OPINION:
After her campaign had spent so much time, effort and money to gin up the Russian collusion hoax smear against former President Donald Trump, before he was elected in 2016 and after, Hillary Clinton surprised almost everyone when she inexplicably opted against a presidential election rematch against Mr. Trump in 2020.
The decision was all the more surprising, given that Mrs. Clinton had not exactly concealed her all-consuming lust to become the country’s first female president since bursting onto the national political scene in the early 1990s.
That was underscored in an online video Mrs. Clinton made for the MasterClass subscription service’s “White House” series, released Dec. 8. In it, she incorporated the acceptance speech she said she would have delivered on the night of Nov. 8, 2016, had she won the presidential election.
In a mawkish, shamelessly self-indulgent portion of those remarks, Mrs. Clinton imagined comforting her now-deceased mother, who as a frightened 8-year-old had been sent by train to live with her grandparents.
“I dream of going up to her and sitting down next to her, taking her in my arms, and saying, ‘Look at me. Listen to me. You will survive. You will have a good family of your own and three children,’” Mrs. Clinton said. ‘“And as hard as it might be to imagine, your daughter will grow up and become the president of the United States.’”
Fortunately, Mr. Trump kept Mrs. Clinton’s fever dream from becoming America’s nightmare.
Fast-forward to March 2019, when she announced her decision to forgo the rematch. “I’m not running,” she declared in Sherman-esque fashion in an interview with a New York City TV station.
“(Crooked) Hillary Clinton confirms she will not run in 2020, rules out a third bid for White House,” Mr. Trump taunted her in a tweet the next day. “Aw-shucks, does that mean I won’t get to run against her again? She will be sorely missed!”
But, as is the case with almost anything Mrs. Clinton says, her 2020 opt-out came with an asterisk: “I want to be sure that people understand I’m going to keep speaking out. I’m not going anywhere.”
Making good on that promise/threat Feb. 17, Mrs. Clinton addressed the New York State Democratic Convention in a 38-minute keynote speech in which she attacked Mr. Trump and the Republican Party with all the usual far-left talking points and non sequiturs, in so doing giving demagoguery a bad name.
“[Republicans] will do nothing to invest in our schools or make college more affordable. They’ll ban books, but do nothing about guns,” she said, feeding a slab of political red (or should we say blue?) meat to the left-wing Democratic activists in attendance. “They’ll make it harder for people to vote, but easier for big corporations to bust unions. They’ll let polluters trash our environment and let Donald Trump trash our democracy.”
The Thursday speech was widely viewed as an early trial balloon for a Nixon-esque political comeback bid in 2024, predicated on the premise that her fellow Democrat, President Biden — who would be 15 days shy of his 82nd birthday on Election Day 2024 — won’t run for reelection.
The former first lady, senator and secretary of state, now 74, will have turned a comparatively youthful 77 just 10 days before that election.
Mrs. Clinton — who was greeted with a chorus of boos and chants of “Lock her up!” when she left the convention hotel for a waiting SUV after her speech — has promised to work to elect Democrats in the November midterms.
But given what a polarizing, deeply divisive figure Mrs. Clinton is, it remains to be seen how many Democratic office-seekers will actually welcome her to campaign for them this summer and fall, especially with her party deservedly staring down the barrel of an electoral bloodbath already.
We’ll frankly be surprised if she’s invited anywhere other than — to mix a chromatic metaphor — the bluest of yellow-dog Democrat districts.
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