Friend, it's been twenty years since Hillary first landed on the national stage (as the First Lady). Twenty long years, with her name in the press nearly every day.
People tire of public figures who remain too long at the forefront of our national politics. People in Congress can get away with it, because the public pays little attention to them individually.
Hillary had a real (but final) chance to reach the Oval Office in 2008. She wound up having to settle for SoS, instead. It will be her last publicly held office. She's simply far too old and haggard to run again and be competitive - even now. In another four years, she'll be even more-so. She'll be nearly as old as Reagan was in 1980.
Reagan's natural charm, charisma, and dynamism trumped his advanced age, and he beat the hapless liberal, Jimmy Carter, in a landslide. Hillary, on the other hand, has negative charisma, so her advanced age would be a huge factor to shallow Democrats, who will be looking to elect another rock star candidate in 2016.
She'd also have the daunting task of providing voters with a clear alternative to the preceding four years, which are going to be a disaster on an unprecedented scale. Tell me, what's so different about Hillary's and Obama's basic ideology? You see? There is none. There isn't any way that any Democrat will be able to position themselves further away from Obama's politics, as a Republican candidate can - hence, the Republican candidate is the likely bet for the win.
That's provided the GOP (or what remains of it) runs a grass roots, bare knuckled, patriotic conservative.
“That’s provided the GOP (or what remains of it) runs a grass roots, bare knuckled, patriotic conservative.”
That’s a huge, huge assumption. Given the past 20 or so years of history, what makes you think they will? What part of the character of the gop leadership would actually go along with it?
The gop is a dead party walking, the 21st century equivalent of the Whigs.