Your hypothesis is flimsy.
I suspect that Hillary will try to get in somehow.. it would depend on the amount of blowback she gets when she starts making noises.
Her chitchat tour is designed to measure that blowback. March and April of next year are critical times for the whole crowd on the democRATS side and she can bomb throw from her scripted pulpit to her brainwashed following. She can screech “See look at how crazy they are...” without having to get into the ring with them
I am going to invoke the Torricelli case as precedent for the possibility of Hillary being recruited to run for President. Torricelli dropped out a month before the 2002 NJ Senate election due to pending criminal and ethics violations. The Jersey Supreme Court allowed the switch, despite the law being broken.
Frank Lautenberg stepped in with 5 weeks till the election. He debated Forrester once in a 30 minute debate on local TV. Forrester went from 13 points up on Torricelli to 10 points down to Lautenberg. Forrester had to change up his entire campaign strategy 4 weeks before the election.
Yes, I agree this sounds ridiculous. However, if I am Clinton’s campaign manager, I am going to subject her to the least amount of negative political ads, try to prevent her from debating and keep her off the campaign trail as long as possible unless she has to go someplace to get her over the top. (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania.)
There is no way Hillary could run a successful campaign against 10 other candidates. Especially since Bernie supporters are still pissed off about 2016. Plus with the new Democrat super delegate process, she won’t go to the convention 800 votes up before the first ballot is even voted on.