Clinton: 'I'm ready to come out of the woods'

[Mr. Morden]

She's going to run in 2020, mark my words.

Yeah, I don't think so.  I mean, anything's possible, but Clinton is way down my list of people who are likely to run for the nomination.  At this very early stage though, I think only Booker and O'Malley are >50% likely to run.  Then there are probably ~20 people somewhere in the 20-50% likely to run range, and Clinton's below that.  I wouldn't include her in my top 25 list of likeliest candidates.

[Mr. Morden]

I don't hate Clinton. She's great. She was very wronged, very wronged. Society's persecution of her proves the worst.

No, the American people and the world were wronger by her incompetence, giving the presidency to Trump. Making her a martyr saint shows people still don't understand what happened and why.

Oh, we understand what happened. This country is so misogynistic it would rather elect Donald Trump than a conventional politician who happens to be a progressive woman.

Out of curiosity Beet, are you therefore hoping that the Dems nominate a man in 2020, because he'd have a better chance of beating Trump, or are you neutral (or even rooting for a woman) despite the odds?

[Mr. Morden]

Al Gore was no victim too. He won the PV and lost the winnable race because of his own mistakes. At least he had decency to move on.

After two years of speculation about him running again, yes. 

Clinton is most likely "moving on" in the Al Gore sense as well.

[Mr. Morden]

The overall message of this book in spite of the likely religious disagreements that the Clinton's may have with the bolded part, have led me to believe that they both see higher office as being the mechanism in which they can "become immortal" in the way the book suggests by leaving a lasting legacy. I think this explains a lot of Bill and Hillary's motivations in regards to politics and how they view the world. And why I also think she's been planning for a run for President ever since the 90's and why she just might not be done yet in her endeavor.

How is this different from any of the others though?  Don’t all of them want to become president to immortalize themselves and “leave a lasting legacy”?  That’s why everyone runs for president.  That doesn’t mean that they’re going to keep running for president forever.  E.g., I have no reason to believe that, say, Al Gore or John Kerry wanted to be president any less than Hillary Clinton does, yet once they lost in the general election, they opted not to run again.

[Mr. Morden]

She could very well see herself as Ronald Reagan in that the third time's the charm.

But Reagan's first two times involved him not winning the nomination.  If you fail to win the nomination, then you can keep trying again.  But if you win the nomination and blow it in the general election, that's seen as a bigger failure.  Because the party gave you your chance and you blew it.

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What makes you think that though?  Gore, Kerry, Romney, etc.  All of them seemed pretty desperate to be president to me.  I'm not sure what sets Hillary Clinton apart, that makes you think she wants the presidency more than they do.

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She is already below 20% in the primary polls we've had so far:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=258636.0
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=261065.0

I don't think it's obvious that she'd get more than 25% in the primaries, nor is that necessarily enough to win.  Nor is it clear that she'd be favored in the general election, were she to win the nomination.  Al Gore looked to be in better shape for winning re-nomination as of 2002, yet he opted not to try again, so not sure why we should assume that Clinton will want to try again.