Hillary Clinton: the last person Democrats should turn to in the 2020 presidential race
Hillary Clinton for president in 2020? Surely not? Perhaps Clinton’s former long-time adviser Mark Penn was just being hopeful when he claimed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that “Hillary will run again’’
“This new version of Mrs Clinton, when she runs for president in 2020, will come full circle— back to the universal-health-care-promoting progressive firebrand of 1994,” said the article, co-authored by Penn. “True to her name, Mrs Clinton will fight this out until the last dog dies. She won’t let a little thing like two stunning defeats stand in the way of her claim to the White House.”
Understandably, the Trump White House was thrilled by the concept of the unpopular former Secretary of State making her third tilt for the presidency.
“Dear God, please, yes,’’ tweeted Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway at the prospect of another Trump v Clinton election.
Dear God, please, yes. https://t.co/bmfWokusJj
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) November 12, 2018
Who knows what Clinton is really thinking — she said last month she would like to be president while also claiming she did not want to run again.
But many Democrats will — and should be — alarmed by the thought that Clinton may re-enter the political fray after it was assumed she would retire permanently from politics following her 2016 defeat.
For many reasons, Clinton is the last person the Democrats need if they are to topple Trump in 2020.
For a start the party is crying out for a fresh face and ideally a much needed injection of youth amid a party of ageing veterans.
What the Democrats need now is a shining young star, someone who can unite their Bernie Sanders-style progressives with their more pragmatic policy centralists.
That person will not be Hillary Clinton.
The article claims she would reinvent herself as the “progressive firebrand’’ of her youth.
For Clinton to change her political stripes so blatantly after campaigning as a centralist and even a foreign policy hawk in 2016 would reek of fakery.
But the bottom line is that most Americans have had enough of the Clintons, just as they have of the Bushes.
Hillary Clinton has had her chances — in 2008 when Barack Obama defeated her for the Democrat nomination and again in 2016 when Trump defeated her in the presidential election.
Her problem is that she remains an unpopular and polarising figure.
A Gallup poll in September found only 36 per cent of Americans have a favourable view of her — seven points lower than her popularity on the eve of the 2016 election which she lost.
In Trump’s midwest heartland, Clinton’s unpopularity was such that many voters chose to cast their vote for Trump simply to ensure that Clinton was not elected.
Although Clinton won the popular vote in 2016, she lost the election in part because she was tone deaf to the old working class Democrats who her party once represented. Clinton paid too much attention to the big city voters with their liberal agenda rather than craft a policy which was also relevant to poorer rural and regional Americans. This was a dream for Trump and allowed him to steal much of working class America from the Democrats under Clinton’s nose.
Clinton’s job in 2020 would arguably be tougher given that history shows how hard is it to dislodge a sitting president. Her ability to win the next election given the baggage she would take into the race would surely give Democrats pause for thought.
If Clinton is elected as the Democrat nominee in 2020, it would say much about the paucity of choice facing the party.
Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia
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