I brought this question up in the other thread, but it seems to deserve its own topic.
Surprisingly, there seems to be little idle speculation about this in the media. The first page of Google hits for “Hillary Clinton 2020” includes pieces written as long ago as last fall, and nothing at all for the last month. In comparison, almost all the hits on the first page of “Bernie Sanders 2020” are from the last couple weeks.
This article from May seems to lay out a pretty good and reasonably sourced case that she is running again, and takes a neutral, journalistic tone. However, the site it’s on, which I’m not familiar with, appears to be a loony right outlet.
Here is a Politico article from February arguing that she is showing strong signs of running again and appearing supportive of the idea, and an appropriately horrified Washington Post editorial in response.
In May, Clinton started a new “grassroots political organization” to “advance progressive causes” and promote “citizen engagement”. It is now accepting donations, and is registered for your convenience as a 501(c)(4) group, so such donations may be made anonymously.
Conclusion: Dear God, this might actually happen.:eek: I can’t imagine she could come close to winning a majority of primary voters again, but she has a hard core of diehard supporters, and unless her donor network dries up completely she could easily win enough votes to force a brokered convention unless the field quickly narrowed to a single opponent.
I don’t think she will, but I’m very bad at predicting these things. So bad they you would be wise to bet against me.
I think that the last election told her that it simply is not he destiny to be president. Right or wrong, she’s tainted in the eyes of the public. She’s not going to win and I think she knows that, and that running would only increase the chances of a 2nd term for Trump (or Pence). Actually, that’s about the only way she runs again in my mind, is if the GOP nominee is not Trump. Even then I’d think it unlikely.
But again, I’m routinely wrong on these matters soooooooooo bet against me.
Why don’t we tell the world yes, she is. This way the Right can spend all their time bashing her and we won’t have to worry about them bashing any candidates that might be up and coming. She can be a vast right wing conspiracy lightening rod.
I seriously doubt it. She said earlier this year she was done running for office.
Also I hope she doesn’t. She’d make a fine president, but for 5-10% of democrats and independents, she is very polarizing. She got 66 million votes in 2016, but who is to say Joe Biden wouldn’t have gotten 68. Granted some people who normally would stay home came out to vote for the first female presidential candidate, but she has been smeared for 30 years and some of it stuck.
I’d prefer someone less polarizing run in 2020. Hillary had two chances already and lost both.
Do you have a cite for that? Which reminds me, here is a lengthy interview with Clinton (TLDR for me) from New York magazine in May, which most of the articles i linked cite. Reportedly there is a statement somewhere in there which I heard paraphrased as that she “isn’t running”, which is a present tense statement. I would rest easier if I saw a direct quote that she is “done running”.
I would guess she’ll run if 1) public perception of her improves over time, and 2) no other strong candidates emerge. Meanwhile she can wait and see how things look 2 years from now.
I highly doubt she will run. The losing candidate hasn’t had claimed the nomination since 1968 and Nixon was a bit of a special case after the Goldwater disaster in 1964. Al Gore could have run and probably received in the nomination in 2004, since Florida was decided by Jeb Bush and a fucked up Supreme Court decision. Hillary Clinton would have been an excellent president, but I think that if she’d won, we’d be seeing speculation if she’ll step aside for Kaine in 2020.
“The losing candidate” is a very small category, consisting of not more than 2-3 people at any time. The likelihood that the nomination will be won by anyone from a 2-3 person category is very small. That compares with over 100 senators and ex-senators, and over 50 governors and ex-governors.
General election losers who have run again are a rare breed. There was Bryan, Dewey, Stevenson, and Nixon. I don’t see Hillary doing it. She had her shot, now it’s someone else’s turn.
Admittedly his situation is a little different and it is going back a ways, but you left out Grover Cleveland. Like I said, a little different, but also a little similar.
Heh. Funny you should mention that. Nate Silver just wrote a lengthy thought experimenton how it would be if Clinton had narrowly won.
We would still have a Republican Congress, so I don’t see any way she could possibly have been an “excellent” President. She would have been unable to get any sort of legislative agenda enacted, and would constantly be dodging an ever-expanding roster of Congressional “investigations”. The only really interesting question is whether McConnell would have dared to leave the Supreme Court seat open for another full four years.
Of course, most of that would be true of any Democratic President. A President who weren’t already so widely disliked and distrusted, though, would make it easier for the Republicans to overreach and make the President a sympathetic figure, leading to punishment at the midterms, as happened with Bill Clinton. Indeed, Silver speculates that a major problem for the GOP leadership would be that their base would be demanding an (obviously doomed) impeachment proceeding, which would be highly unpopular with the general public.
I can’t imagine any practical way Clinton’s poor approval ratings would improve much; She wouldn’t be able to produce any positive accomplishments, and “She stopped things from getting much worse”, though it may actually represent a significant accomplishment, isn’t much of a rallying cry.
Other speculations of Silver’s that I find interesting: Trump would never formally concede the election and continue to control his army of zombies through Twitter. The GOP leadership, aware that said zombies constitute most of their base, will politely ignore him and allow the cancer to grow.
In the absence of Trumpophobia to rally the Left, the Conservatives win a majority in the British elections.
If enough people can convince her that the only reason she lost was the double-whammy of Comey’s last minute e-mail investigation & Russian meddling, then yeah, it’s not illogical to try again. She seems already convinced of this afaict.
I don’t think those are the only 2 reasons she lost, by a long shot. But a lot of democrats do.
She is probably just keeping her options open, however. Who knows if any centrist democrat even wants to challenge an incumbent prez, & a lot can happen before Iowa. At least she’ll have her PAC ready if she needs to run. If a candidate like Booker or Cuomo runs, then she’ll probably just back them.
If she does want to run again (I mean beyond wishful thinking), someone should sit her down and tell her, “I get that you feel like you should have been President and that you could be again. But you’re damaging the cause by running, in Congress as well, and there’s the very real chance that you would lose again where others are a lot less likely to lose. Throw your support behind Joe or whoever else is the leader, but for the love of Og don’t run again!”
(Maybe God would work better than Og, not sure how devout she is.)
