People were talking about the mean ol’ Republicans long before Clinton hit the scene, and are likely to continue talking about them until their leaders begin behaving like intelligent adults. But seriously, could you explain the logic behind your OP? Clinton had a sex scandal and therefore his wife will run as an independent? Are Mrs. Craig, Mrs. Vitter, Mrs. Spitzer, and Mrs. Foley also planning to run as independents?
Judging from the OPs attempt to work in everything from Bill’s sex scandal to his extra-long nominating speech in '88, I think the logic is ‘The Clintons did things in the past I didn’t like, therefore they’ll do things in the future I won’t like.’
As the OP let me clarify:
I think all of the Clinton bashing was taken out of context. My point was that Bill Cinton’s mentality seems to be that he can do what he wants and get away with it and that in a warped way, HRC running as an independant is a slim possibility. For the poster that compared this to GW Bush, I’ll point out a simple rule of logic. A -> B is not the same as notA -> notB. Even the most ardent Demo must agree that Clinton did a lot of shady things and got away with them. If you want to argue that Bush II is worse, go ahead but do it in a different thread - this one is about the Clintons.
Do I think HRC will run as an independent? No way in hell! (thus the comment about avoiding common sense), but I was curious if anyone thought she could take enough states to throw it into the House (like George Wallace tried to do) or even win via the top few states starting with NY and CA.
But to hijack my own thread: I’ve noticed that in Great Debates, a lot of dopers don’t distinguish between opinion questions “Could . . .” or “Will . . .” and hypothetical “What if . . .” questions. For example, if I ask “What if Rudolf Hess had flown to the U.S. …” and I’ll get responses explaining in excruciating detail how Hess would have never come to the US or technical details on the plane showing he couldn’t have made it over the Atlantic, or (better yet) a couple comparing GW Bush to Hitler (e.g. at least Hitler didn’t have to steal Florida’s electoral votes to become President of Germany), etc.
Many of the answers I got were fantastic had I asked, “Will HRC run as an independent if she loses the primary.” but that’s not the question I asked.
Well, the point is, if she tried to now, her first hurdle would be getting on the ballot.
Her second hurdle is that her contributors are big money men who are Democrats. This would totally burn her bridges with them. Obama’s independent income would be more likely to survive a third party run.
The likely result is, if she could get on enough states, or just raise enough ruckus, a McCain win.
These silly scenarios are getting sillier and sillier. There is 0% chance of Hillary (or Obama) running as an independent this year. Sheesh!
Taking the hypothetical…
I don’t believe it is possible, for one simple reason:
No Presidential election has been thrown to the House since 1824, when Presidential elections were not what they are today.
Roosevelt didn’t manage to do it, Wallace failed, Perot failed, Thurmond and Wallace failed, Weaver failed, La Follette failed, Debs failed, McCarthy failed, Anderson failed, and the trifecta of Breckenridge, Ball, and Douglas failed.
Given all these precedents, it makes it highly unlikely that things shall be any different, especially as no explanation has been offered as to why it would change, compared to all the previous examples.
For those who brought up ballot access, this link by a leading authority is of interest
Ain’t no way Hillary would run in the general as an independent. It would be the end of her aspirations within the party, hence the end of her political career.
Lieberman could get away with it in CT only because the GOP candidate wasn’t viable - wound up getting only about 10% of the vote - so the election could be thought of as ‘Dem primary, round 2’ if one was inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to Lieberman, which the party insiders were.
That would obviously not be the case in the 2008 Presidential election.
I think if we want to demonize the Clin! Tons! let’s go with a more realistic scenario. Those wily Clin Tons would never pursue the tactics described in the OP when they could simply hint / threaten to do the above in order to sway the superdelegate vote. They have a number of superdelegate friends already, so it is simply a matter of stroking a few swing voters with an argument that 2008 is Hillary’s turn and Obama is young enough to be a viable candidate in 2016. If Obama skips his turn, wouldn’t it be a shame if HRC goes independent and McCain somehow wins? Wouldn’t want that, would we?
Even that’s only marginally more realistic. ISTM, based on the reaction of prominent Dems to Team Hillary actions that could remotely be construed as threats (e.g. rich Hillary backers saying they might take their money and go home), that this would much more likely result in a backlash that would give the supers the final push they needed into the Obama camp.
The difference as I saw it was that due to how unbalanced the Electoral College and how well she does in big states. One could argue (not well I grant you) that she can take New York as the favorite son [daughter] (31 votes), won California by 9% (55 votes), and is mobilizing a strategy of “I care about your vote, Obama and the other Democrats don’t.” in Michigan and Florida (17 and 27 votes respectively) that the Clintons could think that they have 130 of the 270 needed locked up.
As I’ve said before, I don’t think it’ll happen but if she does, she may take one state (her own), and between McCain and Obama, would 31 votes be enough to put it in the HOR? Remember, she only needs to be in the top 3 to have a chance there. If so, would Billary be able to swing state slates to win? FYI: the breakdown of HOR state delagations are:
21 Republican
26 Democrat
3 Split
It is possible this board sways Obama, due to origins with the Chicago Reader. For native Illini, it can be hard to see beyond their favorite son and they would respond much like yourself. Those people don’t need to be pushed into the Obama camp, they are already smack dab in it.
Staying within the realm of hypotheticals, if superdelegates are told they can’t vote for Hillary because it would alter the popular vote, they can now come back with “we did it to preserve the party and protect against a McCain victory”. Why? Did not want to see an independent candidate.