OPINION:
It seems that every single time we’ve been forced to hear from Hillary Clinton over the past few months, she’s informed us that people are encouraging her to run for president again.
In a recent BBC Radio interview, the former secretary of State said about running, “I, as I say, never, never, never say never and I will certainly tell you I’m under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it. But as of this moment, sitting here in this studio talking to you, that is absolutely not in my plans.”
This isn’t the first time and won’t be the last that she says something like this. Since her massive Electoral College loss 2016, she’s blamed everything but herself. The list is so long, that if I typed it out from paragraph three of my piece, I’d exceed my allotted word count, but you have heard it all by now — over and over and over again. The bottom line is, if you ask her, she never lost in 2016. So why keep talking, why not jump in the race?
The answer is simple: Deep down inside her heart (I’m not here to debate whether or not she has one), she knows she absolutely can’t win.
Hillary Clinton has now become the short guy in your group of friends who gets a mouth on him when he’s drunk at a bar. If you don’t know the exact person I’m referencing, take some time and watch the viral video of the short man who angrily lost his mind at a bagel shop.
In this scenario, Mrs. Clinton is the guy who, after three beers, starts to get angry for some reason, talking about all the things that are wrong with the world and how they affect him, even though he lives a perfectly fine life. At some point during the complaining, a larger guy walks by who looks like a power lifter who can unscrew your head with his bare hands. That man is minding his own business when your tiny drunk buddy turns and screams at him “Who do you think you’re looking at?”
We all know where the interaction goes from there — first the power lifter guy tries to ignore it, then your friend gives chase and continues yelling at him, until one of two things happens. Either logic returns to your friend and he walks away with his head held low, or your friend ends up upside-down in a toilet — nothing in between.
That’s Hillary Clinton right now. She keeps saying over and over again that she should run, and that she believes she can win, but she won’t get in the race. She’s in the face of the Democratic candidates and Donald Trump’s face with her rhetoric — and the electorate (Democrats who would vote in the primary at this point) are groaning like the power lifter’s friends and you are at the bar — they know she’s in over her head and have seen this act before.
Sure, she might stand a reasonable chance against Joe Biden and the other Democratic candidates since all of them combined haven’t a single ounce of charisma or a solid policy, but her own team is tired of her. And even if she got past them, the exhaustion Democrats have with her compared to the fervor that Republicans have never lost for President Trump would result in the president blowing out his potential opponent in 2020 — winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College this time around.
The consensus from every Democrat I know and what I’ve read and seen in commentary is that most of the left wanted Hillary to stay in the woods after 2016. If you need empirical evidence, just look at how poorly her speaking tour did. It should’ve been called “The Clintons: Empty Arenas and Deeply Discounted Tickets.”
Now, years after her 2016 loss, where she could have retired with the success of being the first major party female candidate for president, she’s become the ultimate caricature of a loser. She might even be worse at this point than the SNL impression of a desperate Al Gore after losing to George W. Bush in 2000 — she’d be a great character for them to parody now if their writers didn’t show over and over again that they worship her.
So allow me to be unprofessional for a moment and say this: Hillary, Secretary Clinton, Senator Clinton, whatever formality you feel like being called …
Do it. I dare you.
Run for president.
Put up or shut up.
Quit making excuses for losing in 2016 and telling us how everyone still loves you and you could win in 2020. If you truly believe it, enter the race. If not, it’s time to drop it and go away.
• Tim Young is a political comedian and author of “I Hate Democrats/I Hate Republicans” (Post Hill Press).
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