OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Is Hillary Clinton legitimately thinking about another presidential run?
Yes, according to and
“A perfect storm in the Democratic Party is making a once-unfathomable scenario plausible: a political comeback for Hillary Clinton in 2024,” they begin.
“Several circumstances—President Biden’s low approval rating, doubts over his capacity to run for re-election at 82, Vice President Kamala Harris’s unpopularity, and the absence of another strong Democrat to lead the ticket in 2024—have created a leadership vacuum in the party, which Mrs. Clinton viably could fill,” they add.
Schoen, a founder and partner in Schoen Cooperman Research, a polling and consulting firm whose past clients include Bill Clinton and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Stein, a former New York politician and founder of Democrats for Trump, both believe that Clinton is angling for the nomination already.
In addition, she is younger than Biden, experienced on the national stage, and can present a candidacy that is different “from the disorganized and unpopular one the party is currently taking” — which includes mass spending, a vast expansion of government entitlements, no border control, and overseeing historically high inflation.
What’s more, they argue that should Democrats go on to lose Congress later this year during the midterms — which looks increasingly likely — Clinton could use those losses as a springboard for a third presidential bid portraying herself as a “change candidate.”
They write:
Based on her latest public statements, it’s clear that Mrs. Clinton not only recognizes her position as a potential front-runner but also is setting up a process to help her decide whether or not to run for president again. She recently warned of the electoral consequences in the 2022 midterms if the Democratic Party continues to align itself with its progressive wing and urged Democrats to reject far-left positions that isolate key segments of the electorate.
They point out that recently, Clinton called on Democrats during an MSNBC interview to engage in “careful thinking about what wins elections, and not just in deep-blue districts where a Democrat and a liberal Democrat, or so-called progressive Democrat, is going to win.” She added that the party’s current slim House majority “comes from people who win in much more difficult districts.”
In addition, Clinton took a veiled shot at the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress recently as well to put distance between them and her: “It means nothing if we don’t have a Congress that will get things done, and we don’t have a White House that we can count on to be sane and sober and stable and productive.”
Former President Bill Clinton has also begun stumping for his wife:
Even Bill Clinton recently set the stage for his wife’s potential 2024 candidacy, referring to her in an interview with People magazine as “the most qualified person to run for office in my lifetime, including me,” adding that not electing her in 2016 was “one of the most profound mistakes we ever made.”
Clinton has also entertained the possibility of a rematch with former President Donald Trump, whom she suggested in her MSNBC interview that he ought not to be allowed to run, likely a reference to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“Hillary Clinton remains ambitious, outspoken, and convinced that if not for Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey’s intervention and Russian interference that she would have won the 2016 election—and she may be right,” Schoen and Stein conclude in their op-ed.
“If Democrats want a fighting chance at winning the presidency in 2024, Mrs. Clinton is likely their best option.”
