Posted on 10/24/2019 12:35:43 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Normally you could dismiss a tease like this one on grounds that the would-be candidate who’s teasing it is just trying to stay relevant. There’s no publicity like “might run for president” publicity, right? Clinton doesn’t need to head-fake about jumping in to get the media to cover her, though. Every time she dings Trump on Twitter or elsewhere it’s amplified endlessly by the press. Tulsi Gabbard is now running as the anti-Hillary in the field thanks to one 20-second comment Clinton made about her recently in an interview. Any “she might run” publicity has a short shelf life, too: We’re only about three months removed from the Iowa caucuses. No one will believe that Hillary might still be getting in the race if she hasn’t entered by, say, Thanksgiving. The idea that she’s doing this for PR just doesn’t add up.
I think she’s looking for excuses to get in but just hasn’t gotten the clarity she needs from the polls to justify doing so. This new one from Quinnipiac is the most enticing for her to come along in awhile considering it’s the worst number Biden has pulled in a national survey since August:
Note the numbers among women especially. Warren, the lone woman left among the plausible nominees, hasn’t even won a third of Democratic women voters (yet). Biden is down to 20 percent among them. There’s a lot of room potentially there for Hillary. And of course Clinton has always done well with black voters, her firewall against Bernie Sanders in 2016. Would it be unrealistic to expect her to immediately attract, say, a third of all Democratic women and a third of all black Democrats instantly if she were to jump in?
Because if that did happen, she’d be right in the thick of the race on day one.
There are problems, though. For starters, this Quinnipiac survey is unusual in showing Biden fading behind Warren, theoretically creating demand for a new centrist-y candidate to get in. Yesterday CNN published a poll showing him leading the field with 34 percent, fully 15 percent ahead of Warren. Two other polls recently had him at 30 percent or better while others have had him steady at 27 percent, still a respectable number in a field this big. That is, the evidence that Biden is beginning to stagger as Warren supposedly rises inexorably just isn’t there — yet. And given the sort of time window Clinton is looking at to get in, if it doesn’t arrive very soon it’ll be too late.
The other problem is that it’s possible Hillary would have her best day of polling on the day she announced and would begin to sink shortly afterward. All of her vulnerabilities would be publicized by the other candidates. Some Biden fans would resent her for trying to snatch away his chance at the nomination. Progressives would recoil at her attempt to derail the party’s journey towards socialism. Even her fans would be given pause by the inconvenient fact that she already lost once before to the guy they’re spoiling to beat next year.
But there’s this scenario too: She gets in and Biden starts to fade as neoliberals conclude, reluctantly, that he’s “lost a step” and therefore Clinton’s the only game in town. The progressive vote remains split between Bernie and Warren, enabling a surprise Clinton win in Iowa. Or, even if it consolidates behind one of them, enough moderate Democrats end up being spooked by the idea that Sanders and Warren are too radical to beat Trump that they grudgingly swing around to Hillary as the least bad (but still bad) option. There are ways to rationalize the belief that she’d do better against Trump than she did in 2016, too. Her advisor gives you one in the clip below: Trump’s not running as a populist outsider anymore but as an incumbent with a record he’ll need to defend. He’s all but certain to have “impeached” on his resume by the time Election Day arrives. Meanwhile, Hillary’s own chief scandal from 2016, Emailgate, is old news by now. And plenty of Hillary fans will tell you that she only lost to Trump because of Russian meddling. With America less likely to get caught sleeping on the threat of foreign interference next year, that’s less of a worry in 2020. Add all of that up and toss in the fact that Hillary 2020 would surely spend lots more time in the Rust Belt than Hillary 2016 did and is it *possible* that she could win?
Sure, it’s possible. You’ll never convince me that she’d have the best chance of winning among the Democratic field; a rando like Amy Klobuchar or even Joe Biden in doddering form would be a much safer gamble. But yeah, conceivably she could win. She won the popular vote once before, after all.
She’s not running, though. I think the “Hillary might run again” rumors are nothing more or less than the Clintons clinging to the *theoretical* possibility that their time hasn’t quite passed yet. It’s hard to begrudge a retired player the fantasy that there’s still a chance for them to suit up, take the field, and finally win the Super Bowl. Same here.
That crazy broad would only run so she could swindle more folks out of their money, so she can pad her own bank accounts. The bat guano crazy idiot needs to be institutionalized....preferably at GITMO
“theoretically creating demand for a new centrist-y candidate”
A centrist? Clinton? Hardly
Didn’t Donna Brazille (a high democrat) write a book saying she was in such bad medical shape during the campaign, they were afraid she was going to have an attack on national TV? Where is the !@#$ history and why isn’t it on the MSM at every Hillary mention...oh that’s right, if it is a dem president it is the deep state that runs the country so it doesn’t really matter who wins and the dem CINC gets to live like a billionaire for a few years. Unlike current CINC who is slumming it for a few years.
DK
She wants in, but I’m wavering back and forth between Biden or the Indian as the eventual nominee. I think if Biden crawls along in his current disoriented fashion he could still be the nominee.
Let me do it for you Hillary. You’re done but by all means come on in the waters warm. Biden just pissed himself again. It’s she really this dumb there are lots of Democrats that can’t stand her and the press isn’t going to be in lockstep the will be factions.
The voices of Angels reassure her of her destiny to rule each night.
lol!
I share your thoughts on that.
If Hillary were the nominee I could legitimately see the hard leftist staying home. Trump would get a lot of the, I’m don’t want her to win, vote.... do it
Her narrative will be that since none of the declared candidates were able to get enough delegates for the nomination, the party needs to pick someone who has proven they can compete against Trump- someone who has won a nomination in the past-and someone who got more votes than Trump. She'll claim to have learned from her experience.
We all know she's nuts, but she thinks she can find a pathway to the nomination without having to run in the primaries. So, in the meantime, she's raised her profile again, and is going to be a shadow candidate throughout the primaries.
Hillary learned her lesson that the more voters see her, the more they dislike her.
Ergo, stealth.
If she was in the general, she probably will barely campaign directly. It will all be surrogates with brief, tightly scripted, appearances.
Someone on the radio today commented that the only way she would run is if she honestly believed she would win.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Haven’t you heard? She thinks she won last time.
She’s laying the ground work for a brokered convention.
Probably so. Undermining the current crop of Democrat losers so they can’t get a critical mass of delegates.
The last thing that hag “jumped into” was the sack with Webb Hubbell.
On the other hand, Donald Trump is known for his quick decisions.
I guess last time wasn’t embarrassing enough for her?
BTW, I loathe ALL of her ‘people’.
She has no money, no organization, no ground game in early primary states. All the best political operatives are working for other candidates. She wouldn’t have a chance and she knows it.
Hillary and her minions are trying their best to get someone to care ,LOL
Really, as if the dem party needs to be more fractured from within at this point. I’m ALL for it and I’m one of those who never thought she would be dumb enough to try it again.
Jump in wearing a prison jumpsuit
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.