Why Wont Hillary Clinton Run Again in 2020

(CNN)All it took was a scrap of speculation from a guy who isn't especially shut to the most famous people in Chappaqua, New York, for the arrow on the "love-Hillary Clinton-or-hate-her" meter to get-go swinging wildly once again.

Suddenly, the Boston Herald declared the thought of Hillary Clinton running for president in 2024 "a nightmare scenario." But at The Hill, writer 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 another presidential campaign offends some and inspires others, everyone in the political globe has a reason to exist excited past the prospect. Amongst her supporters, there must be millions who have recovered from the heartbreak of 2016 and are ready to back her once more. Among those who oppose her, the adventure to resume boxing against the woman they dearest to hate must surely send hearts racing.

To be articulate, Hillary Clinton hasn't indicated she's running for anything -- and a political improvement by the former secretary of land seems unlikely. This recent speculation began with Doug Schoen, the polling and consulting firm founder who worked for sometime President Bill Clinton. Schoen, forth with co-author Andrew Stein, wrote a Wall Street Journal stance piece outlining the Democrats' current struggles -- an unpopular president and VP; party infighting; and looming midterm challenges -- while making the case for Hillary every bit a "change candidate" who, at 74, is still younger than President Joe Biden.

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

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

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

Only study these reactions closely and you might detect the Murdoch stars and others salivating over the prospect of Hillary Clinton's return to public life. For decades, sure media outlets and personalities accept used Clinton as a bogeyman to excite viewers and readers -- and this time is no dissimilar.

In 1994, it was radio host Rush Limbaugh repeating false claims that White House lawyer Vince Foster, who died by suicide in a park, "was murdered in an apartment endemic by Hillary Clinton." In 2016, it was author Dinesh D'Souza's suggesting she "orchestrated" her married man's infidelities. (With Foster'due south death, there have been repeated investigations that ruled it as a suicide. And every bit for any infidelities, friends take said that Clinton didn't condone them.)

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

Young Hillary'south desire to work, use her own name -- Rodham -- and delay childbearing irritated many. All these issues were raised in a 1979 TV interview: "Does it concern you," asked the host, "that maybe other people experience that you don't fit the image that we accept created for the governor's wife in Arkansas?"

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

By 1994, televangelist Jerry Falwell was using his broadcasts to sell a video chosen "The Clinton Chronicles" in which Hillary and her husband were not just ambitious only dangerous. The film even falsely implicated both Hillary and Beak in various murders.

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

Ambition has always been one 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."

However 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 dorsum to win the White House. They won because voters deemed them most qualified. Given her experience equally First Lady, a United States senator, and Secretary of State, Hillary is one of the well-nigh qualified potential presidents in the state.

Add together to her qualifications the resilience she has shown under pressure level: so many books have taken aim at her that information technology'south hard to keep track. A burst of titles emerged in 1999, with i book alleging that "in scandal after scandal all roads lead to Hillary." Another had the on-the-nose title, "The Example Against Hillary Clinton." Many more assail books followed. 4 were published in 2016 solitary.

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 million. Yet Donald Trump reached the White House thanks to the curious institution known equally the Electoral College.

In the aftermath of her loss, Clinton recovered at her home in Chappaqua and only 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 -- similar others before her, including President Biden -- only 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

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