OPINION:
Hillary Clinton is supposedly running for president again in 2020. That’s according to Mark Penn, a former pollster and adviser to Bill Clinton, and Andrew Stein, a leading Democrat figure from New York, both of whom penned a piece for the Wall Street Journal titled, simply, “Hillary Will Run Again.”
And all the Republicans go: Yes!
“Dear God, please, yes,” tweeted the White House’s Kellyanne Conway, about the possibility.
It could really happen.
“Get ready for Hillary Clinton 4.0,” Penn and Stein wrote. “More than 30 years in the making, 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. … She won’t let a little thing like two stunning defeats stand in the way of the her claim to the White House.”
The fact that she’s already being billed more as a brand with a rightful “claim” to the presidency than a person with modest hopes to best serve the country doesn’t exactly bear well for her rebrand. Clinton’s always had a bit of a problem with A) principles and B) likability, and setting the stage for her comeback by billing her as another version — the fourth? Really? — of herself doesn’t exactly scream, “True Blue.” But hey, all campaigns have their kinks, right?
Here’s another.
“True to her name,” Penn and Stein wrote, “Mrs. Clinton will fight this out until the last dog dies.”
Holy cow. Is this really the platform Clinton brings to the table — Vote Clinton, Or I’ll Kill Ya?
So much for that whole humble public servant thing.
Penn and Stein point to Clinton’s 75 percent approval rating among Democrats, as well as her “unfinished mission to be the first female president” and “a personal grievance against [President Donald] Trump, whose supporters pilloried her with chants of ’Lock her up!’” as cause enough to prod her to run.
That, and Nixon.
“Richard Nixon came back from his loss to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and won the presidency in 1968,” Penn and Stein wrote. “He will be the model for [Clinton] winning again.”
So Hillary’s winning formula will be a Republican?
That sounds about right. Voters sure didn’t want her when she was a Democrat. Zing. See that?
“Hillary 4.0” in 2020 is already shaping to be a delight.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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