I can see why you might think that there is some benefit from distancing herself from Obama, but she can’t win an election without Obama’s voters and his (fraud) machine. I have thought for some time that the Dem’s know that the Country is going to unravel in the next 3 years and that they don’t really want to be the Party in office when that happens. So what do you do? You allow Hillary to run (it’s her time, right ) and then you undermine her campaign enough so she loses. When the feces hits the upright occillator, they will be the Party blaming all the problems on the Repubs.
But putting on my Marxist thinking cap, I'm thinking maybe Hillary is going to look like the new McGovern. If the Democrat thinkers decide the election is to be a complete tank job, they may use a throw-away candidate team, you know something totally off the wall (Joey Plugs, etc.)
Your scenario: When the feces hits the upright occillator, they will be the Party blaming all the problems on the Repubs.
Would still hold true.
What really frightens me the most? The Republican Congress, the 31 Republican Governors and legislatures, etc. will perform so damned badly over the next two years that the Democrats could win with O'Malley and my old Aunt Sally* on the 2016 ticket.
* lovely old woman, but like Boehner, she drinks too much, and in the kitchen she is like McConnell, and has forgotten how to make anything come out right.