Will Hillary Run Against Trump Again

(CNN)All information technology took was a bit of speculation from a guy who isn't especially close to the most famous people in Chappaqua, New York, for the arrow on the "honey-Hillary Clinton-or-hate-her" meter to commencement swinging wildly once more.

All of a sudden, the Boston Herald declared the idea of Hillary Clinton running for president in 2024 "a nightmare scenario." Merely at The Hill, writer Joe Concha looked at the other Democrats who could run and asked, "If those are the options, why not Hillary?"

While the mere mention of the Clintons in the context of another presidential campaign offends some and inspires others, everyone in the political world has a reason to be excited by the prospect. Among her supporters, there must be millions who have recovered from the heartbreak of 2022 and are ready to back her again. Among those who oppose her, the chance to resume battle against the woman they love to hate must surely send hearts racing.

To exist clear, Hillary Clinton hasn't indicated she's running for annihilation -- and a political comeback by the former secretary of state seems unlikely. This contempo speculation began with Doug Schoen, the polling and consulting house founder who worked for former President Pecker Clinton. Schoen, along with co-author Andrew Stein, wrote a Wall Street Journal stance piece outlining the Democrats' current struggles -- an unpopular president and VP; party infighting; and looming midterm challenges -- while making the example for Hillary every bit a "change candidate" who, at 74, is still younger than President Joe Biden.

Except for the fact that she'due south not Biden, I would disagree where the idea of "change" is concerned; both Clinton and Biden are middle-of-the-road Democrats of the same generation. Only whether Schoen is correct or incorrect most Clinton's prospects, the most telling thing almost a potential Hillary run in '24 can be found in the reaction that followed his commodity.

While the political pros may jostle for work -- some fantasizing well-nigh a futurity Clinton campaign, some using the fizz to make a pitch for other would-be candidates -- conservative media is already cashing in.

From the New York Mail to Fox News to Sky News Australia, the Clinton talk revved engines across Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Large names at Fob are dragging Hillary on the air, and at the Post a columnist mused over her "inevitable loss." Co-ordinate to a Sky News headline, "loser" Hillary Clinton is "obsessed with the presidency."

But study these reactions closely and you might detect the Murdoch stars and others salivating over the prospect of Hillary Clinton's render to public life. For decades, certain media outlets and personalities take used Clinton as a bogeyman to excite viewers and readers -- and this time is no different.

In 1994, information technology was radio host Blitz Limbaugh repeating false claims that White Firm lawyer Vince Foster, who died past suicide in a park, "was murdered in an flat owned by Hillary Clinton." In 2016, it was writer Dinesh D'Souza's suggesting she "orchestrated" her husband's infidelities. (With Foster'due south death, there have been repeated investigations that ruled it equally a suicide. And equally for any infidelities, friends take said that Clinton didn't disregard them.)

As I discovered researching my 2022 book "The Hunting of Hillary," Clinton became a target for gratuitous media criticism and conspiracy theory attacks as presently as she entered public life in Arkansas. In Picayune Rock in the late 1970s, she wasn't simply the state's first lady; she was a symbol of the changing status of women in America and a repository for all the anxieties, anger and confusion felt by those who didn't welcome the alter.

Immature Hillary'south want to piece of work, utilise her own name -- Rodham -- and delay childbearing irritated many. All these issues were raised in a 1979 Tv set interview: "Does it business organisation yous," asked the host, "that mayhap other people experience that yous don't fit the prototype that we take created for the governor's married woman in Arkansas?"

In the years that followed, as Clinton resisted the gendered limits placed on her, the questions and critiques morphed into conspiracy theories.

By 1994, televangelist Jerry Falwell was using his broadcasts to sell a video called "The Clinton Chronicles" in which Hillary and her married man were not just ambitious simply dangerous. The motion-picture show even falsely implicated both Hillary and Bill in diverse murders.

At the 1992 GOP convention, presidential candidate Pat Buchanan used his nationally broadcast opening-night spoken communication to declare a "culture war" and identify Hillary in his crosshairs. After twisting her tape as an chaser, he accused her of "radical feminism" and declared her ane of God's opponents "in the struggle for the soul of America."

Appetite has always been ane of Hillary Clinton's supposed sins, which may be why Sky News Australia would run a headline today claiming Hillary is "obsessed with the presidency."

Yet if she is ambitious, this would make her like other politicians -- Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, the first president Bush-league -- who lost either primary or full general elections and came back to win the White House. They won because voters deemed them well-nigh qualified. Given her experience as First Lady, a United States senator, and Secretary of State, Hillary is i of the almost qualified potential presidents in the land.

Add together to her qualifications the resilience she has shown under pressure level: so many books have taken aim at her that information technology'south difficult to keep runway. A burst of titles emerged in 1999, with i volume alleging that "in scandal after scandal all roads lead to Hillary." Another had the on-the-nose championship, "The Example Against Hillary Clinton." Many more than set on books followed. 4 were published in 2022 alone.

Despite the onslaught, which continued when Republicans feared she might actually win the presidency, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2022 past roughly 2.9 million. Nonetheless Donald Trump reached the White Business firm thanks to the curious establishment known every bit the Electoral College.

In the backwash of her loss, Clinton recovered at her home in Chappaqua and only recently began returning to public life. It is this resilience that energizes her critics and her supporters at the mere mention of a comeback.

Never the monster they tried to make her, Hillary Clinton is instead a leader who -- like others before her, including President Biden -- only becomes more than compelling and powerful with experiences that would have defeated others.

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Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/18/opinions/hillary-clinton-2024-reaction-dantonio/index.html