Is Hillary Getting Ready to Run Again ?

(CNN)All it 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 "love-Hillary Clinton-or-detest-her" meter to offset swinging wildly in one case again.

Suddenly, the Boston Herald declared the idea of Hillary Clinton running for president in 2024 "a nightmare scenario." But at The Hill, author 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 some other presidential campaign offends some and inspires others, everyone in the political world has a reason to be excited past the prospect. Among her supporters, at that place must be millions who take recovered from the heartbreak of 2016 and are set to back her once again. Among those who oppose her, the hazard to resume battle confronting the woman they love to hate must surely ship hearts racing.

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

Except for the fact that she's not Biden, I would disagree where the idea of "alter" is concerned; both Clinton and Biden are middle-of-the-road Democrats of the same generation. Merely whether Schoen is right or incorrect well-nigh Clinton'south prospects, the almost telling thing about 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 time to come Clinton entrada, some using the buzz to make a pitch for other would-be candidates -- conservative media is already cashing in.

From the New York Post to Fox News to Sky News Australia, the Clinton talk revved engines beyond Rupert Murdoch'south media empire. Big names at Fox are dragging Hillary on the air, and at the Postal service a columnist mused over her "inevitable loss." Co-ordinate to a Heaven 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 return to public life. For decades, certain media outlets and personalities have used Clinton as a bogeyman to excite viewers and readers -- and this time is no different.

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

As I discovered researching my 2020 book "The Hunting of Hillary," Clinton became a target for gratuitous media criticism and conspiracy theory attacks as soon as she entered public life in Arkansas. In Little Rock in the late 1970s, she wasn't just the land'south first lady; she was a symbol of the irresolute condition of women in America and a repository for all the anxieties, anger and defoliation felt past those who didn't welcome the change.

Young Hillary's want to piece of work, use her ain proper noun -- Rodham -- and delay childbearing irritated many. All these issues were raised in a 1979 Television set interview: "Does it business you," asked the host, "that mayhap other people feel that you don't fit the epitome that we have created for the governor's wife 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 husband were not just ambitious but unsafe. The film even falsely implicated both Hillary and Bill in various murders.

At the 1992 GOP convention, presidential candidate Pat Buchanan used his nationally broadcast opening-night speech to declare a "culture war" and place Hillary in his crosshairs. Afterward twisting her record as an attorney, he defendant her of "radical feminism" and alleged her one of God'south opponents "in the struggle for the soul of America."

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

Nonetheless if she is ambitious, this would make her similar other politicians -- Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, the first president Bush-league -- who lost either principal or full general elections and came back to win the White House. They won because voters accounted them most qualified. Given her feel as Get-go Lady, a United States senator, and Secretary of Country, Hillary is one of the most qualified potential presidents in the land.

Add to her qualifications the resilience she has shown under pressure level: then many books have taken aim at her that it'southward hard to go along track. 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 title, "The Case Against Hillary Clinton." Many more attack books followed. Four were published in 2016 solitary.

Despite the onslaught, which continued when Republicans feared she might actually win the presidency, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 past roughly 2.ix 1000000. Nonetheless Donald Trump reached the White House thanks to the curious establishment known equally the Electoral College.

In the aftermath 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 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

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